Awake during facelift and I felt everything; is this acceptable?

I am so sorry you had to experience such a traumatic experience. Let me first say that it is perfectly acceptable to perform a full lower facelift and necklift under local anesthesia with conscious sedation. It makes the process generally safer and cost effective. That said, there certainly is an "art" to doing it in this manner. Placing the anesthetic initially requires a few pinches to get started. The rest of anesthesia placement is technique. Some surgeon's are gifted at it, others not so much. Certainly it is not ideal to have you totally uncomfortable for this initial part, let alone the entire procedure. Versed and that class of medications can sometimes have different effects on different patients. Obviously you did not have amnesia. I would seek your PCP for some advice and perhaps some temporary sleeping medication to help you through the night. 

I am very sorry to hear about your experience. Its often a good idea to review all the medication you received during the procedure and if an anesthesiologist was involved. For my surgery, any surgery over 1 hour of if I am concerned, I have an anesthesiologist involved to ensure patients have no pain or negative experience with the surgery.James P Bonaparte 

This really should not of happened to you. Facelifts can be done with sedation and local but most patients fare better with the general anesthetic. If you were complaining of discomfort during the procedure the medication should have been increased.

First of all, I am very sorry that you had a bad experience.  The reason I perform 100% of my facelifts under sedation is to avoid the scenario that you had to endure.  In my opinion, a several hour OR experience is beyond the capacity of most people.  The analogy I use is the "lounge chair by the pool".  How long is this comfortable for you? For most patients, one hour is plenty and most well performed facelifts far exceed one hour. Secondly, if you had this experience and you actually paid for anesthesia, you may want to discuss this again with your Surgeon.  Versed alone, which is very short acting, is an insufficient way to sedate most anxious patients. 

I'm sorry that this happened to you.  Usually if you feel pain, more local anesthetic is given.  I'm not making excuses for this doctor, but there are certain circumstances where patients might end up feeling more discomfort than they should.  If you were bleeding heavily, the effective local anesthesia time decreases.  If they were at the dosage limit for lidocaine, they might have not wanted to give much more.  If the actual surgical time took longer than expected, this would impact the local anesthesia.  Unfortunately, you would probably feel the initial local anesthetic injections, but would be lessened by versed.  I'm sorry that this happened to you and I dont know who did the surgery, but you might want to sit down with your doctor and discuss your feelings.