Still Have Crepey Skin After Neck Lift

The skin may improve with time, but sometimes, liposuction is done on the neck along with a neck lift and the liposuction can create verticallly oriented lines. Lifting procedures help produce a more youthful contour but resurfacing helps improve the skin texture especially from chronic sundamage. That's why it is so helpful in my practice that we have both plastic surgeons and a full menu of lasers for the dermatologic surgeon. The patient can get the "whole picture" addressed.

Fractional laser is an amazing and highly effective treatment in our office. We use the laser treatment to help with acne scars, large pores, fine wrinkles, tissue collagen loss, scars, sebaceous hyperplasia, active acne, and for brightening dark pigmentation. Although there are very strong fractional lasers such as CO2 laser, we use lighter treatments for corrective skincare and maintenance of results. Our Thulium fractional laser, clear and brilliant laser, and Ultra Thulium laser are excellent options in our clinic. We also perform CO2 fractional and erbium depending on skin tone and tolerance for downtime. Patients do have to use a Melarase cream before and after treatment to help further reduce pigmentation after laser. Melarase AM, Melarase PM, and Melapads can seriously improve surface sun damage and UV related pigmentation. Dark spots can improve with these treatments. I recommend fractional laser for incisional scars as well, especially after plastic surgery.
Best,
Dr. Karamanoukian
Realself100 Surgeon

Please wait a couple of months before assessing your results. You may find that the skin retracts as you heal. If it doesn't, please return to your surgeon to discuss your results.

The number of one cause of crepey skin after neck lift is:

   1) crepey skin BEFORE neck lift

       solar elastosis (sun damage), smoking, age, loss of elasticity, etc

   2) possible small hematoma or seroma

You may require a more extensive neck lift to eliminate redundant skin if it persists.

At three weeks post a neck lift you probably still have alot of swelling.  I would give it time to settle down.

There are a lot of ways to combat the signs of aging these days.  In order to understand what to use we have to understand how and why we age.  Traditional face or neck lifts can help with the laxity that we develop with time due to loss of collagen and elastin, as well as loss of our facial framework including bone loss, cartilage and fat loss in the face.  

Unfortunately, surgical lifts do not address textural change or pigment change due to sun damage and time.  Options to address this crepiness and pigment damage include skin care, peels, non ablative fractional resurfacing such as Fraxel, ablative resurfacing such as CO2 or erbium lasers or the no downtime procedure called Thermage, which helps to tighten skin laxity and can improve crepiness by stimulating collagen production.  Talk with your doctor about what options are best for you.

A Neck Lift lifts and removes sagging skin, repositioning it and the deeper structures in higher more youthful positions. A neck lift does repositions but does NOT change the quality of the skin (For this reason, tanning (be it sun or salon) is a "gift" that keeps on giving. While you may look great for a few weeks, it destroys the skin elasticity forever). When things heal, you may want to look into the use of Sciton's SKINTYTE outpatient treatment. It will bring about some skin thickening.