What is the best treatment for premature jowling? (Photo)

You are relatively young to develop jowling. There are some things that
contribute to the acceleration of the aging process, includes any recent
medical, physical or emotional stress. Also smoking may contribute to aging as
things that are toxic to your body will accelerate aging. If none of those
things are associated to you, then it may be caused by genetics.



If this is a genetic trait that runs in your family such as having
light and thin skin causing you to have this type of appearance, then you
require a proper physical examination. In our practice, the youngest patient
that we’ve ever done facelift for was 37 years old. This was somebody who was a
physician and was very well aware of all other options. She did try options
such as fillers and realized that her skin was too loose, so we did a
conservative face lifting procedure.



The reason why many people are afraid of results is that the always see
the bad facelifts. They see the ones where people are pulled tight including
their mouths described as the wind tunnel effect. My philosophy is that face
lifting is really about repositioning the soft tissue of the cheeks and jowls
when there is descent to where they belong. I think you may be a candidate for a
facelift. In a physical exam, we just lift the skin and see how much room we
have to move. If there isn’t a lot of room, then we don’t do the facelift, but
if there is a lot of room and we can see a real definitive improvement, then
perhaps you can benefit from a lift.



Another thing you can consider is the option of camouflaging the jowl
area by filling in the volume loss in the lower face, particularly the
mesolabial folds often referred as to the marionette lines. You can also fill
the mandibular notch which is a notch on the bone that accentuates the jowl. We
have been very successful in using a material called Radiesse which is a deeper
filler to fill out these areas and it does effectively camouflage. Fillers help
people who don’t have the time to do a facelift right now and they want to do
something to buy some time for important social events.



Sometimes, you need both surgery and fillers. A lifting procedure
doesn’t necessarily address all of the issues of volume loss. A lift can
reposition the skin and volume in way that’s advantageous. When you look at the
mesolabial folds, the marionette lines and the mandibular notch, those areas
can look better with lifting but don’t always get completely improved depending
on your perception and level of satisfaction.



My advice is to meet with qualified experienced cosmetic surgeons who
do a lot of facelifts and fillers. They will guide you appropriately on what is
right for you. You also need to be aware of the incisions and whether or not
that’s something you’re willing to accept. In our practice, we not only use
surgical technique coming from 20 years of experience, but we also use
extracellular matrix which is a material that’s used for wound healing. It
makes these incisions look even better. We use this in pretty much all of our
face lifting surgeries and we’re very impressed in how quickly people are
healing and how good their incisions look. Someone can pull their hair back and
not worry about the conspicuous appearance of a scar. I hope that was helpful,
I wish you the best of luck, and thank you for question.



This personalized
video answer to your question is posted on RealSelf and on YouTube. To provide
you with a personal and expert response, we use the image(s) you submitted on
RealSelf in the video, but with respect to your privacy, we only show the body
feature in question so you are not personally identifiable. If you prefer not
to have your video question visible on YouTube, please contact us.

 If
one has deep lines only and not skin laxity, one can use fillers in this area as well,
which is preferred in this young age group. If it is true jowling with skin sagging and fat loss,
one can do an early facial rejuvenation type of “Lift and Fill” procedure to correct this.

A full face lift with fat grafting is the best way to address your concern, other options will not last long enough.