Can a facelift or mini lower facelift be done with local or twilight anesthetic?

Thank you for your question. It is absolutely possible  to perform a comprehensive facelift under local anesthesia. In fact, it is preferable in many regards, and I perform 90% of my facelifts that way. There is clearly less bleeding during a local anesthetic facelift, as general anesthesia tends to make the blood vessels dilate. That means less bruising, swelling, and as a result, a quicker recovery. If you had told me ten years ago that I would be doing the vast majority of my facelifts this way, I would not have believed you. A few things happened to make this possible. I became much more efficient in my facelift technique. You obviously don't want a semi-awake patient to lie down on an operating table for hours and hours, so I had to become very adept at the procedure and not wonder what the next step was. Next, I had to make the infiltration of local anesthesia as painless as possible. After years of trial and error, I have a local anesthetic mixture that hardly stings at all when injected, yet lasts hours. The benefit of this that when we are done with the case, patients are awake, alert, and are not nauseated like they would be with general anesthesia.

Facelifts nowadays are done with only local anesthesia and some oral sedation.  Twilight refers to IV sedation which can be tricky since the procedure can last a few hours and having you sedated with no secure airway for hours is a bit tricky for the surgeon and anesthesiologist.  The other option is general anesthesia but most patients would like to avoid this option although in reality it is the safest.  

Thank you for your question.  I perform most of my facelifts under local anaesthetic, it can also be performed under twilight sedation or a general anaesthetic for patients who would prefer this.  The results will be the same, it will just be the anaesthetic which may change from patient to patient.  The results of a local anaesthetic facelift, give the same as a traditional facelift, therefore the longevity being approximately 5-10 years (depending on factors such as your skin quality and lifestyle).  The SMAS muscle is targeted to create this.  All The Best