44 Years Old, Birthday Present To Me - Asheville, NC

I will definitely be posting before,during and after pictures of my procedure/healing. I am also pretty active, I train in Olympic weightlifting with a coach 4x a week and do Crossfit, always with my hair all the way up in a top knot on the top of my head...I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with that when I get back to the gym. But I guess I'll work it out somehow. The increasing drooping on my face is talky starting to effect my self esteem, though, and I figure I'd rather figure out how to go hide a couple scars than keep feeling ashamed of my whole face! LOL! I'm also really pale and bruise pretty easily, so this should be fun! I'll keep you posted.

Thank you for your support! Please keep in mind, while you are planning this, that it takes several weeks just to get your consultation!

I will post plenty of pictures! I don't know if my results will be as dramatic as some of the beautiful people who have gone before me and shared their experience/results with this procedure, but like you I am hoping to get a jump on these issues proactively. That is not to say that there isn't very real room for improvement on my face /neck already, because there definitely is! Thank you for your positive thoughts!

Thank you! You're gonna love meeting with him. It really is as pleasant and positive of an experience as exciting you've read in all the reviews!

*"everything" you have read.

Thank you for your positivity! The waiting was so very hard for me, too! Having said that, I'm leaving for Asheville later today (Thursday ) and having me procedure in approx 29 hours...and now I can hardly believe the day is here! It's funny how time plays tricks on your mind when you want something so badly but are also anxious about the unknown! I will post pictures of my "before" and of what my healing process looks like, hopefully you can do like I did and follow the progress of others to pass the time before your own procedure day finally comes!

I am so excited for you!!! It's going to be awesome! Keep me posted. Remember the first day is the worst and then probably some random day after that. But mostly it will be great! I had the upper bleph 3 years ago from my eye doctor and that allowed me to consider this. Plus my best friend who is a good role model - she thinks it's important we take care of our outer and inner selves. I even told my brother today. Anyway, you are on your way!

I just posted some pics, it was very, very hard for me to do so. I'm a private person and don't even "do " social media because I hate pictures of myself. But I feel I owe it to pay forward what the generous ppl who came before me did for me by posting their own pics and reviews, so...I uploaded some before pics.
I could use some advice about good moisturizing eye drops...Dr Harley said I should get some for after my upper bleph...did you use any that you would recommend? Also, any advice about that aspect of my procedure would be appreciated! Thanks again!

Just saw your photos you are absolutely gorgeous so you'll be drop dead gorgeous when you finish. I didn't really have a problem with dry ice in but I just had a cataract operation and I think I'm going to start using some artificial tears. Really the procedure is pretty easy I just remember having to kind of take care of the swelling a little bit but it was really a piece of cake. This is also probably due to the fact that I had the worst eyelids on the planet. So I was absolutely thrilled to have eyelids.

Oops - I was trying to correct dry ice which should have been dry eyelids and my phone replied for me. I guess what I was trying to say is that I was so thrilled that any discomfort paled in comparison to how happy I was.

Sorry it took so long to post my pics, I get my stitches out tomorrow. I've had more bruising than a lot of people report having, and I had a broken blood vessel in my eye that is painless but looks scary! The procedure itself went very smoothly, though, and I'm grateful I went to Dr Harley & his staff to get this done.

Sorry it took so long to post my updated pics...you will be so excited in March! You made a great choice with Dr Harley and his staff. All the great things you have read are 100% true, you will be in wonderful hands, I promise! I would recommend them to my own family member.

Thank you for your kind comment! I have been without decent WiFi since my surgery and have had a rough time updating my pics. I'm struggling a bit with the results, not that they are not everything Dr Harley promised, I'm just having a hard time getting adjusted to it.

I am going to remind myself how much better and younger I looked by looking at pic from 5 yrs ago u been in the hotel since surgery which on are u at

Thank you so much, Derbygirl18! I think you should call Dr Harley's office, I honestly do. For me, the 2 things I was I found the most daunting, one I realized I needed a facelift/neck lift, were 1) the cost and 2) the "scary-ness" (of both the procedure and general anesthesia.) When I got on Real Self and found the Biltmore lift it was an epiphany that literally changed my life. The procedure was relatively affordable, although it took me a year to save for my lift, my upper bleph and some of the auxiliary costs. In my case, in January of this year I was quoted $6,400 for the lower face/neck lift. I paid an additional $2,600 for the upper blepharoplasty (that I'm very grateful I decided to include.) In my case, although my home in SC is only about 2 hrs from Dr Harley, I was having my procedure "in secret" from my very close and well-meaning family (to save myself a sense of privacy and the chorus of "you don't need yo have this done so young" that I knew I would get.) This meant I needed to be able to stay in a hotel for the entire week+ after my surgery before I could high tail it down to my other home in FL, so I needed to figure that cost in as well, and that wasn't an insignificant cost. Even with that extended hotel stay (2 wks), the amount was still way under what I had originally anticipated I would need to save up when I first contemplated a face lift. To address the 2nd issue, which was my fear of surgery and of general anesthesia, I had the wonderful women on this site who went before me to thank for all of their reviews. They explained that the procedure had been painless, that it was done in an office using local anesthesia and that the recovery was manageable. They were right on all counts. In my experience, the Biltmore lift itself was absolutely no problem to recover from. Now, I had the luxury of hiding out in the Hilton for 2 weeks, and I had a very attentive boyfriend to dole out my meds and rub my feet and help me get what I needed. If you are coming from NYC and will be alone, however, there is a nursing service called TLC that all the people in that situation use. Juanita at Dr Harleys office can give you that contact info,so can many other women on this site. It's my understanding that this service is very good, and that their rates are very reasonable...nothing like what you would expect up in the NYC area in terms of cost! I say all that because you asked what the hardest part of my recovery was, and for me it was the dry eye of the upper bleph. That procedure was also the procedure that took the longest to heal and that would have"given away" the fact that I had ps done (I had significant bruising especially under my right eye) had I not lied to everyone I knew and told then I was getting a sinus surgery done. This covered me for the under eye bruising. The lift itself, as I said, was easy peasy to recover from, almost zero bruising and relatively minimal swelling...But then again I was able to sleep and rest in a hotel suite for 10 days afterwards. If I had needed to be able to jump right back into my life and work or if I had to care for a family I might be singing a different tune, although many women on here have had to do just that and they report an easy recovery as well.
If this type of procedure is something you've been considering for a while, I urge you to please contact Dr Harley's office and take some next steps. It was truly one of the best decisions I've ever made. There is nothing to be "chicken" about when it comes to the procedure. I had no pain. I have NO memory of anything on my surgery day beyond taking my medications beforehand, waking up very briefly in the chair in the office while my upper blepharoplasty was being done(i was so drugged that not only did I feel no pain but I felt no anxiety at this and was totally calm and relaxed until I nodded back off again, as crazy as that sounds) and then getting in the car to go back to the hotel after. It's all really just a blur and I have had way worse days going to the dentist office, I have to say. It honestly was a piece of cake for me...although it did wrote me out. I took all my Iain pills until they were give and I slept a lot, although lots if other women report taking nothing but a few Tylenol or whatever and go shopping and sightseeing around Asheville. The Biltmore lift is definitely worth pursuing as an option, especially if your issues are similar to mine, because these procedures really were exactly what I needed. Feel free to message me if you have any other specific questions and GOOD LUCK! Keep us posted!

Okay, wow! You're amazing! Thanks for all the info. I'm going to pm you...

Hi, reedswoman. The short answer is, I never asked Dr Harley if he thought I needed the lower bleph, because I knew it was going to be a challenge for me to save up the $9,000 cash I needed to get the other 2 procedures done. Happily, the issues I thought I needed the lower bleph to correct were largely addressed by the lower facelift. I have a small amount of filler now, under my eyes, to address loss of volume in that area, but the lower bleph would not have added any volume. I have not ruled out a lower bleph in my future, but, in my case, the lift and the upper bleph did what I needed them to do. Dr Harley will advise you add to what he feels you need/don't need.

Thank you so much! I might try some filler. Will make an appointment with a local PS.

Please be sure, if you do filler under your eye, that you pick someone very experienced. Ask to see their before and afters of other clients who they have done under eye filler on, and/or discuss which fillers are best for under the eye. Not all fillers are created equal. I had filler under my eye back a few years ago, with a woman I trusted and who had done a great job with filler everywhere else on my face. I HATED the filler under my eye. I did not know at the time that I could have it dissolved, and I lived with it until it was metabolized by my body...And I was very unhappy with my appearance the whole time. Please be sure to really discuss your expectations and options fully with whomever you choose to get filler from (if you do go that route.)
I'm sorry that I misread your comment, I for some reason thought you were already scheduled to see Dr Harley later in the year! Dr Harley is kind of "known" for being very conservative and for refusing to do surgeries women ask for if he feels they won't see significant benefit. Be sure you check out the reviews of anyone you go to so that you don't wind up with one of those pushy type Drs that will try to sell you more than you really need! Lol! Good luck to you! Keep me posted as to what you decide.