Lower Facelift 12/29/2020

It's been about 2 months since my surgery now and the results are great. At this point I can say that the results are really great but the recovery is much harder than I expected. The swelling has gone way down and the numbness has too -- mostly. I still feel stabbing pains here and there at the temple scar area and still feel the tingling and nerve zaps at my temples. The nerves regenerating feels like ice water dripping down from my temples down the sides of my cheeks. If that makes sense.
So my final verdict is that the results are just incredible but the recovery journey is rough. If you are a private person and don't want others to know, plan on being out of view for at least a month; and plan to be healing for several months.

Swelling has gone down considerably as my surgeon promised it would; went back to work today. Felt so self-conscious because I still feel that I look a bit odd because I still have swelling on the outer edges of my cheekbones/temples.

When I look at myself I think that I look a bit stretched back, if that makes sense. Not not like Joan Rivers stretched back, but still Sort of like Barbie doll / plastic looking. Too perfect and smooth and plump? But I know it’s subtle and nobody’s looking at me that hard.

Every day at various times in the day, and definitely every evening when I’m relaxing, I’m feeling the zings and zaps on the sides of my face where I am healing. Kind of feels like bugs crawling into your skin. But it doesn’t feel as disgusting as that sounds. Which I know are the nerves regenerating so I welcome that feeling.

I got a lower blepharoplasty along with my lower facelift and I have to say I am really glad I spent the extra money to do that. My under eye wrinkles are almost gone. That fat on my cheekbones what is reposition back up higher what used to be when I was younger. So that looks fantastic. As I mentioned my jaw line looks so clean, just amazing.

I am beginning to be cautiously optimistic that when the swelling on the sides of my face goes completely down, I may have achieved exactly what I wanted.

Still, the recovery is/was so much harder than I ever thought it would be. I guess if you are tough and resilient, physically and mentally, in the end just might justify the means.

I will report back when the swelling has completely resolved to get my final verdict. :)

If you are contemplating getting a facelift or lower facelift, I would say this: know what you might be in for, as far as recovery. Of course there's no way to know exactly how your recovery will go, but here's how mine is going.
I'm 54 years old and had a lower facelift 9 days ago. I knew it was major surgery, but until you go through it yourself, nothing can prepare you for the sheer brutality of what you've willingly paid someone to do to your face.
The skin from my temple area down to about 4 inches below my jawline felt/feels like a corpse's face. Sorry that is blunt but I'm being honest.
I could not bear to touch the sides of my face until at least 7 days post op. It just felt like dead, lifeless flesh which was creepier than I can ever express.
I can barely stand to touch it even today, 9 days post op. This aspect was the biggest surprise for me, so I'm writing this in case it helps anybody else out with knowing what they are getting into.
Here's the rest of my review and my opinions:
1. You need to be mentally strong to go through this. Every day I have been going back and forth about whether or not I should have done this and wondering if it was a mistake.
2. You need to have someone, a very supportive person, by your side for at least 3 days. Or at least I did. I'm in quite good physical shape (good diet, good weight and physically active) and am relatively young (54) and I was still essentially an invalid for 3 days straight.
3. The sides of my face, my ears and under my chin are still numb, puffy and swollen. From what I know now, this can (and probably will) persist for many more months. This means I have to be prepared to not like how I look for months, because....
4. My face is round and weird looking; the swelling on the sides of my face have essentially made my oval face round. I don't look like myself. Only time will tell if the surgery has permanently altered the shape of my face -- I didn't want my face any rounder or fundamentally different. I just wanted my jaw, under chin and neck fixed.
Some tips:
1. Once your doctor says you can wash your hair/get your sutures wet, take a warm/not hot bath and wash your hair under water in the bath tub. That way you won't be pulling on your sutures in the shower with your head tilted back when you rinse your hair. Also you won't have to touch your puffy dead feeling skin as much.
2. Get a wedge pillow to keep your head elevated. My wedge is 7" high at the base, any higher and you'll slide down off of it at night.
3. Sleeping in a recliner was easiest the first 3 nights when I was the most wrecked with pain. I wedged a pillow on one side of me to help me keep centered on the chair when fully reclined.
4. Take the pain pills. There's no prize for fewest pain pills taken. Take them every 4-6 hours the first 3 days like clockwork; don't wait until they wear off.
5. Pick out some shows to binge watch because that's all you'll be able to do for a while and it helps you escape reality for stretches of time.
That's all I can think of right now. I hope this helps someone in some way. :)
In closing, I won't be able to say, until the swelling goes down, whether or not my procedure is a success. My jawline is back (it was saggy) and the slope of skin from my chin where it melds with my neck, is much better. That part, I can say now, is a success.
However if I my face remains round/my fundamental face shape remains changed, then I failed because my face was pretty the shape it was before. Now I look like someone else, and she's not as pretty. I obviously didn't not want to trade in my beauty for a tighter jawline and unsaggy under chin area.
But
3.