Dr. Afifi is the GREATEST! - Orange County, CA

Two months later:
-My swelling is finally going away (about 20% melon head now). I never experienced how salty food would make people swell up until this experience. I really noticed a difference in the tightness of my face after eating something salty! I still feel the swelling when I wake up in the morning, however, it only lasts about 30 minutes.
-I still have numbness in various places on my face. I find that I look forward to the tingling sensation because it means I will soon be able to feel that portion of my skin. I currently have numbness under my chin and in a line on each side from my ears to my eyes.
-I am beginning to be able to move my left eyebrow. I have looked like a serial killer for the last two months because my right eyebrow will raise but my left doesn't and makes my eyes look crooked.
-My cup-eyes (where the bottom eyelid is pulled down and away from my lower eyes) are almost gone as the swelling decreases and I don't squint as much to try to get rid of them.

Overall, I would say the process went as Dr. Afifi described. I would recommend to anybody considering this combination of surgery (lower eyelid + neck/jaw lift) to expect that they aren't going to look or feel normal for several months!!!

Finally, thanks to RealSelf for all the great information!!! I am so glad I found this site and have recommended it to several people who are either recovering or considering having cosmetic surgery.

5 month update: both sides of my forehead are working now!! I still have a little numbness around my left earlobe. Everything else is great!!! I notice that my skin feels tighter (like when you scrunch up your face or do the surprised look). All the swelling is gone (I will post a final picture soon) and I almost feel like I never had most of my face removed!!

-The scar under my chin is still visible (getting laser scar treatments soon to make it go away).
-The scars in front of my ears are hidden by my hair (she scraped the hair producing stuff off those little nubs in front of my ears and those nubs were red for several months (the scar was actually inside my ear on the front).
-The scars behind my ears were in the crease and it took a couple months for the bunched-up skin to smooth out. I look in a mirror and can't really see the scars behind my ears.
-The scars under my lower eyelids were so small that you really couldn't see them after a couple weeks anyway...

I used aloe vera on all my scars and that scar fading stuff every day. seemed to work ok! I also did the face and lower eyelid massage whenever I got a chance to try to get the feeling back and make sure my lower eyelids didn't pull away from my eyes (that eyelid one is very important!!)

I seemed to heal quickly (must be all the drinking, smoking, and poor food choices!!!) I hope that anybody who is considering this spends some time on this site reading about experiences (good and bad) before making the decision. The stuff that happens after the surgery gets frustrating if you haven't read the posts and realize that many people went thru the same frustration...

Anyway, I am glad I did it. I went to a holiday event recently and many of my friends and relatives thought I looked "well rested" rather than "different"!!! I never kept the surgery a secret from anybody so I didn't really get any "you look different, but I can't tell why" comments.

Thank you RealSelf for such a great site!