Facelift and Necklift with Dr. Quiroz - 8/27/2013 - Tijuana, Mexico

Thanks for the words of encouragement. It's a done deal now, only thing left is to leave next Sunday and Monday get Er done :) I'm very grateful for this site, all us ladies supporting each other, the strength of others and the knowledge gained from others before us, gives us the courage to go after things that we may never had.

Hi PattyS! Congrats on getting everything done on your end because that is half of the batle. I understand your anxiousness - I felt that as well. Once I did everything necessary, I just wanted to get out of town and start the process. As for wound care, I only have to deal with the stitches and the dermabrasion. I have no incision under my chin from the necklift (which I don't know why - he obviously did not cut my chin) and as for my rhinoplasty, I never had a drip bandage under my nose - just a couple of stitches (which come out this Friday!!) so I a very careful about my dermabrasion and the 60 or so stitches all over my head. I have them in front of my ears, behinds my ears and on the top of my head. Dr. Q does not use metal stitches - thank god! Those are miserable. He just uses the mono-filament. No head or neck compression garment. Your head will be wrapped for only two days. As for length of surgery, I believe I was on the table for somewhere between four - four and half hours? He did a browlift, necklift, facelift, fat transfers in my NL and lips and the dermabrasion. One thing I have not discussed during this process it the fat trans. When I woke from surgery, I had a slightly bloody gauze bandage on my lower stomach and I quickly changed to a small water-proof bandage ( I brought my own plus Vaseline - no Neosporin - can cause a type of dermatitis) and I put that on and which I only removed yesterday. Starting around the second day, my stomach started showing the signs of trauma, i. e., redness, purpleness showing which has now turned into yellow bruises. This part of the surgery NEVER hurt at all - it only hurt when my Jack Russell Terrier jumped on my tummy yesterday - then I FELT it!!! Sedation was great with Dr. Estrada. Wonderfully charming man, perfect English and he reminds you of Ricardo Montelbon (Fantasy Island guy). He tells you exactly what types of drugs he will use and just in case they needed to put me under general for the Rhino, he told me which drugs he would use. He does not like or use Morphine - he uses Fentinal and Versed. If general, he would have used Propofal (yes, the Michael Jackson favorite!). After surgery, I stayed in the hospital recovery room all night and a nurse slept in the bed next to me. I was very grateful for that because twice during the night and early morning, I vomited and she ran to my bedside with something to contain the vomit. She was wonderful. I must say, I rarely become ill after surgery but luckily I had someone there to help. It's all part of the Dr. Q protocol. So as for sedation, Fentinal and Versed work fine.

PattyS - Of course I am going to have more surgery with Dr. Q. I am going down to TJ next month to start Fraxel laser on the rest of my face and back of my hands. I personally do not know of someone who had a MMO but when I was there, apparently there were at least five women having "Tummy and Body work" but I never saw them. They never came out of their rooms but I could hear them talking and laughing at times. My friend and co-worker is going to have a Pannectomy to remove the excessive skin on her stomach from her earlier gastric bypass.

Divaa, I'm glad that you have no visible stitches, very glad for that, even for the facelift there are no stitches in front of the ears? I thought that there always was for a facelift. I'm going to look up corset stitching to see what that's all about, I like it though already. I wonder what he does if one has fat in their neck because I do, esp right under my chin. Did you ice any after to your neck or face? How is your dermabrasion doing? And how are you doing emotionally? You know that this is a wonderful thing that you did for yourself, and you are looking awesome!! Keep your chin up, it will all be great!