Facelift or Rhytidectomy are general terms that can be applied to different procedures to improve and tighten skin to reduce facial folds and wrinkles. The bone structure of the face, heredity and skin texture play an important role in the results that we obtain and the “years’’ that can be removed.

This procedure is usually done on the skin of the neck, chin, cheeks and periocular and temporal regions. Sometimes this operation is included in the forehead and eyebrows or added as a separate intervention. The surgery of the eyelids, which quite often is in conjunction with the facelift, can also be performed separately.

This procedure is performed under general anesthesia. This intervention incision within the hair goes through, then along skinfold there in front of the ear around the earlobe, amount behind the ear and follow the hairline hair or inserted into scalp. Through these incisions, the surgeon makes a more or less extensive detachment of the facial skin, in order to obtain a better stretch of it and facilitate the return of the surplus.

It may also address the underlying tissues to tighten, not only the skin that will be under tension, but also the deeper tissues. Using the same approach we can reduce fat deposits and tighten muscles that have become flaccid, giving the face a firmer appearance.

After the intervention there will probably be some bruising, swelling of the face, feeling of tightness and possibly numbness in some areas of the face and neck. As it progresses the gradual process of healing, their appearance will improve and in a period of two to four weeks can be a pretty definitive of what it will look.

Most of the scars will be hidden within the hair above the ear or within the normal skin lines and creases. Those scars that remain behind the ear can easily hide the hair and they are ahead of it, and generally are not usually visible.

Facelift interventions not only achieve a rejuvenation of many years, but the apparent age long overdue follows in relation to chronological age. If, over time, wrinkles and folds reappear, the procedure can be repeated. The purpose is that patients look again the way they did years before. The risks, statistically small, are outweighed by the positive outcome of the intervention.