Face Rejuvenation Procedures

This heading represents a broad spectrum of interventions. After the patient investigation and record of the patients' expectations, one or some of these interventions are combined to achieve the best results. While at the age of 30-35's botox injections to the eye surroundings and hyaluronic acid injections to the wrinkles around the nose will achieve the best results within 10 minutes, with the beginning of the 40's tissue injections to certain face regions are required for similar results, followed by a Midface lift which could be necessary at the 45-50's, and finally a classical face lift at the 60's.

Certainly Thermage or Laser therapies can be added to the treatment strategy to achieve the best results if necessary. The best treatment strategy can be often defined after the investigation and a very detailed discussion between doctor and patient.

Some details about face rejuvenation procedures:
With the beginning of the 30's the structure of the face and skin is changing in both men and women due to the effects of gravity, sun light, genetic factors, smoking, and dozens of additional factors. These changes and wrinkles are especially seen as crow's feet laterally to your eyes, deep creases that form between the nose and mouth (the nasolabial sulcus), horizontal lines on your forehead (worry lines), deep vertical lines between your brows (frown lines). In younger ages like the 30's these deformities are relatively easier and faster to treat with non-surgical methods. Off these the most frequently used ones are filling material injections like botox and hyaluronic acid. Botox is an agent that relaxes muscles in a circumference of 1 cm of the injected area. This miraculous agent is known to be used for 30 years in medicine from which the last 10 years are mainly for aesthetic purposes, and is the most frequently used aesthetic intervention in the United States. Most of our botox patients use their lunch break to come to our clinic and turn back to their works after the 2-3 minutes lasting injection procedure. Botox is perfectly working on the wrinkles on the 1/3 upper part of the face (forehead and eye area), and is additionally lifting the eyebrows for approximately 2 mm. The creases between nose and mouth (laughing lines) are perfectly corrected by injecting hyaluronic acid under the skin. Hyaluronic acid is a natural substance of our body and is therefore much more tolerable and safer than the other filling material, and is also applied in a few minutes.

The 40's are relative to earlier ages a little bit more complicated. The pull of gravity is becoming more effective at these ages and the skin is getting looser in time which leads to local sagged areas. Although the skin might be not very wrinkly the sub dermal fat layer may reduce in time and change its location downwards due to pull of gravity, which will give the face a tired, exhausted and sad expression. Every weight loss will have its first effects on the face in these ages, and the face starts to look more and more tired. Also the eyebrows will start to change their location downwards with the 40's. Although the patient feels him/herself vigorous, the face will have an exhausted and sad expression.

Our primary aim on these patients is to replace the decreasing sub dermal tissue. For this purpose we take fatty tissue from any appropriate location of the body like the buttocks or limbs, process it on certain ways and inject it to required areas. This procedure is called fat injection (lipofilling) or tissue injection and is completely scarless. After the replacement of the required sub dermal fatty tissue you can admire your rejuvenated face on the mirrors again. The injections can be applied to the creases on the forehead, the cheekbones, upper face regions, the nasolabial creases, lips, and even the jowl. Every loose area determined at the investigation can be filled with these injections. We can achieve a much more vivid expression by additional botox injections to the forehead, eyebrows and eye surroundings.

Additional to the disposition of the sub dermal fat layer due to the pull of gravity the major effects of smoking and sunlight will become evident, which leads to a wrinkly face with the beginning of the 50's. The triangular expression of the youth starts to change its shape to a rectangular one. If the face is not extremely wrinkled a Midface lift will give perfect results.

From small incisions made into your mouth and hairline the pulled areas of your face will be lifted up to their earlier positions and the skin of the forehead will be lifted, which will correct the dropped eyebrows. The procedure will last for approximately 1-1.5 hours ad requires a one night stay at the hospital. Through the mid-face lift you will regain the triangular shape of your face. If there are additional small wrinkles on your face, some conservative face lift procedures called short scar face lift (Macs lift, S-lift etc.) will be performed. This group of operations are called short scar operations and only performed in not exaggerated wrinkles on the face with a real great success. Another deformation area at these ages is the eyelids. Especially droopy upper eyelid, puffy bags below the eyes require small and easy additional scarless interventions. To catch the synchronism on your face your doctor may suggest these interventions even if you don't think about these corrections.

With the begin of the 60's a wrinkly face, droopy cheeks, loose jowl, wrinkles on the neck, puffy bags at the eyes, and droopy brows will get more and more evident. Patients at these ages are candidates to a classical face and neck lift surgery. The patient will have a 15 years younger expression after the surgery. Compared to the other described interventions these operations are relatively more complicated and are lasting longer. The patient requires a much longer preparatory phase before the operation can be performed. Besides some laboratory investigations also consultation of the anesthesiology and cardiology departments are required and they will decide together with your doctor for or against the intervention. You have to stop using aspirins and smoking 15 days before the intervention. The patient has to be also prepared psychologically for the 15 years younger outcome of the procedure. Although not very visible there will be a scar starting from your hairline, turn around the ears to your neck. Most of the patients don't care about these scars compared to the 15 years younger expression of their face.