As I'm recovering from my 2nd face lift I thought I'd share my experiences with anyone, youngish or older, who might be thinking about it and might want to know some details of what you can expect physically.
Demographics/physical details: white male, lean at 6', clear skin my whole life tending to the "roundish" side, i.e. not a "skull faced" look. Started getting the usual drag-face look at around 45, but generally looked "younger" until about 55.
1st lift - mini "Quicklift" - I had this done at 62yrs, 2 years ago. The guy had good reviews, it cost $5k which I could easily afford and he definitely got rid of a lot of spare skin, at least an inch of slack cut from each side, he said (I think he showed me this bloody strip during the operation but I was too drugged to remember it). He had good reviews and that's what I thought I wanted to spend at that point so I went for it. Latent drawbacks/effects:
- I thought (implied in consultation), that he was doing to do a lot more chin/neck work, but he really only tightened up the upper face/cheeks. When I looked at my "before" pics a week ago before this 2nd lift, my chin/neck looked very ragged/dragged. This was not a major post-op deterioration from the 1st Lift, I noticed this within a month after recovery and mentioned it to him "thought you were going to do more down there!". Didn't get anything in the way of a reply. An interesting measure, for comparison with my most recent one also was the amount of sedation. I was more or less awake and talking all during this 1st Lift, if a bit konked. I felt every local-anaesthetic needle. Most recent procedure, I was dead out for 6-7 hours, didn't even remember them walking me in my door.
- I endured a pretty big hematoma during recovery time, this was about 2" round and sprang up immediately following surgery. They warn about this, but it was nothing. He lanced it, pushed on it, and within the couple weeks of post-op it disappeared, so don't worry about those going permanent on you.
- supporting my observations about work not done, I ended up with very stretched (down) earlobes, which 2nd Lift doctor called "pixie ears". I'd always had sort of non-hanging earlobes, just hitting the neck straight on, so I'm not quite sure how they ended up stretched so long, but 2nd Lift doctor fixed them.
Conclusion/advice: you need to get very EXACT SPECIFICS about what you are getting for your money. In retro, for $5k and the "mini" flavor of the proposed procedure, I can see that he probably did about as much work as $5k could buy. Other than that, I was quite happy with it. Face in that area has held up very well, scars pretty invisible and no noticeable "reversion". Even though I gave him a decent review and he's many-decades experienced, I don't think I'd go back with everything taken into account.
2nd Lift (64yrs, last weeks) full face/neck rhyoplasty: Still recovering from this, today is the 9th day and having been through it before, the Frankenstein effects are more or less amusing and not scary (see "General effects" below). This doctor, whose personality and general clinic setup I got an immediate good feel for not to mention their glowing reviews, almost sneered at first glance when I told him I'd already been through one. ("They didn't do anything down there!"..."I know...grrr"). Anyway, this was a full-force repair. He reopened the previous behind-ear cuts, did MAJOR pullup under the neck (witness new cut/stitches right under the chin...I've always been pretty "chinless" even in my 20's, so I'm curious what it's going to look like, looks very good already still with swelling). No hematoma or any weird thing, and in fact the post-op pain was not as bad (nearly) at with 1st Lift above. I go in tomorrow to get stitches out. I have to also note that they have a "repair window" of time whereby if you report something that you think is really off they will look at repairing it. This of course is daunting as it means re-surgery and everything involved. I also don't know how you would have an easy time determining what might be really wrong within the first two weeks of post-op as you are so swelled, but I guess it could be done. Anyway, this one cost about $11k and I feel, at a gut level and from post-op look/feel that this was a more competent/complete job in many ways. One odd thing that happened was that my blood pressure went up during surgery, even though my BP was and always has been fine (they give you a complete blood panel and EKG before you're even ok'd for the surgery). It came back down but they asked me why I thought might have happened. Bad dreams? Who knows.
General effects: They don't say it like this in the surgery pre/post instruction sheets but here is what I experienced both times, more or less exactly the same, to brace anyone for it who might need it:
- you can expect to feel BEAT UP for a solid 10+ days, and really more like 14, in the face and overall body (for me anyway). I don't remember the total length & feel of the 1st Lift as it's been a couple years, but I'm sure it was the same. You have to really plan to have your life shut down for this amount of time to play it safe. I am on light codiene off and on since this last surgery day and it's lousy because I am super sensitive to all drugs now. You can't take aspirin-type things (blood thinners) even for days post-op so you have to endure a lot of off/on aches and various pains at the 4-6 level (10 being max) and even off/on light nausea, but they write Zofran for the nausea and it seems to work. The first 48 hours are the worst, very uncomfortable and the head wrap is very annoying. I'm supposed to be wearing it 24/7 for at least 10 days post-op but once I saw the stitches really settled in, swelling gone down (3-4 days), etc, I stopped wearing it but still very gentle with movements, pressure on the face, no heavy lifting or exercise, etc, as per instructions, and no surprises. A naturally energetic person really has to watch that, I'm already starting to fling myself around a bit too much and have to remember to slow down. Healing proceding quite well though. Zero alcohol!
- your face is the scariest part, it is truly horrifying looking. Purple, green, blue, red, black eyes... My neck is a dull olive green all the way down a couple inches into my chest. But it all disappears, count on it. As I said above, even the hematoma disappeared. Really annoying having to shave around stitches. You just have to look forward to the New You.
I might also note that I made it all the way to stage 4 cirrhosis (liver) until about 7 years ago when it was arrested and started reversing. Very light alcohol drinker now. But this was not an impediment to surgery.
Final words on attitude: I always considered this sort of move an investment, not just a vanity thing. I am plenty vain, but I never thought there was anything wrong with treating your body as a cosmetic workout, male or female. Hell with it. We have to endure all this modern life "gotta perform" b.s. anyway my career shows no signs of ending, I might even have to interview again, so why not do everything we can with our own money to please ourselves while going to battle everyday (and tip the battle in your favor)? I've always been ferociously independent about what I do with my body, including hair loss solutions. I just make my own fashion statement and flip off anyone who makes stupid jokes about it. I am also good at beating myself up and enduring discomfort so once I got the info and was pretty sure about the consequences the surgery was an easy "go for it". A lot of older guys buy toys, I invest in my looks why not. Attitude is a major component in whether you get something like this done. It makes it much easier on you if you can practice laughing at yourself about it. A workmate of mine just died out of the blue the other day, dropped dead of a heart attack. You can't wait around pulling yourself this way and that about whether to make a major life-enhancing move like this. Just get all possible info, get confident, and go for it. Even if the lift only last for 8-10 years (per latest doctor), that's a lot of years liking the way you look, instead of not-liking it.
I hope this helps some people. [Note: I am not adding a photo as I am shy about revealing that, but I attest all the above is completely true]