When you click on the "Medium" or "Large" button underneath a photograph, you will see that photograph enlarged, and also, where available, different views of the same patient.
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With time, skin loses its elasticity. It is pulled down by
gravity and collects in characteristic areas of the face. Jowls
on the sides of the chin make a notch along the previously smooth
contour of the jawline. The jowls "square off" the
appearance of the bottom of the face. Lines develop that go from
the corners of the mouth down to the jowls. Excess skin and fat
can collect under the chin.
The operation that helps the lower half of the face is called a face lift. Incisions are hidden around the ears, and the skin is repositioned up and back, where it used to be. This patient also had a skin peel around the mouth, to correct the wrinkles that the face lift couldn't improve.
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How much improvement someone obtains depends in part on how much
loose skin is showing before surgery. Also, individual
differences in anatomy and healing cause differences in the final
result. Note that this person, who has a wider, shorter neck and
thicker skin than the patient at the top of the page, will
achieve a less dramatic result from a face lift.
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The face lift cannot remove wrinkles. We do not expect the face
lift to stretch the surface of the skin tightly enough to remove
wrinkles--that would cause an unnatural, "pulled" look.
If someone has many wrinkles, we use a skin
peel to lessen the wrinkling, after the face lift has healed.
This patient had a face lift to remove the excess skin and the
jowling, and then she had a skin peel of the entire face to take
care of the wrinkles across her cheeks.
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This patient, like the one shown above, also had a skin peel
after her face lift. She also had eyelid
surgery, to correct her drooping upper eyelids. The different
facial plastic surgery operations can be combined, to fit the
individual patient's concerns.
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When there is fat under the chin, a liposuction can be performed
at the same time as the face lift. With the fat gone, the skin
under the chin can be pulled better, conforming better to the
neckline.
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This patient's face lift smoothed the skin along her jawline and
removed the excess from under her neck. The jawline and the area
under the chin are the two regions that the face lift addresses
most effectively.
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This patient had a face lift to correct her jowling, eyelid
surgery to remove the overhang of skin over her eyes, and a skin
peel around her mouth to correct the wrinkling above and below
her lips.
If you wish to see more patients who had face lifts, you may proceed to the Face Lift Supplemental Page. That page also discusses how liposuction is used during a face lift.
