After years of battling with obesity, you made the decision to have bariatric surgery. While this surgery promotes extensive weight loss which is great for your health, it also comes with one side effect. As your body stored excess fat, the loss of this fat often results in excess skin throughout the body.
While it is easy to hide areas around the stomach with baggy clothes, excess or sagging skin in the face isn’t so easy to hide. This excess loose skin can contribute to heavy lines, loss of facial volume and contour as well as a “turkey neck.” These changes can exacerbate the aging process and, while you have a new, healthier look, you may also look older. In this case, a facelift may be just the procedure to revitalize your face.
How Weight Loss Changes Your Face
Maintaining a healthy weight is essential for good health, but many people struggle to keep their weight in check. As you gain weight, your skin stretches to accommodate the increase in fat. Unfortunately, as you age, your skin loses collagen and elastin, making it less prone to “bounce back.” And, in cases of extreme weight gain, the skin just isn’t able to shrink down when you lose the weight.
For many that have had bariatric surgery, sagging skin is common. Many choose body contouring procedures to address this excess skin, to include a facelift.
After major weight loss, it is common for more wrinkling and sagging to appear since facial volume has decreased. Jowls and loose neck skin or “turkey neck” may be a new found concern. A facelift can address all of these issues and give you the facial contour you desire, along with restoring a more youthful appearance.
What a Facelift Does
During your facelift, incisions are made along your natural hair to conceal any scarring. Next, your plastic surgeon will tighten the facial muscles and reshape, reposition and/or remove facial tissue to produce a more youthful facial structure. Excess skin is then cut away and the remaining skin is repositioned to achieve a more youthful, contoured appearance.
Recovering from a facelift is relatively short. Most people who have a facelift need around 14 days to rest and recover. It’s a small amount of time when you think about how far you have come to getting a healthier you.
Achieving a healthy weight is important for your health and your quality of life. And if you’re ready to address sagging skin around your face, then a facelift may be able to help.
At Pacifica Center for Plastic Surgery, Dr. Daniel G. Kolder, M.D. has established one of the most reputable plastic surgery practices in Southern California. The practice draws patients from Camarillo, Simi Valley, Oxnard, Los Angeles, Malibu, Santa Barbara, Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks and all of Ventura County.
