Are You a Good Candidate for Facelift Surgery?

Facelift surgery, especially when it is performed by an accomplished, board-certified plastic surgeon such as Dr. Brian Kobienia, can transform a person’s appearance and overall quality of life. A customized facelift can make a person look five to ten years younger, with natural-looking, aesthetically pleasing results that, with routine touch-ups, can pay dividends for a lifetime. While facelift surgery cannot halt the natural aging process, it can definitely help patients turn back the clock by a few years.

Of course, some patients are better candidates for facelift surgery than others. Facelift candidacy is not necessarily a question of age; good candidates for facelift surgery can be as young as in their twenties or well into their seventies. Skin quality, bone structure, and overall health play far more important roles in a patient’s candidacy for facelift. Dr. Kobienia carefully evaluates facelift candidates at his Edina, MN plastic surgery practice to ensure that they can safely and effectively undergo the procedure before permitting them to undergo surgery.

Are you a good candidate for facelift surgery? To find out, we encourage you to schedule your initial consultation with Dr. Brian Kobienia at Kobienia Plastic Surgery today.

Candidacy for Facial Plastic Surgery

During your initial consultation with Dr. Kobienia, he will ask questions about your medical history, lifestyle, and reasons for wanting to undergo facelift surgery. There are many good and highly personal reasons for wanting to undergo facelift surgery, but it is extremely important that your reasons are your own, and that you are not considering surgery under pressure from someone else. It is equally important that you do not view facelift surgery as a means for solving all of life’s problems or for curing any self-image issues you might have. Ultimately, patients have to be in fairly strong psychological shape to be permitted to undergo facelift surgery.

It is also essential that patients have realistic expectations for the results they can achieve through facelift surgery. While it is possible to set back the clock by as many as five or even ten years, facelift surgery cannot make a 45-year-old patient look 25 years old again. It simply is not possible.

Once realistic expectations have been established, suitable facelift candidates must:

Have decent-to-good skin elasticity: During facelift surgery, lax skin is pulled taut to reduce the appearance of wrinkles and sagging. Patients with some elasticity remaining in their skin will achieve the most natural looking results from this process.
Have well-defined bone structure: The bones underlying the features of the face provide the support for the changes that Dr. Kobienia makes during facelift surgery. The better these bones are defined, the more aesthetically pleasing the results will be.
Be in overall good health: Facelift surgery is a major procedure and, as such, patients must be in good enough health to undergo surgery.
Be willing and able to follow post-surgical instructions: The ability of patients to follow Dr. Kobienia’s post-surgical instructions to the absolute letter is essential both to proper healing and the achievement of the best long-term results.
Commit themselves to healthy post-surgical lifestyles: After surgery, patients must be willing to avoid overexposure to the sun and other harsh elements in order to maintain the best possible results for as long as possible. Smokers must be willing to give up smoking, while drinking should be kept to a healthy minimum.