What is Facial Rejuvenation?
Facial rejuvenation is a collection of advanced surgical procedures designed to restore a more youthful, refreshed, and natural appearance to the face and neck. As we age, factors such as gravity, sun exposure, heredity, and time cause the skin to loosen, fat to shift or accumulate, and facial contours to lose definition. Facial rejuvenation addresses these changes by improving skin laxity, restoring balance to facial features, and enhancing overall harmony without making you look unnatural or “overdone.”
Treatments may include procedures such as facelift, neck lift, brow lift, eyelid surgery, scar revision, otoplasty, and facial implants for the chin or cheeks. Each approach is carefully tailored to the individual based on facial structure, skin quality, age, and aesthetic goals. The goal of facial rejuvenation is not to change how you look, but to help you look more rested, confident, and like the best version of yourself, naturally refreshed and rejuvenated.
Facelift
Let’s face it….aging of the face is inevitable. Gravity, sun exposure, and time all take their toll. As years go by, the skin on your face and neck begins to loosen. Jowls form along the jawline, and beneath the chin. Vertical folds appear at the front of the neck. A facelift procedure can address any of these changes on the face.
The goals of a facelift procedure are to improve the appearance of the aging face. To do this properly, a surgeon has to go through a number of steps in order to get a desirable result.
The steps are as follows:
- Removing accumulated fat
- Re-supporting underlying facial tissues
- Removing excess skin to achieve a more youthful, smoother facial appearance.
Dr. Mathison’s facelift procedure results in a longer lasting, more natural look. He accomplishes this while also avoiding the artificial, “wind-swept” look of older style facelift surgeries. Many people around East Tennessee turn to Dr. Mathison to revive and refresh their appearance.
At your initial consultation, Dr. Mathison will evaluate the soft tissue and bony architecture of your face. An overall assessment of the face provides the basis for what one may expect from a facelift. Skin type, ethnic background, and age, skin laxity are all important factors influencing the outcome of facelift surgery.
Making Your Decision
Who should get a facelift? Anyone interested in improving physical features like sagging facial skin, jowls, and loose neck skin. You might also be interested in a facelift if you would like to look more rested, youthful, and refreshed. A facelift can be life-changing. To get the best results from a procedure, it is important to be physically healthy and to have a healthy expectation for the aesthetics outcomes of your procedure. You can expect a dramatic improvement in your facial aesthetics with the small, subtle change you’ll get from a facelift. Patients are generally very gratified.
Browlift
Modern technology has improved the way we perform this procedure. Unlike traditional brow lift surgery, which involved an incision across the entire forehead, the endoscopic brow lift is a minimally invasive method of lifting the brows.
Its benefits include:
- Smaller incisions
- Less invasive
- A lower rate of complications
- Reduced scarring/bruising/bleeding
- Much faster recovery
The aim of a brow lift is to enhance your natural beauty. It is effective because it makes you look better without making you look different. People will notice how much better you look, and the new younger-looking brow will help lift your entire face. Likewise, giving you a more youthful and relaxed appearance. A brow lift can be performed in conjunction with other cosmetic procedures too. A brow lift combined with a full facelift can produce some of the most dramatic results.
Scar Revision
The effect of facial scarring is often more than skin deep. Facial scars resulting from trauma, burns, acne, or prior surgery can be devastating. Whatever the cause of your facial scar, Dr. Mathison will dedicate himself to achieving maximal improvement in the appearance of your facial scars. The objective in treatment of scars is to make them less visible. This can be achieved using a number of techniques of camouflage and/or repositioning. Some of the options that Dr. Mathison may recommend during your consultation include scar massage, cortisone injections, simple re-excision, dermabrasion, re-excision, or geometric broken line closure. After your scar revision procedure(s), it is very important to follow Dr. Mathison’s instructions after surgery to maximize proper wound healing to ensure your best possible outcome.
Necklift & Liposuction
As lifespans lengthen, most people feel energetic long after their appearance begins to show premature signs of aging. Excess fat, loose, sagging skin and prominent bands of the neck are some of the hallmarks of the aging face. These unwanted traits are usually due to a combination of age, gravity, and heredity. Neck lift surgery corrects the excess fat of the neck and depending upon the degree of laxity, a neck lift can tighten the underlying muscles as well as the loose, sagging skin. Neck lift procedures produce more definition to your profile, accentuate your jawline, and give one a more youthful appearance. There is usually no ideal age for neck cosmetic surgery.
Candidates may range from teenagers who need only neck liposuction to middle-aged individuals who may need just a slight tuck, and ultimately to a fully-aged neck that may need multiple modalities. There are a variety of neck lift techniques available to you (liposuction, platysmaplasty, cervicoplasty), and the appropriate technique will be tailored to your specific needs. Often a neck lift procedure is combined with other facial rejuvenation procedures. For those individuals who are geared toward achieving and maintaining a youthful balance of all parts of the face, your neck lift may be combined with a facelift or chin implant to further accentuate a youthful jawline. During your initial consultation, Dr. Mathison will thoroughly discuss your desires and expectations for your neck rejuvenation.
Otoplasty
Abnormally protruding ears can make a child of any age the object of cruel remarks by his or her peers. For any child whose appearance causes concern, otoplasty (“ear pinning”) should be considered before peer pressure begins to play a significant role in your child’s self-esteem. Otoplasty is a safe, effective, out-patient procedure performed to achieve a less noticeable appearance while maintaining appropriate function. Candidates for otoplasty include any adult or child with prominent or misshaped ears. This surgery is typically performed on children, but it is also performed on thousands of adult patients each year.
The most common reason for this procedure is to correct prominent or protruding ears. The procedure itself consists of making a small incision at the back of the ear, sculpting the cartilage, and then using stitches to help maintain the ear’s new shape. Ear surgery usually takes about 2 hours with little post-operative discomfort. Recovery time is about a week. Special cases of children born without external ears or with badly misshapen ears are handled in a team fashion. The Center’s Microtia Team can effectively handle these significant deformities. The patient’s family should seek consultation with Dr. Mathison for these specialized cosmetic ear procedures.
Chin & Cheek Implants
An underdeveloped chin is often an oversight that is not recognized by the patient. Most of us see ourselves as a frontal view when we look in the mirror, while others see us from many angles. The chin is a major feature that contributes to the profile, and any excess or deficiency can detract from the overall appearance. A weak chin can conflict with ideal facial proportions, while a well-defined chin helps give balance and harmony to the face. By sculpting the chin through plastic surgery, a more aesthetically pleasing profile can be achieved. Whether constructing a stronger, more defined chin, or a more delicate, smaller one, Dr. Mathison can create a more balanced relationship between various facial structures.
Many times men ask for a stronger looking chin. A weak chin can lead to the false perception of timidity and weakness. Inserting an implant that adds lateral width conveys a stronger jaw.
How Chin Implants Work
Placement of a chin implant is commonly accompanied with other cosmetic procedures. It can be combined with liposuction of the neck to allow the lower facial skin and neck to shrink-wrap down to the new form, producing a stronger, better-contoured chin. A facelift can help lift the jowls, but may not address the small grooves in front of the cheeks. This groove is due to the loss of bone in the jaw that occurs with aging. Combining the facelift with a chin implant will add volume to the chin, help eradicate the jowls, sharpen the jawline, and erase the grooves that can sometimes form in front of the jowls.
Frequently, individuals are concerned about having a large nose, when in fact it is their undersized chin that is contributing to the illusion of a larger nose. In those cases, only minor refinements of the nose are required to significantly improve the nasal aesthetics when accompanied with chin augmentation.
Cheek Implants
Cheek implants are one of the most popular types of facial cosmetic surgery. Implants can make all the difference when a weakness of the mid-third of the face exists. A deficient cheek structure can make your face appear drawn and gaunt. It may give the appearance of heaviness in the lower face and an aged look of the under-eye area. Strong cheekbones and full cheeks, on the other hand, give your face a youthful, natural glow.
Once thought a beauty procedure sought by only women, men in today’s competitive corporate workplace are increasingly seeking cheek implants to restore a younger look that more typifies their energy level. An important first step toward any cosmetic surgery is to have a facial plastic surgeon assess the entire picture before making specific recommendations. At an initial consultation, Dr. Mathison will evaluate the bony and soft tissue architecture of the face, including the proportion and balance of the face, nose, and cheeks. Skin type, ethnic background, and age are important factors influencing the outcome of plastic surgery. Together, the two of you will discuss many alternatives before determining if cheek implants are right for you.
Upper & Lower Eyelids
Some say that the eyes are “the windows to the soul” – but sagging, drooping, and puffiness around the eyes can give the false impression of being a tired soul. Eyelid surgery can help restore drooping upper eyelids or the puffy skin under the eyes that can make us look older and more tired than we really are. As with any cosmetic procedure, the process begins with a careful analysis of the eyes, brow position, and an understanding of the cause of the aging changes. It is only then that recommendations can be made regarding the procedure(s) that will yield the most desirable result. Following a comprehensive assessment of the aging-related changes around the eyes, a sophisticated treatment plan can be prepared. Commonly the plan involves a variety of non-surgical and conservative surgical modalities that when put together, truly rejuvenate and revitalize the eyes with minimal risk and downtime. The aim of the procedure is not to make you look different, but to make you look better – like the “real” you.
Lower Eyelids
Lower eyelid surgery can be performed from inside the lower eyelid if the heaviness of the lids is primarily due to excess fat, or through an incision that is hidden just under the lower lashes if excess skin and fat needs to be addressed. Excess skin can also be tightened by laser treatment. Through this process, wrinkles and any remaining sagging or loose tissue can be minimized. Surgery of the upper eyelid is aimed at removal of excess skin and fat, which gives the eyes a more refreshed and vibrant look. The procedure usually takes around one hour. An incision is made along the natural lines of your eyelids and is nearly invisible within a few days of surgery. Many times the upper eyelids appear heavy because the brow is in a lower position. The brows should be positioned above the bony rim. Whether because of genetics, volume loss, or gravity, they begin to descend below the rim. Dr. Mathison will assess your brow position and determine if a browlift should be combined with blepharoplasty to provide a harmonious upper face rejuvenation.