When to Re-Do…Swetnam Cosmetic Surgery
Re-do what? I have lots of patients that ask about how long a cosmetic procedure will hold up or “last”. I think that is a fair question in most instances.
First, the face. When people ask me the question before a facial procedure, the analogy I like to use is daylight savings time. When you have a facial procedure, basically, we are resetting the clock on your appearance. You will continue to age, just like time continues to tick away in daylight savings time. In other words, the change is permanent, but aging continues to change your appearance. The procedure most often repeated is eyelid surgery. Eyelids move constantly, the skin is very thin, and the eyelid skin is exposed to a great deal of sun. The nature of the skin is to stretch and when used a great deal, it will stretch more. Upper and lower eyelid surgery, the second time, is usually less traumatic than the first time because the fatty tissue has already been removed. That means that only the skin is removed in the second procedure. The second procedure most often repeated is the facelift. Again, after the first procedure, as we continue to mature, the skin continues to stretch and the floppy neck or jowel may return after 15-20 years. A second face lift is easier because of scar tissue that forms gives us more tissue to work with so sutures hold better and dissection is less involved. The procedure that holds up the best is the endoscopic brow lift. Since the low brow is usually heredity related, once the brow is lifted it tends to stay put.
Second to discuss are body procedures. Tummy tucks seldom need re-doing unless you have severe changes in weight or have a pregnancy after the initial procedure. That is why we encourage women to be done reproducing before considering a tummy tuck.
The same is true of most other body procedures, thigh or butt lifts, arm reductions, etc. Liposuction is seldom repeated in the same area except for touch-up prodedures since most of the fat cells in that area have been removed. Of course, if you do gain weight, it will appear in other areas and the repeat procedure will be in that area instead of the old site. In other words, if you have your abdomen done then gain 20 pounds, you may notice that your arms or thighs are where the weight is going. The reason is, the fat cells that used to store fat in the abdominal wall are gone or greatly diminished in number and fat can no longer be stored there…it must go somewhere else.
The third is the breast. This is a whole other animal sorry to say. The breast is somewhat unpredictable. For breast augmentations, they look great in younger women and generally hold up well with two caveats….pregnancy and weight changes. Most women look fantastic with their breast implants… until pregnancy. Then, in some, the wheels come off. The breast inlarges during and after pregnancy, breast feeding occurs, and for some, the process repeats itself over and over. After several pregnancies and several years the breasts start looking sad.
They droop over the implants or sometimes take the implants with them. In these cases, the only solution (after a tubal or vasectomy) is a breast lift, removing the old implants, and deciding whether to replace the implants or not. The only way to get fullness in the upper part of the breast in this situation is with an implant so it just depends on the final outcome you are looking for. Of course implants can always be placed later.
Hope this helps answer your questions and don’t forget all of the special pricing we have going on with hair removal, tummy tuck, and weight loss surgeries!!
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