Facelifts Vs Face Injections

I am 55 years old. Should I wait to have a Facelift until I’m 60?

Is a Facelift my best option for facial rejuvenation?

Ideally, it would be great if patients never needed surgery for facial rejuvenation. What we do, and what we recommend, depends upon the aging changes that we see in each individual face. As technologies advance, there are more and more options that allow us to put off the need for delay the need for a facelift. These include treatments to restore volume that has been lost due to aging, noninvasive, painful, non-surgical treatments that shrink the jowl and tighten the neck, and changes we can make in the skin to eliminate wrinkles. Usually, these noninvasive technologies and treatments can restore many of the characteristics of the youthful face. When they are used on a patient who is just starting to have aging changes, they can maintain a youthful look for many years.

I have heard of injections for the face to create a more youthful look. What are my options?

There are several different things that we can inject into the face to create a more youthful look: fat, Botox, Juvederm, Restyline, Artifil, Sculptra, Belotero, and many more volume adding and muscle stimulating procedures.  What we choose is based on the specific findings in the face that we see. Several products are specifically used for wrinkles and these include Botox, juvederm, restyline, and belotero. Botox, which is similar to Xeomin, and Dysport, temporarily paralyzed the muscles which create wrinkles in the forehead, crows feet, between the eyebrows, and under the eyes.  These products typically last 3-4 months and most patients have this injected about 2-3 times per year.

Face Volume Fillers are used to actually fill out a wrinkle to make it less noticeable. These can be used anywhere on the face and depending on the product used as long as one year. Dr. Schneider’s favorite in this group of products is Jupiter because it is the most comfortable for the facial rejuvenation patient when injecting, and he thinks has the smoothest results.

The last group of injectables or deep volume fillers. As the face ages who tend to lose fat, and bone that makes the face look smaller and more drawn. These volume losers volumizers can restore this lost volume and make the face look more youthful. In this category, fat injections will last the longest and for many patients fat will last the rest of their life. Sculptra is another volumizer that has a very long lifespan, lasting for most patients over two years. Voluma is a very quick deep volumizer that is used over the cheekbones to restore this volume and lasts about one year.