Before<before surgery, left two photos / after surgery, right two photos> After<5 days later, had the drain removed, yellow bruising under the eyes, almost no swelling from the front and yellow bruising.. The second photo is the right side, and maybe because it was pulled more, the surgical area is wider and the swelling and bruising are much worse. The third photo is the left side> After<photo taken after removing the regeneration tape 14 days later> I'm writing this for people considering a facelift.. These are only my personal feelings, and it varies from person to person, so please keep that in mind while reading. Today is day 18. I had a lot of cheek fat, so before cheek fat removal I tried thread lifting, laser, deep buccal fat removal, and more. There was almost nothing I hadn't tried. About 15 years ago I had a bad facial contouring surgery.. they shaved it wrong, so I have severe asymmetry. They only shaved the side jaw, so from the front it doesn't even show.. I don't even know if the cheekbones were shaved, so it feels pointless.. So as time passed, only my face sagged, and even most lasers like Thermage were meaningless. After deciding to just get a facelift, I consulted two places and chose surgery.
The non-dissolvable threads I had before had all broken, so I had them removed at the same time.. They showed me a photo of what was removed, and it was a relief.. At least the removal seems to have gone well. The removal cost was about 1.1 million won.. after a discount, including removal, 8 million.
I was going to do a mini lift, but since the cut area didn't seem that different anyway, I just did a full lift except for the neck and forehead.. I'm 40 now.. people may think a full lift is a little early.. but so what? My view is to live prettily while I'm younger by even one year..
Photo attached, warning for disturbing images
I'll write down the things you all will probably be curious about
1. Pain Someone said it doesn't hurt at all, that's a lie. It doesn't hurt, but it is miserable. It feels like rubber bands are being hooked onto my face from every direction and pulled tight until they are about to snap. So it's really uncomfortable and I feel like I'm going crazy It's absolutely not pain.. it's just maddening. My face feels hot all the time, and cold compresses help; walking outside at night makes it feel cooler and a little better. But just imagine that someone is pulling on your face 24 hours a day. It's day 18 now and it's a little better, but it's still the same. It feels like my face is a rock, and in reality both sides are very hard. Of course I have no sensation. Sleeping is the worst, because I usually can't sleep on my back.. But I have to sleep facing up right away, so the back of my head hurts like crazy.. When I lie down I get dizzy because of my face. I kept feeling nauseous, and because my face kept being pulled, more than pain, the dizziness and nausea were what really drove me insane.. It's better now, but even if I lie down it still feels a bit like that.. I can barely open my mouth, so for a few days I had to eat with baby spoons. Now it's not completely normal, but I can open it about as much as needed. But if I open my mouth wide, my face pulls..
2. Surgical progress Because my asymmetry was severe, I think they pulled the right side much more. So the swelling and scars on the left and right are different. The right side was cut much more and swelled much more. But I did this because of my nasolabial folds, and it seems they pulled the chin more than the folds. Right now the swelling goes up and down every day, and I still look like a flatfish, so it's too early to say whether it went well or not. I'll update again later. But by day 18, the nasolabial folds are starting to come back slowly.. It seems they didn't pull that area much At the time of the first surgery, it felt like they were trying hard to correct the asymmetry.. But I think they did handle the asymmetry fairly well.
3. Scars The scalp is hidden by hair, so I'll skip that. The ears seem to be the key point, but they said they get darker again after a month and repeat, so we'll have to see. Right now, the scars on the ears actually don't seem very visible.. I think you should accept a certain amount of scarring when you do this. I did. But so far, the scars are not as bad as I expected. I'm applying scar ointment continuously now, and I plan to keep applying it diligently for at least 6 months.
4. Swelling I was surprised that the front of my face wasn't swollen as much as I expected. I usually swell a lot with anything and heal very slowly.. As you can see in the photos, the sides had bad bruising, and I still have a greenish-yellow bruise in front of the ears.. The neck seems to have gone down after almost two weeks. And unlike others, mine has some lumpiness in front of the ears, maybe from fixation.. It was bad at first, but it has calmed down a little now. The hospital told me to press on it from time to time.. so when I wear the pull-up garment, I press it once in a while.
Still, it's not bad.. but it definitely doesn't seem like an easy surgery. The swelling doesn't go down easily like I expected. I've really had almost every surgery there is, and I don't think the sensation will come back easily either. Of course it varies from person to person depending on constitution and recovery ability. If I cover both sides with my hair, it still doesn't show much.. Since it's not even been a month yet, I'll watch it a bit longer and post another update.
I usually don't write things like this.. believe it or not, but I wrote this once for people like me who worry a lot before doing it.. I've really been the type who doesn't get the desired results from surgery, so most of the surgeries I've had went badly, and I got help here too..
*I have a nose surgery scheduled at ㅁㅈ in a month, and it's my 5th re-re-re-revision, so if anyone has information about someone who got it done there, please let me know