An endoscopic face lift is a type of plastic surgery offered as an option to a traditional face lift. This surgery is intended to give the patient a younger-looking appearance without requiring the long incisions and potential scarring of a traditional face lift. Endoscopic face lifts also carry less risk of facial nerve damage. They are often used for patients who want to improve the appearance of a particular part of their faces, don’t have a lot of skin sagging, and have only moderate imperfections.
Endoscopic face lift surgery is sometimes referred to as scarless. The procedure isn’t really scarless, but it’s called that because a surgeon may only create a few incisions to perform it, and each cut is usually less than one inch long. Though these cuts can leave scars, they are usually placed in inconspicuous locations, such as above the patient’s hairline. This allows the patient to experience an improved appearance without having noticeable scars.
An individual may undergo an endoscopic face lift to fix such things as sagging cheek tissues and deep creases or folds around the nose. It can also be used to fix tissue that turns downward around a person’s mouth. It can even lift sagging skin around the eyebrows and frown lines that have formed above the patient’s eye area.
To perform this procedure, a surgeon makes a few small incisions and inserts a device equipped with a tiny camera into one of them. Using the images the camera produces as his guide, he places small surgical instruments into the other incisions he made on the patient’s face. He then proceeds to remove fat and reshape the muscles and tissues of the face in order to meet the patient’s goals for the surgery.
Patients who opt for endoscopic face lifts do not need general anesthesia, which renders the patient unconscious for the procedure, or hospitalization. The surgery is typically performed with only local anesthesia to numb the areas on which the surgeon will work. The surgery is performed on an outpatient basis, which means the patient can usually go home soon after the procedure.
Following an endoscopic face lift, patients may experience some bleeding and swelling. However, this is usually minimal and much less than what is expected with a regular face lift. Recovery times are usually faster with endoscopic procedures, and the patient may return to her normal activities within about a week of surgery.
