Procedure Description:

When Can I Return to Work After a Deep Plane Facelift? Lisa’s Timeline, Day by Day

Most of my patients ask me this question before they ask most others: When can I go back to a meeting? When can I get on a plane? When can I stand in front of a room of strangers? With a deep plane facelift, I tell patients they’ll probably need two weeks before makeup can hide what remains, and more like three weeks before they feel like themselves in a room of strangers.

Lisa, 66, travels and works long hours. She’s a good example of this curve. Five days after her surgery she had some bruising and swelling, but she could already see a difference. Twelve days after her deep plane face and neck lift, lower blepharoplasty and laser resurfacing, she still had some swelling in her jaw and neck, but much less than she’d had before surgery. By day 15, she returned to her busy work schedule. Most people won’t feel completely finished with final healing, but they will feel ready to face the world.

As you can see in these 3 months before and after photos, she’d fully healed, she told me, as have many patients, that for the first time she looked on the outside like she felt on the inside. If you picture the healing process like remolding your kitchen, in the first moth it looks not so good, but once it is completed you will enjoy having a wonderful meal and love it.

Most of my patients go back to work at their desk within two weeks. They’re ready to walk for a mile in the early weeks, then gradually longer exercises, and full extraneous exercises in 8 weeks.