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| pre and post op picture of patient who underwent face lift under local anesthesia and concious sedation. | |
This is truly the best way to perform a face-lift. The patients recover faster. There is less nausea and vomiting from heavy sedation or general anesthesia, therefore less bruising and swelling. There is only one requirement you have to know how to pick the right patient for this procedure and know how to give an efficient effective local anesthesia. The sedation is secondary and plays a supportive role. The key to the procedure is the knowledge of the anatomy and the sensory nerve distribution of the face. This knowledge allows me to anesthetize the face with fewer injections and make the patient more comfortable.
As far as picking the right patient 70 t0 80 % of my patients chose this procedure rather than getting general anesthesia or heavy sedation by an anesthesiologist. This has become a specialty for me and about 20% of my patients are ecstatic when they learn that I offer this option. I like the fact that the patient is awake and can cooperate with me. For example they can hold their head to one side and stay still. They can open their eye, lookup and open their mouth when I do the lower lid and remove the excess skin. This allows me to remove the exact amount of skin without over resection. Once the operation has started and the patient realizes that they don’t feel anything and they are comfortable, they totally relax. We typically use intravenous sedation and a pain medicine to prevent anxiety and take the edge out of the slight pain of injections. We often have interesting conversation with the patient. This make the time pass faster. Good relaxing music is also part of the experience. Sometime patients tell us that they had a good time. Saving on the anesthesia fees is another side benefit.
Of course if the patient likes to be totally unconscious during the injection of the local anesthetic, we would have an anesthesiologist present. We would also use an anesthesiologist if the patient has any medical condition like high blood pressure that needs control during anesthesia. This is also a better option for patients who are supper anxious and have a hard time relaxing. Call us if you have any other question about this blog. We would be happy to talk to you and explain anything that is not clear.