We continue to have great success with plastic surgery procedures under local anesthesia and this is becoming a specialty of ours. To perform this type of anesthesia successfully, the surgeon has to have experience in the field block anesthesia and have an in depth knowledge of the local anatomy. Patient selection is critical, as there are patients who may not be ideal candidates. The patients need to get a perfect bill of health from their internist or cardiologist. The blood pressure has to be normal or perfectly controlled. The patient has to be emotionally stable and be able to handle some minor discomfort during the administration of the local anesthesia. When in doubt, an anesthesiologist is engaged for the procedure. Of course we never make this type of anesthesia mandatory and patients have the choice of anesthesia for any cosmetic procedure. Today 90 percent of our patients for facelift, forehead lift, and eyelid surgery choose this type of anesthesia and almost all of them report a great satisfaction with their choice.
The advantages are numerous:
1) Better control during surgery: this is especially obvious for blepharoplasty operations where the patient is asked to open her mouth and her eyes and look up during surgery, in order to determine how much skin can safely be removed. Local anesthesia with moderate intravenous sedation is also useful during facelift surgery when the patient can maintain head position.
2) Faster recovery and discharge from the surgery center or the hospital. The patient is typically taken to the second stage recovery where he or she can sit in a lounge chair and be given something to eat or drink prior to discharge.
3) Less nausea and vomiting: there are less sedatives and narcotic pain medicines administered during this kind of surgery, therefore there is less nausea and vomiting. Vomiting after a face lift or eyelid surgery could increase the incidence of bleeding and can cause more bruising and swelling.
4) Less expensive for the patients: there are very few occasions in life when something better is less expensive, but this is one such occasion. Because there is no need for an anesthesiologist, there are no anesthesia fees involved.
5) additional safety. In these cases the surgeon and the monitoring nurse have to be certified for advanced cardiac life support. Dr Rafizadeh constantly maintains his certification in ACLS and repeats the required examinations every other year as required by law.
For further information about plastic surgery under local anesthesia in New Jersey, please contact our office at 973 2670928