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Home » Is Facelift Surgery Painful?

Is Facelift Surgery Painful?

06/14/2022 by DR. ANDREW JACONO

A middle aged woman looking at herself in the mirror.

One big question that a lot of people ask when they’re considering facial plastic surgery is: does a facelift hurt? Often, people will see photos of someone who has had a recent facelift and be afraid of the bruises—they look painful. But the truth is that there’s surprisingly little pain after a facelift. 

Yes, there likely will be bruising and discoloration at first in the face and neck, and tenderness accompanies the bruising. But it is merely a swollen feeling. Rarely does a patient feel pain at the incision sites. Some patients have said that they have a heavy feeling in their face, but this is due to the swelling, and it will go away.

If you have staples or stitches for the small incisions, the doctor will remove them usually within a week. In some cases, there will be a drain to remove any fluid. Dr. Jacono will give you care instructions for the drain and when it can be removed. 

How Long Does It Take to Recover from a Facelift?

Facelift recovery varies from person to person and depends on the surgery. In general, however, this is the timeline for a traditional facelift.

On the day after surgery, you likely will be told to wear a bandage that will feel very snug around your chin. It is a tight bandage, but it is not constrictive. Rather, it will feel more like a sock around your foot. The bandage will reduce the swelling and help you heal faster (and make any pain go away sooner). 

The bruising may last one to two weeks, but you should only feel pain for two to four days. Treatment is almost always over-the-counter pain medication. Usually, ibuprofen is all that is needed.

Returning to work is up to the individual, but generally, you can go back after ten to fourteen days. By that point, most of the swelling will be gone, and any lasting discoloration can easily be covered with makeup. 

The recovery time for the entire healing process will be about four to six weeks, though it may take longer—up to three or four months—before you get the full view of what the facelift’s final results will be. 

How Painful Is a Mini Facelift?

Because a mini facelift is less invasive and requires fewer incisions than a full facelift, it will be less painful and have a shorter recovery time. The pain for mini facelift patients will be very mild, and the swelling will be significantly reduced. Any pain should be gone in two to four days. 

When Is the Best Age to Get a Facelift?

Facelifts are most often done for people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, for both men and women. As the facelift is meant to tighten the skin, it is therefore reserved for people who have loose skin. This means people who have fine lines and wrinkles. In almost all cases, a facelift is not needed for someone below the age of thirty. 
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Mission Statement

Doctor Jacono’s desire to become a facial plastic surgeon was solidified in grade school. There was a girl on his school bus route who was born with a cleft lip and palate deformity. Unfortunately, whenever she spoke, air and words escaped through her nose. Kids teased her and were cruel, and nobody would sit next to her on the bus, so he decided to sit with her. One day, the girl had plastic surgery and returned to school with her face repaired. Suddenly, classmates saw her face instead of her deformity and immediately treated her normally. It was at that moment that Doctor Jacono knew he wanted to fix people’s faces and change their lives. This is why he has gone on over twenty plastic surgery missions to poor countries around the world and provided free cleft lip and surgery for birth defects to over 500 children.

Because of this experience in his childhood, Doctor Jacono understands that one of our basic needs as human beings is to feel confident about our appearance. It’s is Doctor Jacono’s passion to help his patients achieve their facial aesthetic goals, creating natural appearing results to either enhance their beauty and proportion or rejuvenate their aging appearance. He is a world-renowned leader in the field of facial plastic surgery and only performs surgery on the face, not the body. He has innovated many facelift, eyelid lift, and rhinoplasty surgical techniques, publishing in leading peer reviewed literature and lecturing at plastic surgery conferences all over the world. He is committed to sharing what he has learned teaching surgeons from around the world.

His approach is to maintain your uniqueness and facial identity; it is still you just better. To do this he uses a customized, bespoke approach to each patient employing the most minimally invasive, innovative, and cutting-edge technology. Doctor Jacono has never performed the same procedure on any two of the thousands of patients he has treated. He is committed to providing his surgical expertise in a caring, supportive environment with a professional staff that has you as their focus and concern.