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Dr. Shaw explains how a facelift procedure is performed.
Dr. Shaw:
Facelifts are performed by moving skin structures, muscle structures to higher positions, and if you look at the face here, there’s skin incisions because there’s a skin lift that’s performed. The incisions of a facelift usually come into the temporal area here, hug the top of the ear, go inside this part of the ear called the tragus so it’s hidden, right out the notch, around the, behind the ear and then straight back into the hairline.
A deeper structure called the SMAS, or the Superficial Muscular Aponeurotic System, SMAS is a lot easier, that structure is on the inside and that is actually lifted separately from the skin. It is lifted up and back and in lot of cases I create this flap of the SMAS which is rotated as a postauricular flap that now sits back here in the position that it really helps pull the neck.
In addition, the bands under the neck are usually a problem and with age they tend to separate causing those bands that we often see and what a platysmaplasty is performed, or a corset platysmaplasty, because these two bands are put together in the midline like a corset to eradicate these muscle bands and tightening the neck structure. So by the platysmaplasty, the SMAS lift, and the skin lift, you can get a very natural result.
The natural result comes from the inner work with this SMAS lift and the platysmaplasty, the skin is not pulled tight and if you use the inner structures to do the lifting, then you won’t get that typical type facelift look.
Dr. Shaw, M.D.:
Dr. Lawrence Shaw, M.D., was born on Long Island, New York in 1954 where he lived through High School. He did his undergraduate studies at Emory University and received his medical degree from New York Medical College in 1979. Dr. Shaw then completed a five-year General Surgery residency and was board certified by the American Board of Surgery.
Dr. Shaw is a double-boarded Plastic Surgeon, which required 7 years of surgical training alone. Since completing his plastic surgery residency training at the Phoenix Integrated Plastic Surgery Residency in 1986, Dr. Shaw has performed thousands of plastic surgery operations. He is certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, the only board recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties to certify doctors in Plastic Surgery. Dr. Shaw is also certified by the American Board of Surgery. He is a member of regional and national medical societies including the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) and he American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.