“My surgeon says a neck lift alone won’t work, and I need a lower facelift. Is this a sales pitch?”
Written by Mark Domanski, MD
• Yes! Your surgeon will be able to charge more for a lower facelift + neck lift.
• No! Sometimes a patient’s aesthetic goals will not be achieved by just a neck lift.
When a facelift is the answer
Sometimes a facelift is the answer: I once had a patient who sought my help after a neck lift by another surgeon. She had unnatural bunching of the skin in front of the ears. I correctly talked her into a facelift, which redistributed the skin and solved the problem.
Patient-guided approach
Usually however, patients are happiest when they choose the surgery they want, not the surgery the doctor wants to do.
• Pull back at the skin under your ears: this is what a neck lift will treat.
• Pull back at the skin in front of your ears: that is what a facelift can do.
Tightening the vertical neck skin
In my practice patients who just hate their neck laxity or “turkey wattle” are not interested in a facelift. However, tightening the vertical neck skin without lifting the mid-face tissue can result in weird bunching around the ears.
For “turkey wattle” patients, I do an extended neck lift. I include a small incision in-front of the ear lobule which prevents bunching of the lower face skin. While some of my colleagues would argue that I am doing a lower facelift, to me this is like arguing if we should spell ‘color’ with a ‘u’ or not. The Brits spell it ‘colour.’ Both ways are correct.
Aesthetically Yours,
