Facial Plastic Surgery FAQs

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why did you become a facial plastic surgeon?

One of the most common ones I get is, why did I become a facial plastic surgeon and what is my true interest in it?  I can tell you that initially it was actually one specific patient when I was in training, who was in a car accident and had a lot of injuries to her face. I took part in the team that helped put her face back together.

It took about 11- or 12-hours’ worth of surgery.  And I had the privilege of seeing her about two years later and she looked fantastic, she looked normal again. That was really the first experience I had that really made me interested in people’s faces, doing reconstruction, and also just making everybody look better. During my training, I got a great train from great mentors.

I think having a great mentor really drove me to this particular specialty that I do now. And really, it’s about making people look as good as they feel on the inside. I feel like most of my patients are very active, successful, feel really good, but they just don’t feel like they look as good as they feel. So, it’s really about making everybody look as good as they feel, be representative on their face as to how their entire life is. And that’s truly one of the most important things about what I do. And that’s really what makes it most interesting for me.

How to deal with bruising after facial plastic surgery?

Anytime we use needles or do minor procedures here in the office, bruising is a possibility. While we make every effort to minimize any bruising from happening, it can still occur. Chalk it up to bad luck and just how the body works. We have some great tips for you in how to help minimize any bruising and make it go away more quickly:

Ice: Ice is your friend for the next couple of days. Ice for 5-10 minutes at a time (set a timer on your phone) and give yourself a 20 minute break in between. Do this as much you can, but it is not necessary to faithfully ice around-the-clock for the next couple of days.

Supplements: Arnica Montana and Pineapple Bromelain are supplements that you can find a most health food stores (e.g. Whole Foods, Natural Grocers) that help get rid of bruising faster. Grab a bottle and follow the directions on the back. Take them for one week.

Blood Thinners: Avoid taking the classic medications, herbals, and vitamins that are notorious for thinning your blood out and causing bruising. The usual suspects are aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), naproxen (Aleve), Vitamin E, fish oil, and garlic. After you have recovered, you can restart these products.

What can I do to really shorten my recovery time and get on my feet as soon as possible after surgery?

There are several different things that I think are a huge help to keep in mind.

1. The first tip, and I ask every patient this when they come to my office, is what herbal meds and vitamins are you taking and medications that thin your blood out? If you take any of those things that thin your blood out, stay off of them about two weeks ahead of your surgery, and continue to stay off about two weeks after.  If you can hold on those medications, your blood won’t be as thin, it tends to improve bruising and swelling, and that alone can really improve your recovery time and really shorten the time that you have to deal with those things after surgery.
2. Other things to keep in mind, great tips are to eat healthy. The better nutrition you have, the better your tissues heal over time, and while you should avoid any real strenuous activity for several weeks, you still don’t want to be a couch potato, you should get outside, do some walking, do some regular activities. Just moving around can really help your recovery period.
3. It’s also important to stay out of the sun as much as possible, or at the very least use sunscreen very regularly to avoid any extra sun damage to the area that’s been operated on.
4. And then finally, if you’re a smoker, you absolutely need to stop at least a month if not longer before your surgery. Smoking can really inhibit your body’s ability to heal and can really make it a huge problem after your surgery. So, I absolutely insist on anybody who smokes to stop at least a month ahead of time, and of course if you’re going to stop, try to stop for good. It’s always a great thing to do.

What is the mini recovery time facelift?

So the most popular procedure that I do is called the RT mini facelift. Now what exactly is that and what does it address? Well mini-RT stands for mini recovery time. It’s essentially a mini facelift and it addresses the jowls or the extra skin that form in this area. It’s a very common complaint that a lot of people have with facial aging. Now essentially the procedure takes all the best parts of a regular facelift and pairs it down so that the amount of surgery is less and therefore the amount of recovery time is less. The muscles of the face are still repositioned like a normal facelift in a higher position and that helps smooth out the angle of the jaw and really gets rid of the jowls in this region. The surgery is an outpatient procedure that can be done and you go home the same day and within a week you’re essentially ready to go fully recovered and feeling up to enjoy the results immediately.

What exactly is a neck lift?

As we age, the muscles of the neck that are nice and high and tight when we’re younger tend to start sagging and lose support as we age. This can be corrected with a neck lift, which essentially will reposition these muscles that can be visible in some people. Others will have some fullness under the chin they want removed. And these can all be addressed with a procedure that will essentially take the muscle of the neck and resuspend it in a higher, more posterior position. This helps smooth out this area very nicely, takes a lot of the skin laxity and the lines that you see in the neck and re-drape them so you have a nice, smoother appearance. This is commonly done in conjunction with a facelift. I think that they complement each other very nicely. And in the end, you can get two surgeries in one. Your recovery period is essentially the same. And in about 10 to 14 days, you can really start appreciating and enjoying a new, higher, tighter neck.

What does buccal fat removal do?

This is Dr. Kyle Yamamoto, answering your questions about buckle fat removal. It’s become a really common question that we’ve gotten in the practice. And really what is it and what does it do, right? Buckle fat is the fat that’s right here in the soft part of your cheek. And for people who are a little full in this area, they want to slim down the cheek in this area, which enhances the cheekbone, which is up higher. That procedure can be done in the office with local anesthetic. It’s done from inside the mouth. So, the incisions are not visible from the outside and carefully removing some of the fat in this soft part of the cheek area really enhances your cheek line and your overall face contour.

Is ear gauge repair possible?

So, one of the increasingly popular procedures here in the office is a repair of a gauged earlobe. Now, these are a result of increased size of ear gauges in the ear, which stretches the skin. And after the person no longer wants to use the ear gauges, they’re left with extra dangly skin along the earlobe that really disrupts the natural curvature of this part of the ear. Now, this procedure uses special techniques to reposition and remove some of the extra skin along the earlobe and soot your back into place to really recreate the earlobe that you had before the ear gauges.  This is a short procedure that can be done in the office under local anesthesia. Sutures are left in for a week and after that they’re removed, and you can enjoy the new shape of ear.

How can I get a natural facelift without surgery?

A very common question I get in my office is what is a liquid facelift or what is a non-surgical facelift. Essentially, the idea of a liquid facelift is using dermal filler, products of Juvederm or Restylane, to add volume in the right areas of the face. And if you do that in the right way, you can actually give the impression of a slight lift for your overall contour.

Now the way to think about it is to think of the cheeks and the chin as sort of high, full cheekbones. Your coat hanger holds up everything nice and high. As you lose volume in this area, the coat hanger starts to become less, and the skin will start to come down and droop inside in this area. If you can re-establish that nice volume in the cheeks here and here, rounding this up has the effect of helping lift some of the skin in the mid-face area, and gives you a nice liquid facelift kind of result. Done in the right way can be very subtle.

A lot of patients worry about having very large cheeks after this kind of procedure. It does not have to be that way. Just some subtle rounding in this area can do wonders for the contour face. It’s not an immediately obvious kind of look. It just makes you look younger with a little bit more of a lift.

Is there a non-surgical nose job option?

If you’ve ever thought about making changes to your nose, but are really not interested in surgery, we do have a non-surgical rhinoplasty option available now for certain issues, which is very nice. Essentially what we’ve done is we’ve taken the popular dermal fillers that we use in other parts of the face, and we can apply it in a similar fashion to the nose.  Essentially, small amounts of filler are injected very carefully in the nose to sculpt and shape it into your new form, and we can address specific complaints with it fairly nicely in the office in a short procedure. For example, if you have a little asymmetry in your nose that’s a little bit crooked, we can inject a little bit of filler on one side to even it out. If you have a bridge that’s low and flat and wide, we can build that up a little bit with some filler, augment that area, and increase the balance of the nose. If you have an area of a hump and you want that to be camouflaged with a little bit of filler, we can inject small amounts around it to really get rid of that hump and create a nice smoother appearance. These are some great examples as to what a non-surgical rhinoplasty can do. It’s a great short procedure that’s done in the office. You can enjoy the results immediately, and the filler injector nose lasts about a year, so you can enjoy it for quite a long time without having to go through the hassle going through surgery.

Are there good non-surgical options for the chin?

One of the very frequently asked questions we get in this practice is, are there good non-surgical options for the chin? And the answer is yes. One of the most popular things that’s become much more popular in the last few years is filler to the chin, which basically mimics a chin implant. So if you have a weak chin and you’d like a little more projection, very careful amounts of filler in this area can give you a little more prominent chin, which looks good in most people who want a better neck angle  and a better jaw contour. A really nice thing to do that you can do in the office.

What is the difference between Botox, Dysport and Xeomin?

So, most of us know what Botox is, but what is Xeomin and what is Dysport? I get these questions a lot in my office from patients and essentially what you need to know is that all three of these products are more or less the same but made by different companies. Botox, Xeomin and Dysport are all made of the botulinum toxin which is the key ingredient in these products, and they work basically the same way.

They weaken the muscles of the face to reduce the wrinkle formation. Now I like to offer all three of the products in my office. I think it is very much based on patient preference. They all work and last about the same amount of time, but one may work better for you than the other. So I like to offer all three. I think they’re all more or less equivalent and we can discuss when you come in which one is best.

What are the differences between laser treatments and radiofrequency microneedling?

This is Dr. Kyle Yamamoto, answering your questions about lasers and about radiofrequency microneedling. They’re very commonly mentioned together, but they are different.

So just to clarify the differences. Laser treatments, the most typical one is what I consider to be a laser peel, which helps peel off that top layer of more H sun damaged skin and you get a fresher layer of skin that can come to the surface. It’s a great treatment for your face, especially those who have spent a lot of years outside getting a lot of that sun exposure to the face.

Radiofrequency microneedling, or in our particular office, it’s called the Pixel 8, is a device that puts little microneedles into the skin. And then at the end of those needles, some energy, some radiofrequency energy is run between those needles and that helps heat up the collagen of the skin. And if you heat up collagen a little bit, you can get a little bit of skin tightening, which helps with smoothing of the skin overall. It’s not as intense as a laser treatment, but it is a safe treatment to use for your face, for your neck, and quite honestly, any other part of your body where you want to see smoothing, unless of that so-called crepiness of the skin. The nice thing about that particular procedure is there’s no limitations on your skin color or how much sun you get, and the downtime is relatively short compared to a laser. Now, since they both do different things, it depends on what you’re looking for.  So, if you come and talk to me for a consultation, we can decide really what works best for you.