Next, the tissue between the arms of the threads is bluntly dissected with a sharp-point dissector. The technique is similar to that used with a liposuction cannula. "The beauty of it is that when you do that, you're now creating a biplane face-lift … so that when you lift that skin, you're basically moving the top plane over the bottom plane," Dr. Mandy said. In addition, the tissue healing process occurs all along the "giant flap" of skin.
Finally, the tissue is contoured by basically "walking" the tissue up the threads. The wider the U-bend of the double thread, the better the thread will stay in place.
With the single threads, one end is threaded through a straight needle while the anchoring end is threaded through a curved needle. The curved needles are used to "bite" the fascia, to hold the thread. "The beauty of those is that they really anchor the fascia," he said.
The barbs of the suture will grab gauze, so dental cotton rolls are used around the exit and entry points. After the procedure, Dr. Mandy trims the threads and tapes them in place. This way, he can recorrect if necessary in the first 72 hours.
He uses a chin strap for moderate support and lots of ice postoperatively. He also has patients take 20 mg of prednisone that night and again the next morning. "That greatly reduces facial swelling," he said
Although a thread lift is not a surgical procedure, there is still considerable recovery time involved. "This is not a weekend face-lift. These patients have to anticipate [that it will be] 1 week before they look relatively normal," Dr. Mandy noted.
Don't be concerned if patients look weird with rolls of excess skin immediately after the procedure. "The worse they look post-op, the better they're going to look a month later," he said.
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