Does a Deep Plane Facelift Surgery Hurt?

This video explains the pain and sensation experiences associated with deep plane facelift surgery, including what patients typically feel before, during, and after the operation. It also discusses the psychological effects some patients may experience in the first week of recovery.

Transcript:

For something called a deep plane facelift, it sounds very intense and it might sound like it could hurt. Can you tell us about the procedure, and I mean, does it hurt before or after? Can you tell us about this process?

That’s a very good question. The short answer to that is it does not hurt much at all. In fact, most patients are surprised that rather than pain they have numbness. During the surgery, it is done under general anaesthesia, so you’ll be completely asleep and completely pain-free.

Once you wake up, there will be the impact of the painkillers that you will be given, so you will be numb. A day or two after the surgery, you will be more aware of the numbness on your face and neck area rather than pain. So there isn’t any sharp pain in any area at all. Some patients experience a dull ache, particularly above their ear or behind the ear, but the face and the neck area itself remains completely numb or mostly numb rather than in pain.

As the sensation comes back over the next few weeks to months, they will experience a bit of tingling around their face and neck area as the nerves regrow. For the sensory nerves to the skin to regrow, but do not worry about having pain. It is not a painful surgery. In fact, it is more comfortable than having, for example, your tooth extracted.
That’s reassuring, so there is no real sharp pain and you don’t have to worry about that. Then there’s numbness, which makes sense because your skin nerves need to regrow, which is an interesting thing in and of itself.

Is there any psychological sort of pain or discomfort that you would say patients have during the process?

Deep plane facelift surgery, like any other surgery, can have some psychological impact. Not just for deep plane surgery—if you undergo any surgery which is over three to four hours under general anaesthesia, it can make you feel tired sometimes. It can make you slightly swollen in your face and, coupled with the grogginess that comes with general anaesthesia and the tightness that results after any long surgery, many patients feel out of their comfort zone for the first week.

The best way to help them through this is to make sure they keep hydrated and keep walking within their degree of comfort. By the end of a week, you are back to normal.
Depending on your mental attitude before the surgery, your psychological recovery can take some time. We actually give our patients a graph that depicts the psychological journey after a major surgery, which helps them come to terms with the experience because they are aware of the psychological cycle before the surgery itself. This helps with recovery.

Overall, the key thing to remember is that it is not a painful surgery. There is a degree of recovery involved within the first week, but by the end of the week you should expect yourself to be where you were before the surgery.

We’ve got something fun for you. We have a quiz below that will help you to understand whether a deep plane facelift or other techniques surrounding the face might be right for you. So take a moment, have some fun, and take the quiz below.