Dr. David Santos is a double board certified facial plastic surgeon in the Seattle Washington area. He has an exceptional level of skill and experience. Dr. Santos has performed more than 4,000 facelifts and a total of 10,000 facial surgeries over a career spanning more than two decades.
If you’re overweight, losing weight is one of the healthiest things you can do. Weight loss can lower your risk of cardiac disease, reduce your chance of developing adult-onset diabetes, improve blood glucose control for those with Type-2 diabetes, decrease sleep apnea symptoms, lower metabolic syndrome factors, produce a drop in blood pressure and increase your energy level.
But those health benefits often come at a cost to the appearance of your face and neck. Losing 20 or more pounds can make your figure look great. But it can also cause your face and neck to sag, making you look older and more worn. Bariatric (weight loss) surgery especially can result in a significant drop in weight, but can also leave you with a lot of loose skin on your arms, neck and face.
Peggy, a patient of mine, succeeded in reaching her weight loss goal. But, as the pounds started to come off, she saw more of a change in the mirror than she expected:
“After you lose 20 pounds you start to notice it, she said. “I ended up with a turkey neck” (with a lot of loose skin). “You try to hide it with a turtleneck, but that doesn’t really work. It looked bad.”
I’m glad we were able to help. Peggy had a neck lift and a procedure to firm her lower face and jaw. It was all done under a local anesthetic, an approach experts call the safest method available. Afterwards she said, “I love what they’ve done to me. I don’t look tired anymore. People say to me, “Peggy, you look good.” They haven’t noticed I had anything done.”
Those who exert themselves to exercise, resist temptations, eat less and lose weight deserve to look good all over. Asked what she would say to women who find themselves looking older after weight loss, Peggy said:
Do it for yourself. We women don’t take care of ourselves as we should. And even when we do, we deserve to treat ourselves well.
Patients who accomplish a substantial weight loss like Peggy find that for them a facelift produces the best results. It brings their face into proportion with their leaner body. Those who lose less weight may see improvement by using advanced non-surgical treatments. But for those who lose 30 pounds or more, there really is no substitute today for a facelift and neck lift.
So if you’re contemplating the substantial advantages of losing weight, especially if you’re planning bariatric surgery, consider the benefits of tightening the sagging skin that will result. The leaner, more attractive body weight loss can bring will look even better on you if it’s accompanied by a younger looking, more attractive face and neck. You may well find that weight loss will make you feel better. A facelift can make you look as good as you feel.
Speaking about her face and neck lift, Peggy said:
I look like a totally different person, which is cool. A guy told me the other day, “Peggy, you look like you’re 35 or 40” (I’m 65). It makes you feel better about yourself.
