Full Lifting

For whom ?

It is intended for men and women whose face features are highly marked.

Aims

A full lifting aims at correcting aging symptoms in their totality. It combines frontal andtemporal lifting (upper part of the face) with cervical-facial lifting (the two thirds of the lower part):

• The frontal lifting re-stretches the muscles of the forehead and lifts the eyelids.
• Temporal lifting opens the sight by repositioning the eyelids and by removing the wrinkles from the goose step.
• The cervical-facial lifting corrects the slackening of the face and the neck.
• Full lifting is often associated with an eyelid blepharoplasty, a fat injection in the nasal-genial furrows, or even in the lips, to recreate volume where the face starts to become hollow. The precise type of operation to be carried out depends on the degree of deterioration that is effectively present, on what we can do for you and the technical possibilities: thus a full face lifting in 3 steps is an operation that remedies most problems, but the surgical consequences will be equally longer for a simpler lifting. It is in the end the discussion that you have with your surgeon that will allow the finding of the most adapted move in your particular case.

Before the operation

Your medical examinations

Between one week and one month prior to your operation, you must make an appointment with a medical tests laboratory in order to undergo a full pre-surgical check-up. The tests results must be sent to us (by fax, or by e-mail) so that they can be seen and read by our anesthetist doctor. Depending on the test results, other examinations may be required. If you are unable to carry out your examinations before your departure to Tunisia, there is always a possibility to do that on the spot, the day before the operation. It must be known that if there is a contra-indication to your operation, the anesthetist doctor has the right to put off or cancel the operation. No medication containing aspirin should be taken at least 10 days before the operation. You must mention any type of medication you may have taken. It is essential that you refrain from eating, drinking, and smoking for 8 hours before the operation.

With regard to your luggage, you must bring sunglasses, one or two scarves (to cover the bruises), a hat or cap, and full sun block cream.

Getting ready for the operation

You will be taken to your clinic the night of the operation, the time to get settled in your room, to take a shower if needed and to meet with the medical team: your surgeon, the anesthetist doctor, and all the health care staff. The operation takes place the following morning. Very often, the night before the operation, the nurses will give you a kind of pre-medication in the form of a light tranquilizer to make sure that slightly anxious patients to face the operation with more fortitude. You will be given a hair wash the night of the operation and a careful removal of make-up will be carried out the day of the operation.

Type of anesthesia

Full lifting is undertaken under full anesthesia.

Duration of hospitalization

3 nights

Total duration of your stay in Tunisia

8 nights/9 days

Operation

Muscles reinstated in a state of tension in order to correct their slackening.

The skin is then re-draped on request over the new curves, without excessive traction. This double action allows a natural, long-lasting result, with-post-surgical consequence that is generally simple (scars on the skin “less visible” because very little traumatized, as a result of tension and limited ungluing).

Potential fat extra padding can be treated by liposuction. On the contrary, if the face is emaciated, this feature can be corrected at the same time through a fat re-injection (lipofilling).

Thus the face and the neck are thus re-built, restructured. The necessary skin incisions will be mostly covered by hair (at the level of the temples and the back of the neck) and around the ears.

The scar is thus almost entirely hidden.

Duration of the operation

The duration of full lifting varies according to each case, 2 hours 30 minutes on average.

After the operation

After the operation medical team will take you back to your room, where you will start recovering your senses. You will have a bandage all around your head (cap), that will make it difficult for you to wear optical glasses, or use the phone. This bandage will be removed the day following the operation. It is equally frequent to have a perfusion in the 24 hours following the operation, this contains analgesic substances and tranquilizers to ease pain if ever and increase your comfort.

Post surgical consequences

During the first days, you must not feel surprised, or feel worries:

• about edema (swelling) that may be slightly more accented the second day than the first,
• also because of ecchymoses (blue in color) in the neck and chin area,
• and perhaps from a feeling of painful tension, mainly behind the ears, and around the neck.

These ecchymoses and edema generally disappear within 2 weeks following the operation.

At the end of the first month, the swelling will practically disappear. But there remains a slight mark of the unglued areas, more palpable than visible. The ears will only recover their usual sensitiveness after one or two months later. The scars in front and in the back will be hidden behind the hair. The only area that is slightly visible, before the ear, can be temporarily masked through make-up or a particular hair style. For men, growing a beard may serve as a natural way of disguise, hiding.

Results

After two to three months, we can have an idea of the final outcome. But the scars are still slightly pink and somehow marked and will only be extenuated around the sixth month.

Complications

Cases of bruises, infections, phlebitis, anemia or asthenia are rare and seem rather an exception.

Work interruption

There is no need for interrupting the work: the recovery stay spent in Tunisia following the operation is very beneficial and enables most of our patients to resume their professional activities as soon as they return home.

Fees

The fees required for a full lifting varies immensely depending on the patients, the condition of their skin, and their age, etc. They usually start at 2700 Euros..