As you age, gravity’s tug can pull down your eyelids, eyebrows, and forehead,making them sag and display a tired or scowling expression that doesn’t accurately communicate who you are or what you’re feeling. Fortunately, a brow lift allows you to counter gravity’s pull, helping you look younger and feel refreshed.
Dr. Dustin Heringer of Arizona Ocular & Facial Plastic Surgery, with offices in Scottsdale and Peoria, Arizona, understands how hard it can be to look in the mirror and see a drooping face that doesn’t reflect who you are. He uses brow lift surgery to reverse some of the more visible signs of aging. The procedure involves raising the soft tissue around your brows and smoothing out wrinkled skin on your forehead and the area surrounding your eyes.
Brow lifts can be performed as a stand-alone procedure, or you can combine it with other treatments, like a blepharoplasty (eyelid lift), to restore the entire upper portion of your face. No matter what your choice, Dr. Heringer takes an artistic approach that gives you natural-looking results with minimal scarring.
There are three basic types of brow lifts.
The coronal lift was once the industry standard, but it’s fallen out of favor as less-invasive procedures have become available. It’s still used in some cases, though, to help meet a patient’s desired aesthetic results.
The procedure uses a single, long incision made just behind the hairline and reaching from ear to ear. Dr. Heringer removes excess skin, fat, and tissue and repositions the brow muscles and remaining skin to confer a more youthful appearance.
When you’re also getting blepharoplasty, this procedure is the one most commonly used. Dr. Heringer makes one-inch incisions behind the hairline and just above each temple, then lifts and repositions the outer brow tissue through these small incisions.
Finally, working through the incisions he makes for the upper eyelid blepharoplasty, he lifts the area between the eyebrows to smooth out worrisome frown lines.
Dr. Heringer uses this procedure most frequently, and now it’s the go-to choice for brow lift surgery in general because it’s less invasive than the other two techniques but still gives good results.
Dr. Heringer makes several very small incisions (each about ¾”-long) just behind the hairline to minimize visible scars. Then, using a miniature camera (endoscope) inserted just under the skin, as well as very thin instruments, he repositions the muscles and lifts the underlying forehead tissue, at the same time removing excess fat and tissue.
No matter which type of brow lift you receive, Dr. Heringer closes the incisions with a few sutures or staples, which are generally removed about one week following surgery.
Because Dr. Heringer opts for the endoscopic technique whenever possible, your brow lift surgery, and your recovery time, are short compared with the other procedures.
Brow lifts are performed at an outpatient surgery center, and you’ll receive either general anesthesia or intravenous sedation with local anesthesia, depending on what the doctor feels is best for you. How long you’re out depends on whether Dr. Heringer is performing just the brow lift or also another procedure at the same time.
While you can expect to feel some discomfort after the anesthesia wears off, and some tightness in the forehead area, you shouldn’t experience much pain. You can also expect to have some swelling and bruising, but they should start to fade away about 10 days after the surgery and be gone after about two weeks.
What you’re left with is a wrinkle-free brow, and a welcoming, eyes-wide-open expression that conveys warmth, alertness, and a sense of youth. It’s still you, just better.
If your heart drops every time you get a glimpse of your drooping brow, we can help with that. Contact Arizona Ocular & Facial Plastic Surgery by calling our nearest office.
