Preparation before and recovery after your deep plane facelift surgery with Dr. Naderi

Okay, so we're ready. You have planned and planned and researched and seen surgeons and done your consultation, and now you've decided you're going to get your facelift, your deep plane facelift, your facial rejuvenation, whether it's combined with brow lift, forehead lift, eye lifts, fat injections, whatever. But we're going to focus on the facelift part. It's exciting. It's also nerve-wracking. You're nervous, you're excited, you got all that stuff going on. But how do you prepare And make sure that you get a smooth recovery, lower the risk of complications, and heal faster. Let's talk about this. Going into surgery, you want to prepare the skin. If you've done nothing ever to your skin your entire life— no Botox, no fillers, no skincare, no chemical peels, no lasers, no Retin-A, nothing— well, your results may not last as long as somebody who has. The skin has to be elastic. It has to be stimulated. So if you've not done it before, you definitely need to do it after. You can't just rely on getting a facelift and think it's going to last many years. It doesn't. You have to make sure that you're constantly doing things to stimulate collagen, elastin, rejuvenate the skin. If you've got time between now that you're watching this video and the surgery date, You can do some of that stuff, especially skincare, microneedling, etc. Don't do things that creates more work for me as your surgeon. Don't put Sculptra in your face. Don't put Radiesse in your face, hyperdilute or whatever. Don't put threads in your face. That makes my work more difficult. I gotta run across things that make the surgery more difficult. But microneedling on the outside, Doing skincare, light chemical peels, light laser treatments, Retin-A, retinols. There are also products. Elastin, the skincare line Elastin, has a product called Skin Nectar. It's a fantastic product, improves skin elastin fibers. Retin-A improves collagen. So those are the things that you can do going into surgery. Make sure you're not tanned, sunburned. You don't want to show up to surgery sunburned and Damage your skin. Don't do that. Make sure there's nothing else going on—rashes, etc., allergic reactions. Make sure you're healthy for surgery. Going into surgery, you want to be avoiding sick people, especially if you're flying into surgery, flying in from a different state, country for surgery to see me. Wear a mask in the plane. You don't want to arrive here and get sick. If you have allergies and it's allergy season, wear a mask. Take some Zyrtec. Take some Allegra, make sure you're on top of that. Skin has to be prepped. For men, you want to be cleanly shaved. Typically, I tell you shave about 2 days before surgery. If you have a beard like me, any type of facial hair, you want that shaved, but about 2 days before surgery. Don't shave the morning of surgery. I want to see the hairline but not have a full thick beard. For women, you really don't want to have Hairpieces, whether it's weaves or braids or extensions, etc. You want the face to be very clean for surgery. We want to minimize risk of infection. Hair bears bacteria. We want this to not be there. Get your labs done. See your primary care doctor. Get your EKG checked. Make sure you're healthy for surgery. If your medications need to be addressed, do it. We want low blood pressure going into surgery, morning of surgery. Even if you have a little white coat syndrome, we want to make sure blood pressure is low. And especially the week or 2 or 3 after surgery, we want to maintain low blood pressure. If you increase your blood pressure, especially in men, you can get a hematoma. You go to the bathroom and strain, you can get a hematoma. So pick up some stool softener, pick up some Colace. I don't want you in the bathroom straining, especially if you've been taking medications such as antibiotics or Pain medicine can give you constipation, so pick up some stool softener. Pick up all of your prescriptions well ahead of surgery. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this happen where patients, night of surgery, 10 o'clock at night, tell me, oh, I don't have my antibiotic, I don't have my pain medicine. We tell them, this is why we do everything ahead of time, well ahead of time. Pick it up, open the bag, confirm that you received everything. A lot of times pharmacies will just staple the bag, give it to you, And if you haven't opened it, if they didn't have a product in stock, they may not have told you. Night of surgery, I don't want you to be there without pain medicine, without your necessary medication. So confirm it, do your homework, be anal, take notes. I have very thorough pre- and post-op instructions. It's on our website. Go to our website, we'll print it to you, give it to you, but it's also on the website in case you lose it. I also have this video you can refer to and watch it. So those are the things you want to be thinking about. No nicotine in your system. If you're a smoker, at least, at least 2 weeks before surgery, you need to quit smoking. And that means no nicotine, no vaping, no gums, no patches, nothing. I am not— I don't know how else to say this. Your skin will die. If you have exposed yourself to nicotine, no matter what the source is, your skin may die. And And slough off. It's terrible. You cannot be lying to yourself or to your surgeon. You must be off of these products at least two weeks. It's much better if it's longer. A month is even better. So do that. The night before surgery, no eating, no drinking after midnight. You want an empty stomach. If you've been taking a GLP one, such as Ozempic or Manjaro, Zepan, etc. Talk to anesthesia because typically we say no eating or drinking about midnight, but for those patients this may be longer. It's best to stop your GLP-1 shots medications at least 2 weeks before surgery because it delays gastric emptying and you may aspirate. So skip those doses. You can get started back again after surgery, but before surgery for at least 2 weeks, maybe 3 to 4 weeks. Maybe up to a month, stop the GLP-1s. This is not the time, first of all, to be dieting. I don't want you losing muscle mass or fat anyway right now. You could deal with that later, but you should be at your target weight anyway. If you think about it, I don't want you to have a facelift and then go lose 15, 20, 30 pounds or more. Things will sag again. So you have to be questioning yourself, what's the right timing of this? I'm gonna go through the rest of this stuff. Accutane is another big one. Isotretinoin, Accutane, you cannot be on it for at least 6 to 12 months. If you took your last dose 3 months ago, this is not the time for facelift. You have to have at least 6 months break between your last dose and your surgery date. Day of surgery, night of surgery, the night before, really good shower. Really good shower, throw everything off. Morning of, another one, really good shower. No mascara, no makeup, no lotion, no sunscreen, nothing. I want you to be perfectly clean. No piercings, no earrings, nose rings, none of that stuff. Perfectly clean. You want to reduce infection. My goal is to reduce infection, so you must be perfectly clean. Not just your face and your hair, your body, everything. Again, that's why no weaves, No braids, no extensions, no eyelash extensions. Again, you don't have to take eyelash extensions off, for example, but I wouldn't go doing a new set right before surgery because it'll get damaged. Make sure again you're perfectly clean. I would say reset back to factory conditions. That's what you want to do. You want to reset yourself back to factory settings. None of that extra stuff on you. I'm going to go through the rest of it. Um, make sure you have somebody with you. If you don't have somebody with you, arrange it with our office. You cannot take an Uber back home. You have to be with a responsible adult. The Uber driver is not going to do it. You have to be with a responsible adult. We do have car service. We do have nursing service. We can arrange all that for you, but it has to be prearranged. If you're coming out of town, I have a lot of patients from out of town. Make sure you do these arrangements, hotel arrangements, everything. Night of surgery, you're not going to feel amazing. Really, for the first week or so, 2 weeks, you're not going to feel amazing. You may actually not be in pain, but just psychologically, you look yourself in the mirror like, what the heck did I do to myself? You may look quite disturbing to yourself, especially if you've done more stuff. You add a brow lift, eyelid lift, laser resurfacing. And it gets more considerably swollen, bruised, concerning. So make sure you're mentally prepared for that. I always tell patients, for 3 to 4 weeks, you don't want to leave the house to go grocery shopping, and for about 3 months, you're not going to feel like you want to show up to a cousin's wedding. It really takes 4 to 6 months before you look amazing. But month after month, week after week, it'll get better and better and better. Sometimes it could be like bumps in the road. Sometimes it could be some setbacks, fluid collection, little hematomas, minor infections, salivary fluid collection, subtle asymmetries. There's always things that can happen. Subtle weakness to certain nerve branches. These things are to be expected with this extent of surgery. Just be mentally ready for it. We're going to take this journey together. I'm there with you every step of the way, but you got to be there with me as well. So I think we've covered most of the stuff. After surgery, the name of the game is relax. Sleeping elevated, make yourself comfortable. You're not gonna lay flat. The night of surgery, you'll have a big dressing on. The next morning, I'll see you. We'll take that off. Sometimes you have a drain. Sometimes you don't have a drain. Sometimes you'll have these stitches called hemostatic net. Stitches, those may come off 2 to 3 days later. Sometimes you don't have them. Incision care is important. The most important thing is do not snag your ear, so you want to wear button-down and zip-down shirts. You don't want something changing because it can snag your ear. Never pull your ear forward. I don't care if you have to look behind it, feel behind it, never pull it forward. You don't want to be messing with your ears for the first month or so after surgery. Those are the important things. Thank you. There's a lot more stuff in these. There's a lot more instructions. They are very thorough. Go through them. I want you to go through them. I am very picky about preparing you for your deep plane facelift, about preparing for your endo brow lift, about preparing for your fat injections, eyelid lift, face CO2 laser resurfacing, your overall aging face rejuvenation. I'm very anal about it. I change your diet before surgery. 2 weeks before surgery, I'm We're going to get rid of all the ingredients that make you bleed and bruise more. Nuts, seeds, supplements, omega-3s, seafood, ginger, garlic, turmeric, avocados, olive oil— all of that makes you bleed more. I want that out of your system. No supplements, no fish oil, no aspirin, no Motrin, none of that stuff. Nothing herbal. All of that goes out of your system because it makes you bleed more, makes you bleed during surgery. The surgery can take almost 2 hours longer if you bleed more. So please, please, please read my instructions, highlight them, whatever you got to do. They're there for a reason. It's important. Anyway, this is exciting. I don't want you to be nervous. I want you to be excited, but I want you to be prepared. Do your preparation, and I look forward to taking years off your face. Have a good one.