How to Maintain Your Plastic Surgery Results: Advice from Dallas Plastic Surgeons
So you just had plastic surgery to correct or enhance your features—now what? We may be the first to tell you this, but your plastic surgery transformation does not end when we remove the stitches! You’ve taken the time and money to invest in yourself, and now you must continue that investment to maintain your results.
At Southlake Plastic Surgery, our Dallas Plastic surgeons, Dr. Mark E. Mason & Dr. Dinah Wan receive many questions from patients about how to maximize the longevity of their plastic surgery results.
Our experienced plastic surgery and med spa team recommend several strategies, both at home and in-office, that can help you maintain your plastic surgery results for years to come. Keep reading to learn more!
What should I do right after surgery to maintain my plastic surgery results?
We see plastic surgery patients back at our office in 24 to 48 hours post-surgery. Dr. Mason or Dr. Wan will evaluate the area and incision(s), change dressings if necessary, and provide additional instructions or prescriptions based on your condition.
3 to 5 days after surgery, most patients can have their stitches or sutures removed. From there, we will advise you to rest, drink plenty of fluids, and give you incision care instructions (plus a free scar gel) to ensure a successful recovery with optimal results.
In the weeks after your surgery, mind your surgeon’s restrictions, eat only nutrient-dense foods, drink lots of water, and take the time you need to rest and recuperate. This puts you on the best track to maintain your investment in yourself long-term.
The quick answer: follow your Dallas plastic surgeons’ post-op instructions to a T! We will be with you every step of the way.
At 6 months post-op, patients have their last follow-up appointment with their surgeon. During this visit, our team will discuss long-term maintenance recommendations to ensure you get the most out of the time you’ve spent carefully recovering.
Maintaining Body Contouring Results Long-Term
CoolSculpting®
One of our most popular med spa treatments, CoolSculpting helps patients eliminate areas of stubborn unwanted fat. Using advanced cryotherapy technology, we use CoolSculpting to target and freeze fat cells. Once frozen, these fat cells die naturally and your body eliminates them.
There might be several reasons someone who’s had liposuction or surgical lift might consider CoolSculpting treatments:
- To reduce small areas of unwanted fat on the abdomen to complement a tummy tuck (e.g. bra fat, love handles, flanks)
- To treat fat under the chin to create an overall slimmer look after liposuction or a lift
- To balance post-surgery proportions
When to consider it
Of course, no CoolSculpting procedure should be performed until you fully heal and your final results have set in.
Reevaluate your results 4 to 6 years after surgery and if you find you could use a touch up, CoolSculpting could be the perfect non-surgical option!
Kybella®
Many patients who’ve undergone an extreme weight loss seek surgical body contouring procedures to address the remaining diet & exercise-resistant fat and excess skin.
If you’ve undergone a body lift after weight loss or pregnancy weight gain, you may have some excess submental fat (AKA a double chin) you’d like to address for an overall slimmer appearance. Double chins can be difficult, if not impossible, to get rid of on your own. You’ve worked really hard so far, after all—so let us help with this one! Or rather, let Kybella help.
With a series of in-office injections, we can significantly reduce or eliminate your double chin! This FDA-approved injectable uses a substance already found in your body, deoxycholic acid, to dissolve unwanted fat cells. Like you already know, when we eliminate fat cells, they cannot return!
SkinTyte™
Like the name suggests, we use SkinTyte to address sagging skin with no downtime. If your tummy tuck didn’t address or if you have a small area of slightly sagging skin that doesn’t yet require surgery, don’t worry! SkinTyte has you covered.
SkinTyte uses pulsed light technology to heat into the deep layers of skin. Your body reacts to this heat by signaling the skin to increase collagen and elastin production in the treated area. Over time, the renewed collagen foundational layer makes your skin appear smoother, tighter, and more youthful.
Maintaining Facial Surgery Results For Years To Come
The ways in which a skilled surgeon can refine facial features are almost endless. He or she can turn back the clock on wrinkles and creases, carve the perfect cheekbones, repair a deformity, chisel a jawline, and more.
As you probably have guessed, despite surgery providing the longest-lasting and best results, facial plastic surgery requires ongoing care on your part to protect your investment in yourself.
At Southlake Plastic Surgery, we offer the following facial procedures:
- Brow lift
- Chin implants/augmentation
- Blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery)
- Facelift
- Lip lift
- Neck lift
- Rhinoplasty
- Fat grafting
Often, many patients pair several procedures together for overall facial rejuvenation. For example, since a facelift lifts and tightens the lower portion of the face, it may be best to also perform a brow lift and eyelid surgery at the same time to address loose skin in other locations for a balanced look.
What helps maintain the results of facial plastic surgery?
Once you make the investment in facial plastic surgery, it’s important that you understand how to maintain your new look. While facial plastic surgery lasts a long time, the more you maintain your skin’s appearance and critical support structures like collagen, the better your results will look over the long term.
Some of our top recommendations include:
Don’t Smoke
Even if you were a smoker before your facelift surgery, you had to quit for about 6 to 8 weeks to be healthy enough to go under the knife. Now that you’ve quit, stay quit!
You already know most of the reasons you should not smoke, but if you’ve had facial plastic surgery, you can add another reason to the list: it will ruin your results. Smoking interferes with healing, and how you heal affects how your face will look after surgery. Smoking also causes premature aging. The toxins in cigarettes break down collagen and elastin, causing wrinkles. In short, smoking sabotages your surgical results—and that certainly isn’t the worst it can do.
Use High Quality Skincare Products, Consistently
The products you use on your skin daily are extremely important. Just as important, if not more, than your trips to our office!
After your facial surgery, we will introduce you to the best skincare products to use while you heal. This will probably include a combination of medical-grade products from our in-house SPS brand, SkinMedica®, or other professional grade brands we have access to. After you’ve healed, we are also happy to help you build a daily skincare regimen that works for you long term to address your skin’s needs.
It’s not enough to have the right products, you also must use them! Set two daily alarms that remind you to do your morning skincare and SPF, and to take off your makeup at night, followed by your nighttime routine. No excuses to skip!
SPF = BFF
We’ve already harped on you about exposure to the sun, but it really can’t be said enough. UV radiation is the biggest cause of premature aging and the deadliest form of skin cancer—but exposure is very preventable with proper care!
To protect your face and neck from UV exposure, apply SPF 30+ daily (and reapply several times!), stay in the shade as much as possible, avoid deliberate tanning, and invest in several fashionable brimmed hats to wear while outdoors.
How to maintain facelift results with med spa treatments
Don’t forget, the Southlake Plastic Surgery Med Spa is here to supplement your own efforts to maintain the results of your facial plastic surgery.
Though a facelift can turn back the clock on your appearance by 10 years or more, it can’t stop the clock altogether. The tightened skin that remains is still subject to wrinkles, lines, and sagging with age and sun exposure.
To maintain their results, we commonly see facial surgery patients to perform the following treatments in our med spa:
Botox®
Not only do Botox injections minimize or eliminate dynamic wrinkles (e.g. crow’s feet, frown lines), it also prevents new wrinkles from forming because of these facial movements.
A traditional facelift focuses on the lower two-thirds of the face, so you may have wrinkles on your brow or around your eyes that your surgeon couldn’t address. Using a combination of strategically placed Botox and filler (more on fillers below), we can lift and rejuvenate the upper third of your face to give you a balanced, all around more youthful appearance.
Getting on a regular Botox schedule with the pro injectors at Southlake Plastic Surgery after you’ve healed from your facelift surgery will help you safeguard your results for years to come.
Fillers
We can do a lot with fillers. Whether it’s defining your jawline, reshaping your chin, filling in a wrinkle or scar, lifting your cheekbones, or plumping your lips, there are many ways fillers can complement and extend the results of a facial surgery.
Don’t worry, we aren’t fans of the Real Housewives’ overfilled looks either. Our experienced injectors take a conservative approach to fillers. Starting small and building up volume over time is the best way to achieve natural-looking results.
Another smart way to use fillers? A “try it before you buy it” for plastic surgery procedures like rhinoplasty or facial implants! Fillers are temporary (you need to inject more after 6 to 14 months) and dissolvable—use that to your advantage to test out whether certain permanent procedures will really give you the results you want.
Note: If you find a look you really love with hyaluronic acid fillers, we can use Sculptra®, a poly-l-lactic acid collagen stimulating filler designed to last several years, or fat grafting, a surgical fat transfer that moves unwanted fat to areas where it’s desired in the face, to offer longer lasting or permanent results.
BBL Photofacial
The key to tight, plump, youthful skin is collagen. As we age, our body slows its natural collagen production, resulting in sagging, lackluster skin. The good news? We can encourage collagen production in the body with the power of focused pulsing light!
Photofacials with our advanced Forever Young BBL™ device knock out hyperpigmentation and redness in the skin while also delivering heat deep to the collagen layer of skin. The heat prompts the body’s natural healing response to kick in, signaling fibroblasts to produce more collagen and elastin.
In the weeks and months following a BBL Photofacial, your skin’s foundational structure replenishes itself with shiny new collagen and elastin. We recommend scheduling a BBL Photofacial every 6 to 12 months to maintain a youthful appearance and keep up the results of your surgical facial lifting procedure. BBL Photofacial is unique in that patients who regularly get these treatments improve their skin health over time; the light therapy reverses the skin aging process by changing the genetic expression of aging skin cells.
SkinTyte
We’ve already discussed how SkinTyte works, but it deserves another mention for helping maintain facial surgery results! Not only can it help tighten skin on the body, it’s also great for tightening up mild loose skin on the cheeks, jawline, brow, and neck..
Though a surgical lifting procedure is the best choice for significantly sagging skin, SkinTyte could help you manage loose skin on your brow after a facelift if you aren’t yet a candidate for a surgical brow lift. It can also be used preventatively to delay the need for a full facelift.
Maintaining the results of a surgical breast procedure
Surgical breast augmentation is one of our most popular procedures. Patients who feel dissatisfied with underdeveloped, sagging, or asymmetrical breasts come to us about their concerns, longing for the enhancement that a surgical reshaping, lift, and/or breast implants offer.
Read our guide to breast implants→
What many don’t consider, however, is the long-term upkeep of breast implants or a breast lift. First, if you have implants, it’s important to see our Dallas plastic surgeons who can routinely check for abnormalities that may require the implant to be removed or replaced. We recommend having an MRI every few years to verify that your implants are healthy and in place.
After your breast surgery, it’s important to take the following measures at home and incorporate other practices into your routine:
Take time to recover
We’ve mentioned it already, but not following your surgeon’s instructions and restrictions after surgery risks improper healing and compromised breast augmentation results.
Giving your breasts time to heal and taking special care of them during the initial days and weeks after breast surgery leads to better long-term results. Gorgeous implants five years from now start the minute you head home from surgery. Your surgeon will provide you with detailed recovery and post breast augmentation care instructions; follow them!
Wear properly fitting bras
Studies show that wearing bras with too much lift can actually weaken the supportive ligaments and muscles that keep your breasts perky. This can potentially speed up the aging process, as during the times you skip wearing a bra, your muscles can’t handle the weight of your breasts on their own. This causes the skin to stretch and can cause sagging or even stretch marks.
We recommend seeking a professional bra fitting and finding something that fits properly, holding your breasts up against gravity, but also isn’t overly supportive. Regularly targeting your pectorals and other supportive muscles in your chest with exercise can also help you maintain perky, youthful looking breasts.
Sleep on your back
It might feel more comfortable to you, but sleeping on your stomach or side keeps the ligaments in your breasts loose, causing them to lengthen over time and prematurely sag. Sleeping on your back provides the ligaments support and reduces the pull of gravity.
If you struggle to stay positioned on your back throughout the night, try placing a pillow under each arm to keep your body in place.
Care for your skin
Hopefully after your daily shower you replenish your skin with a body moisturizer. If you don’t, get on that. Then, make sure you take care to moisturize the skin over your breasts every day!
Caring for your skin by keeping it properly hydrated helps it look supple, soft, and keeps it elastic enough to support your breasts without creating stretch marks or sagging.
It’s also important to remember that unprotected UV exposure can cause your skin to lose elasticity and sag, which is exactly what you don’t want right after a breast lift. Keep that delicate skin on your chest slathered in SPF 50+ and do your best to keep it physically covered while in direct sunlight.
Avoid large weight fluctuations
Just like weight gain can ruin the results of a body contouring procedure, it can also affect the results of a breast augmentation. Large changes in your weight can cause the breast tissue to sag.
After breast augmentation, try to maintain a steady weight with a healthy diet and routine exercise! Take care to give your body the nutrient-dense fuel it needs to keep your skin and muscles strong.
You should also take your future plans into consideration before scheduling a breast augmentation procedure. Most women who wait until they are finished having children find they can much more easily maintain their results than women who get pregnant following a surgical breast procedure.
If you have underdeveloped breasts and choose to have implants placed earlier in life, a breast lift following pregnancy and breastfeeding may be necessary to restore their original perkiness.
Pay our med spa a visit
There are several routes we can take to keep your breasts and chest looking their best in our med spa. To address mild sagging, sun damage, wrinkles, or crepiness on the neck and decolletage area, we can offer:
- Microneedling
- SkinTyte
- BBL Photofacials
- Laser treatments
- Sculptra
- Fat grafting
- Hydrafacials
- Chemical peels/Melasma peels
Many of these treatments work to address superficial skin concerns (uneven tone or texture) while also encouraging collagen and elastin production to create a fuller, more youthful look. Our skin experts can work with you to consult on the best med spa treatments for you.
Why turn to the Dallas plastic surgeons at Southlake Plastic Surgery?
At Southlake Plastic Surgery, we are fortunate to have two amazing Dallas plastic surgeons on staff: Dr. Mark E. Mason and Dr. Dinah Wan.
Dr. Mason has decades of experience as a board-certified Plastic Surgeon and has a proven track record as one of the best plastic surgeons in the Dallas and Ft. Worth area.
Dr. Mason graduated first in his medical school class at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, and completed his plastic surgery residency at Stanford University Medical Center in Stanford, California.
He has practiced in north Tarrant County since April 2000, performing thousands of procedures for grateful patients who regularly report a five-star experience during the surgical process and with their results.
During Dr. Dinah Wan’s time with us, she has become known as another top board-certified plastic surgeon in DFW.
Dr. Wan received her medical degree from The Ohio State University College of Medicine and completed her six-year specialty training in plastic surgery at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, one of the top ranking plastic surgery residency programs in the country.
After completing an aesthetic surgery fellowship at the Dallas Plastic Surgery Institute and receiving specialized training in cosmetic surgery of the face and body, Dr. Wan joined our team. Dr. Dinah Wan is also certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery.
Let our team help you maintain your plastic surgery results
Southlake Plastic Surgery is dedicated to providing the best plastic surgery procedures in Dallas, Ft. Worth, and surrounding areas.
Our expert team of talented aesthetic professionals is here to help you look and feel your best.
Additionally, our AAAASF-accredited plastic surgery center in Dallas is headed by our medical director and board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Mark Mason. He has been helping patients for over 20 years and holds surgical privileges at several hospitals in the Dallas area.
Contact us to learn about your options and schedule a one-on-one consultation to determine the best course of action to treat your concerns.
Use our instant consultation to tell us about your areas of concern, or schedule your first consultation today.