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Folds and secondary rhytidectomy
Last reviewed: 08.07.2025
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As observed in patients for 6 months to 1 year after surgery, some relaxation of the superficial tissues of the face and neck will inevitably occur. This is despite your excellent efforts to give them long-lasting lifted cheeks, a clear jawline and neck. This is largely due to hereditary characteristics of tissue elasticity in individual patients, which sometimes requires small interventions to improve the overall results. Surgeries to correct small residual irregularities in the submental area may be required in 5-10% of patients, depending on their preoperative condition and skin elasticity. They should be offered as part of the overall correction of the face by lifting. This is not related to the quality of your technique as a whole. Much less often, the cheeks, due to their fullness and preoperative condition, return to their previous state to the point that they form folds requiring correction. This is the area where patients are most often disappointed with the final result. Patients should be advised in advance that the cheek-labial folds and furrows are the least likely to be corrected by a standard facelift. However, if the cheeks sag to some extent due to this rebound relaxation, patients may be quite frustrated. Some patients may benefit from treating only the cheek area and applying SMAS to achieve the long-term results they were looking for.
However, despite best efforts during the first year, there are patients whose facelift results do not last as long as they would like. This is often due to the patient's age, the condition of the facial skin, and heredity. Patients should understand that a quick secondary facelift is not necessary in any case; that they will continue to age normally and look better than if they had never had a facelift. They will always look younger than their chronological age. A second facelift can certainly be done in the future, but it is usually not needed for 5-8 years after the initial surgery. A surgical technique similar to that of the primary facelift may be required, depending on the progression of the aging process in all layers of the tissues involved.
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