Threadlift is the new facelift

Your face may enjoy facials, resurfacing treatments, and injectable dermal fillers. But when you have lost volume in your face and have sagging jowls and drooping cheeks, your loose skin needs “tightening.”A traditional facelift removes loose skin with a knife and stitches. Now you can avoid the knife and get great results with threads! As a result, threadlift is the new facelift, and can physically tighten up that sag and droop.

Basics about threadlift

A threadlift uses temporary sutures to suspend loose facial skin. By anchoring ends of the suture, it pulls the skin back, lifting and tightening it. Skin lifted this way can retain its position for one to three years, in effect stitched up, artistically. Realistically, your face can only be lifted by a few millimeters, creating a subtle, natural-looking result. If you are dealing with severe skin laxity, you may need to consider alternative measures.

In addition to a physical lift, the suture promotes your body’s healing response, sending collagen to the treated areas. Your body makes less and less collagen after age 20, in part creating the sag and loose, thinning skin as you lose the volume that collagen used to provide. As your skin thins, it also grows weaker and less able to support underlying tissues and giving way to gravity. It’s a sure sign of aging.

Fresh collagen reduces that laxness, also thickening and hydrating your skin as it strengthens it. This facial rejuvenation is ongoing, and you will notice a gradual improvement in your skin’s tone and firmness. Why? Because as long as the temporary sutures last, your body tries to heal around them, continuously creating collagen. Happily, because the sutures are tiny, you will not feel this happening.

Advantages of threadlift over facelift

Threadlift engineering

Threadlift is minimally-invasive, and recovery is pretty easy.

A traditional facelift may be done under heavy sedation, and you will also need round-the-clock care for at least three days after the surgery. You will need to arrange for other help, like childcare and transportation from others, while you recover. Healing usually takes one or two weeks.

Threadlift requires only local anesthesia and allows you to return to your usual routine immediately. You can even drive yourself home after the procedure.

There is virtually no risk of scarring, severe bruising, bleeding, or other complications that a traditional facelift may encounter. You may experience irritation, infection, or visible sutures under your skin. The sutures can simply be removed, returning your face to its prior state.

The physical advantages are many, as you see, but the best is the cost. Because it is much easier to perform than facelift surgery, a threadlift is also much more affordable!

Recovery after threadlift

While you heal, you will avoid pressure on your face, and you should not sleep on your face. Avoid rubbing your face vigorously. Also, resist using moisturizer for at least a week after having threads placed.

Is it for me?

The ideal threadlift patient is in their late thirties to early fifties. Older patients unable to have surgery for medical reasons may also like this non-invasive alternative to a traditional facelift. For instance, age-related conditions like high blood pressure, type two diabetes, and cardiovascular disease are no barriers to this procedure. You will discuss all this with the doctor before scheduling a threadlift.

Even here, you have choices!

Two threadlift procedures that we do here at Vedas, NovaThreads and Silhouette InstaLift threads, are both approved by the FDA for lifting facial tissue. They both use a similar mechanism of action and both will give you excellent results.

NovaThreads

Made from a biocompatible material called PDO, polydioxanone NovaThreads safely re-absorb in the body. They remain in place for about four to six months, then slowly dissolve. Results of your NovaThreads lift continue for a year or more, partly because of the continuing improvement in your skin condition resulting from collagen infusion.

NovaThreads’ barbed sutures gather skin and produce more lifting action. Smooth sutures produce less lift but are excellent for collagen stimulation. Barbed sutures are more often placed near the hairline to pull back the skin and lift the cheeks and jowls. The smooth sutures can target common problem areas that show signs of aging, for instance, the corner of your mouth or along your eyebrows.

After numbing the treatment area with a local anesthetic, the doctor inserts the threads below your skin using a small needle or cannula. The entire process takes 30 to 45 minutes.

Silhouette InstaLift

Silhouette InstaLift also relies on biocompatible temporary sutures. Because InstaLift focuses on lifting the skin, the sutures are designed interspersed with tiny “cones” that grab tissue. By gathering more skin, you will see a more noticeable lift to cheeks and jowls. You can expect to enjoy the correction of Silhouette InstaLift for one to three years. Although the focus is on the lift, Silhouette InstaLift also stimulates collagen growth.

As with the NovaThreads, the process takes about 45 minutes, and you can return to your normal activities immediately.

Optimizing your threadlift

Threadlifts concentrate on recontouring your face. Do you want to address blemishes on your skin surface? You may want to combine a threadlift with resurfacing treatments like microneedling, SmartSkin CO2 Fraxel, chemical peels, Venus Viva, or Intense Pulsed Light (IPL). Serious resurfacing strips away the top layer of dermis and blemishes, allowing a new layer of skin to grow in its place.

Schedule a consultation with Dr. Nangrani to discuss your personalized treatment plan

Call 281-298-5476 to book your free consultation with Dr. Nangrani and our Spa Director. Together, you will discuss your expectations and design your treatment plan.

Vedas Medical Spa & Wellness Center is minutes from I-45 (Houston’s North Freeway) in The Woodlands. We look forward to seeing you soon!

American Society of Plastic Surgeons | PDO Threadlift for Sagging Knees