COSMETIC SURGEON JEFFREY RAVAL PERFECTS THE COMBO FACELIFT
A mere weekend means a whole face makeover
When “The Women” (www.thewomenthemovie.com) opens Sept. 12 on the silver screen, females in the audience will applaud, shake their heads knowingly at the plot line and then they’ll smile out loud at Diane English’s 2008 adaptation of the 1939 George Cukor film by the same name which was based on the 1936 stage play by Clare Boothe Luce. And yes, amidst the laughter, women everywhere will be scrutinizing the bevy of formidable actresses cast in this comedy for how they’re holding up, guessing at whether they’ve had a facelift, a lid job, Botox or filler injections in real life.
That is, after all, the theme of this film with a cast of top tier actresses—Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Carrie Fisher, Candice Bergen and Bette Middler, to name a few.
One of the most memorable lines in the movie is Annette Bening as she strides through a department store deflecting a cosmetic counter girl’s offhand suggestion that Bening try a “facelift in a bottle” with, “This is my face; get over it.”
Of course nearly any woman envies Annette Bening’s visage. But the point of the matter is that facelifts are changing our aesthetic standards, says Jeffrey R. Raval, MD, FACS, double board-certified facial plastic surgeon in Denver, Colorado.
In SLATE, the popular online newspaper, Amanda Fortini reported on Sept. 11 that “Wrinkles are like new vocabulary words: Once you become aware of them, you notice them everywhere. Worry lines, laugh lines, frown lines and crow’s feet.”
In 2007, 11.7 million Americans underwent some sort of cosmetic procedures, a 457% increase from 10 years earlier.
Treating wrinkles with any number of minor, non-invasive procedures like injections of Restylane or Perlane to fill in the creases and plump up the face to its youthful fullness is one way of treating the inevitable aging process, says Dr. Raval who has offices in the very exclusive Cherry Creek North District. That works to stave off the need for a full-blown facelift for several years, says Dr. Raval—especially the combination of fillers and Botox to relax the muscle underlying the skin so that the face can’t contort into a wrinkle.
Dr. Raval performs a “Combo Lift” which is a customized lift that replaces a full facelift, restoring a youthful look with just five days of downtime. Tailored to each individual patient, the mini lift and addition of volume treats the gravity issues and loss of facial volume that inevitably come with aging.
The full facelift requires substantially more downtime, but patients should be up and walking around the day after a facelift which is performed under general anesthesia. Sometimes the facelift is combined with a neck-lift to eliminate the banding that occurs on an aging neck and to smooth away the jowls that also develop with age.
Most lift treatments are combined with one or more in a series of laser skin rejuvenation treatments that refresh the skin, sloughing away old surface skin, inspiring collagen to manufacture in the underlying tissue, which in turn plumps up the skin making it fuller and younger-looking.
Contact Dr. Jeffrey Raval for a consultation to see if you are a candidate for a weekend combo lift or a full facelift by calling 303.381.FACE (3223).