Question:
I am a 62 year old woman interested in having a forehead lift. However, I have seen many people who look as if they have a “surprised” expression on their faces after having the procedure and I fear that I may look the same. How often does this happen and how can I be sure that this won’t happen to me?

Answer:
Patients develop a surprised look after a forehead lift because the surgeon was overly aggressive with the procedure. This is easily avoidable, however you must understand that the desired result from the lift is a subtle elevation of the brow and not to compensate for other issues by over-elevating the brow. Believe it or not some patients request their brow to be lifted to a level which is unnatural. We refer those patients to another surgeon. We are also conservative in selecting patients for a brow lift and believe that often the aging is not due to brow descent, but instead due to the brow fat pad decreasing in size and no longer filling out the skin of the brow and leading to the illusion of brow descent. The best way to understand this is to look at a photo of the patient in youth to determine the relative contribution of descent versus volume loss.  In many cases we will use fillers of Restylane, Juvederm, Radiesse or autologous fat to rejuvenate the brow by adding the lost volume back to the area rather then lifting the brow. This creates a more youthful appearance without the unnatural look of an overzealous brow lift.

Posted by Dr. Buckingham