How to go from 50+ to looking 20+ with plastic surgery rejuvenation.

[Tremere]

Hi @Tremere, I got my facial fat transfer from Dr Hyo Seok Seo in Seoul. I would recommend only Korea for facial fat transfer as they have far more years of practice than UK surgeons. The two complaints I have heard about facial fat transfer in the UK is that the fat either drops down the cheek or it does not last and disappears within a few months. In my opinion the 2 best at facial fat transfer are Dr Seo now at Machimpyo clinic and Dr Hong at Fresh clinic. They have the most experience in facial fat transfer and fat graft retention.

I had a smas plication facelift. I would NEVER get a deep plane facelift because the cutting of the facial retaining ligaments is permanent with deep plane. Also it involves deeper dissection and tissue disruption. It is far more expensive to get a deep plane (£20-£40k in the UK), there is no guarantee it lasts (I have seen several deep plane facelifts drop within 5 or 6 months in different UK deep plane facelift patients) and revision is rarely free (I have heard how surgeons may blame a patient’s anatomy for the early drop and refuse to revise or if they do agree to revise, they do a smas plication instead of another deep plane) or even undertaken by another surgeon if your surgeon refuses to revise (some surgeons state they will not revise other surgeon’s facelifts). The cost of deep plane revision by another surgeon may be double what you paid for to the original deep plane facelift surgeon if he even agrees to take you on as he knows the scar tissue will be immense, deeper and close to the facial nerve and its branches so a much higher risk of litigation, permanent nerve damage and facial paralysis. The revision surgeon may be uninsurable if he damages the facial nerve and the insurance company has to pay out a massive amount.

Thank you, @MissOrange you are always extremely kind and generous with your knowledge and experiences. I can also trust that you are in no way trying to promote any clinic, which in this forum, seems something hard to find as I personally think that a lot of messages here are of paid promoters. But I always trust 100% in your advice, because it's obvious so don't have any hidden interests.

I went to Dr Seo at Machimpyo almost two years ago for a DES, lower eyelid fat reposition and fat transfer and I'm currently very happy with how it turned out. Will try to go again for undereye and cheek fat graft. In your experience, in which face areas is it worth it to do a fat transfer to?

Also, lately I've been thinking about doing a mini lift, because I have from sagging from V-line surgery. Since I'm not even 30 yet, I don't want to do a full face lift yet. Do you have any doctor recommendations? Either in Korea, UK, Europe, US? I've been looking into Dr. Renato Calabria and Dr. Miguel Mascaró, but I'd much prefer a Korean, European or UK doctor. Most doctors I find seem to only do deep plane, and after what you wrote, I think I'm far too young for one.

 

[MissOrange]

Thank you, @MissOrange you are always extremely kind and generous with your knowledge and experiences. I can also trust that you are in no way trying to promote any clinic, which in this forum, seems something hard to find as I personally think that a lot of messages here are of paid promoters. But I always trust 100% in your advice, because it's obvious so don't have any hidden interests.

I went to Dr Seo at Machimpyo almost two years ago for a DES, lower eyelid fat reposition and fat transfer and I'm currently very happy with how it turned out. Will try to go again for undereye and cheek fat graft. In your experience, in which face areas is it worth it to do a fat transfer to?

Also, lately I've been thinking about doing a mini lift, because I have from sagging from V-line surgery. Since I'm not even 30 yet, I don't want to do a full face lift yet. Do you have any doctor recommendations? Either in Korea, UK, Europe, US? I've been looking into Dr. Renato Calabria and Dr. Miguel Mascaró, but I'd much prefer a Korean, European or UK doctor. Most doctors I find seem to only do deep plane, and after what you wrote, I think I'm far too young for one.

Hi @Tremere, sorry I misunderstood your earlier question. As you are young and under 30, why do you want fat transfer to your cheeks? My concern with fat to the cheeks is that it can swell when you eat fatty or salty foods or form mini lipoma fat lumps. I am forever conscious of how much fat I eat as it will then immediately show up on my face and embarrassing photos if taken after I have eaten dairy or fat. In hindsight I should have just had fat graft to the forehead, temples and upper lids and left the rest of my face fat free and got a facelift sooner. As I have big cheekbones, the extra fat makes my cheeks look even bigger in real life.

As for a mini lift, I can only recommend my surgeon Nick Rhodes as I have not had a facelift with anyone else. The 7 month postop photo of the lady who went to a Turkish Professor surgeon looks good and the price excellent at only €7k for a facelift, necklift, bleph and lip lift. ASPS in Seoul has a reputation for mainly doing facelifts so they may be worth a consult next time you are in Seoul but they turned me down for a facelift at age 52! I think if you either send your photos by IG or kakao to clinics to ask if you need a facelift or go for 3 free consults in Korea and they all say you need a facelift, then you do but if some do and some don’t, then you may not need one. I think as you are under 30, it may be hard to find a clinic that will do a facelift on you. In the UK they rarely do facelifts in ladies under 50. Remember my golden rule, find 3 patients who have had a facelift with the surgeon you are interested in and follow them for a year and ask to see their photos and not that of the clinic and ideally facetime or videos too.

Based on a tragic realself review of a patient of Mascaro’s, I would not personally pick Mascaro for a facelift. https://www.realself.com/review/lip-lift-25-days-post-op#comment-6415073

I repeat do NOT get a deep plane if you are under 70. This article compared smas vs deep planes and ladies 50-69 looked more attractive after smas facelifts and ladies 70 and older looked better after deep plane. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1001/archfaci.6.1.8

 

[Tremere]

@MissOrange last time I went to my injector to get botox she mentioned how I had lost facial fat in my cheeks, and wanted me to inject fillers. I'm actually mad at her because I find it highly unethical for a doctor to recommend a procedure I hadn't ask for (I told her I thought I looked amazing and she was like "no, but you have lost fat in your cheeks and you don't have that much support, you should do some fillers there", I'm still so angry that I'll probably find another doctor).

I went on a trip at the start of April and after seeing the pictures, I had horrible dark circles in my undereyes, and besides, now I have that awful insecurity about my cheeks, as it's true I'm getting older and I've been quite thin for the last year and a half (had some health issues and became too underweight). I'm never ever doing fillers again, I had hyaluronic acid in my undereyes and I ended up dissolving it, it was awful, they got super puffy.

Honestly, the thing I don't understand most about that Mascaro lip lift patient is why she wanted to do a lip lift in the first place, as she obviously didn't need one. She might have had dismorphia, but I truly can't understand why any surgeon would agree to do that surgery on her.

 

[MissOrange]

Sadly fake reviews are now flooding the UK. The Guardian newspaper has exposed fake reviews even on facebook. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/aug/06/facebook-fake-reviews-which

A word of caution when viewing a surgeon’s website, instagram, etc. Look for the signs of use of filters, photoshopping and promoting early results. Even Nayak’s IG is full of videos and photos of ladies showing their early results either in days or weeks! We know the facelift is likely to drop in the first year, particularly from months 6 onwards. Surgeons should only be posting b&a results of ladies from a year onwards for complete honesty. Often you may see in Korean IG b&a the clinic will show the clinic professional camera photo before with no makeup and then the patient will send a selfie with full hair and makeup as the after. We know the iphone and android lenses are not accurate and narrows faces and makes the nose look bigger. Bearing all this in mind, reach out and try to chat with real patients of that particular surgeon to see their own videos and unfiltered photos at one year plus. When you invest 20 million won or £16,000 or $20,000 on a facelift do your due diligence. Unfortunately with surgery you cannot test drive the car or have a surveyor look over the property you want to buy.

Think to yourself that with plastic surgery the results are unpredictable, and there is a 50:50 chance you may need a revision. What is the surgeon’s revision policy? Will he revise for free? Will he make you wait a year with a collapsed nose or sagging face? Will he revise immediately? When my nose collapsed after 2 weeks from a nose abscess infection, my nose surgeon saw me immediately and scheduled free revision (except for the £2k hospital fees) 6 weeks postop. He listened to me when I suggested he exchange the permanent prolene sutures with pds dissolvable as I may be reacting to the foreign material as I suffer from eczema. He did not force me to wait a year suffering depression and anxiety. I learned my nose had rejected the permanent sutures ie prolene so I can only have pds long acting dissolvable sutures in my nose and face. When my facelift sagged at 5 months, my surgeon revised me for free the following month and I learned the importance of postop steroids so it would not happen again. He used pds sutures and even though they dissolve in months, my face is still holding at 15 months from scar tissue being able to form immediately as I had no swelling or fluid separating my skin from the underlying tissues and my nose is holding 7 years on with scar tissue replacing pds sutures to hold the autologous rib implant.

 

[MissOrange]

OMG! Another plastic surgery patient has died in a Korean hospital getting his jaw implant removed for infection! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...E-plastic-surgeries-play-BTSs-KPOP-Jimin.html

This was my major concern about getting bone contouring surgery. Zygoma and v line surgery involve titanium plate and screws but what if your body rejects the foreign material by creating an infection or abscess? Clinics sell bone contouring surgery and say you can come back to get the plate and screws removed once the bone heals but when you do fly back, they try to discourage you from this. Now we know why! The facial tissues and bone would have grown into the metalwork so unscrewing and chiselling them out may cause excessive blood loss, trauma and compromise the airway. I am so glad I cancelled my zygoma surgery at Regen. One US lady flew back to get her metalwork out at Girin but the surgeon dissuaded her. Maybe we should be following up on these patients who have bone contouring surgery for more than a year as we are not seeing the full picture by glorifying the Korean v line or flat cheekbones.

 

[NYhgal]

Hi @MissOrange

I’ve read about your lip lift journey and am wondering if you have and would be willing to share photos comparing before lip lifting, after vermillion and again after bullhorn? I’m curious whether a vermillion lip lift can improve the lip shape if one doesn’t need a huge philtrum correction. I know you credit the bullhorn lift with really giving you those beautiful full lips but I’m curious what (if any) change occurred with the vermillion lift.

Thanks for sharing so much!

 

[MissOrange]

Okay folks! As I have been banging on about the need to see videos of facelift results from the patient themselves and not the clinic, I have made my facelift video journey public on youtube. Google how to look 25 at 55 una coales and you will see videos and shorts of my facelift journey. I also have one of my full face fat graft one year out at age 52.

 

[MissOrange]

Hi @MissOrange

I’ve read about your lip lift journey and am wondering if you have and would be willing to share photos comparing before lip lifting, after vermillion and again after bullhorn? I’m curious whether a vermillion lip lift can improve the lip shape if one doesn’t need a huge philtrum correction. I know you credit the bullhorn lift with really giving you those beautiful full lips but I’m curious what (if any) change occurred with the vermillion lift.

Thanks for sharing so much!

Hi @calihapagal I think the skin only vermillion lip lift took away the duck lips I had from filler and scar tissue in my upper lip. It was the bullhorn lip lift which cut both skin and muscle that shortened my philtrum and gave me bigger lips as it everted my upper lip. Here is a pic collage of before (scowling lips with protruding side lips on profile top left with Korean surgeons saying I needed double jaw surgery for this side profile) vs the vermillion on the right at MVP, Korea and the bullhorn bottom left in London, looking younger and younger with a much softer side profile. My nose looks much bigger because the selfie was taken with an android phone lens. I did get a rib rhino so my nose does look better than the before in the top left photos but not as big in real life. I wish it was as big in selfies but alas no. The vermillion looked great postop but after the swelling went I had a very thin upper lip so decided on a bullhorn lip lift in London 6 months later as Dr Choi would not agree to free revision in Korea. In the end this all turned out well as I needed the bullhorn which cut muscle and trimmed skin for longevity. My nasolabial angle went from an unattractive 45 degrees to a more feminine 135 degrees.

This brings back memories as I got so many compliments for my face after vermillion lip lift by Dr Choi July 2016 (right pic) and the upper lid fat graft and upper blepharoplasty by Dr Seo in May 2016 with the Korean pharmacist telling me I was beautiful in Korean…and then tragically a few days later I had my first full face fat transfer at DA plastic surgery clinic which wrecked my face and kept calling myself ugly in Korean. I’ll never forget the little German girl at the airport who kept pointing and staring at my ugly distorted fat grafted face while I waited for the Lufthansa gate number or the shocked look of the young Korean guy who met me at Incheon to collect the mifi as he had seen me when I arrived and then saw me as I was leaving Korea. If you are having facial fat graft, be prepared for massive swelling and facial distortion. I wish I had known about facial compression bandages and postop steroids back in 2016 and I wish I had never had the surgery at DA clinic as at that point in time I did not need facial fat graft beyond what I had had to my upper eyelids but they took my money and wrecked a face that needed nothing. Be wary as some clinics will push surgeries you do NOT need, take your money and make you go from pretty to ugly, especially if you have body dysmorphia.

 

[MissOrange]

When surgery goes horribly wrong...the left pic was 6 July 2016 healing from a vermillion lip lift at MVP clinic thinking wow I look pretty, relaxed, calm, but then I had full face fat graft at DA clinic on the 9th of July and did not tell MVP clinic and the right pic is 11 July 2016. DA clinic convinced me I needed full face fat graft, took my money and destroyed my face. If you suffer from even mild body dysmorphia, stay away from DA clinic. Big clinics want your money. Ethical surgeons would say no you don't need anything. I kept it a secret from Ellen my patient advocate and the manager at MVP clinic. I should have told her and she would have said NO you don’t need full face fat graft. She is honest and blunt!

Always get consults at 3 clinics before you decide you need anything as the lure of fancy clinic books and magazines makes you greedy! I should have flown home on the 6th of July. How I cried and cried and cried. It took years to fix my face after the foolish mistake I made having surgery I did not need and from a surgeon who was not Dr Seo then of MVP or Dr Hong of Fresh. I flew home looking like a monster psychologically and physically damaged to the upset of my husband and children. I remember the look of sympathy from the heathrow immigration officer who looked at me as though I was a battered victim of domestic violence. To think Korea can make you so beautiful but if you choose unwisely it can also make you so ugly.

 

[NYhgal]

Hi @calihapagal I think the skin only vermillion lip lift took away the duck lips I had from filler and scar tissue in my upper lip. It was the bullhorn lip lift which cut both skin and muscle that shortened my philtrum and gave me bigger lips as it everted my upper lip. Here is a pic collage of before (scowling lips with protruding side lips on profile top left with Korean surgeons saying I needed double jaw surgery for this side profile) vs the vermillion on the right at MVP, Korea and the bullhorn bottom left in London, looking younger and younger with a much softer side profile. My nose looks much bigger because the selfie was taken with an android phone lens. I did get a rib rhino so my nose does look better than the before in the top left photos but not as big in real life. I wish it was as big in selfies but alas no. The vermillion looked great postop but after the swelling went I had a very thin upper lip so decided on a bullhorn lip lift in London 6 months later as Dr Choi would not agree to free revision in Korea. In the end this all turned out well as I needed the bullhorn which cut muscle and trimmed skin for longevity. My nasolabial angle went from an unattractive 45 degrees to a more feminine 135 degrees.

This brings back memories as I got so many compliments for my face after vermillion lip lift by Dr Choi July 2016 (right pic) and the upper lid fat graft and upper blepharoplasty by Dr Seo in May 2016 with the Korean pharmacist telling me I was beautiful in Korean…and then tragically a few days later I had my first full face fat transfer at DA plastic surgery clinic which wrecked my face and kept calling myself ugly in Korean. I’ll never forget the little German girl at the airport who kept pointing and staring at my ugly distorted fat grafted face while I waited for the Lufthansa gate number or the shocked look of the young Korean guy who met me at Incheon to collect the mifi as he had seen me when I arrived and then saw me as I was leaving Korea. If you are having facial fat graft, be prepared for massive swelling and facial distortion. I wish I had known about facial compression bandages and postop steroids back in 2016 and I wish I had never had the surgery at DA clinic as at that point in time I did not need facial fat graft beyond what I had had to my upper eyelids but they took my money and wrecked a face that needed nothing. Be wary as some clinics will push surgeries you do NOT need, take your money and make you go from pretty to ugly, especially if you have body dysmorphia.

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Thank you so much! This is very helpful!!!

 

[Lunar2]

Okay folks! As I have been banging on about the need to see videos of facelift results from the patient themselves and not the clinic, I have made my facelift video journey public on youtube. Google how to look 25 at 55 una coales and you will see videos and shorts of my facelift journey. I also have one of my full face fat graft one year out at age 52.

View attachment 5770829

OMG! You are the BEST!!!

 

[pie]

Hi @MissOrange. I viewed your videos and am amazing at how good your lift looks. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but do you have any problems making animated expressions with your face? I ask only because I’m a very expressive talker and I’m afraid that may be an issue after a FL. Your thoughts are appreciated!

 

[chynababyface]

I prefer the pic collage of me compared to my 25 year old self. I was pretty when I was young! Menoface and aging are cruel. It strips looks from ladies. Thank goodness I worked out how to regain my youthful face. Hopefully by following my journey it will take you less than 7 years to achieve. Remember never pay more than £10k for any one procedure as facial rejuvenation requires multiple different procedures and you will need money to fund this or be stuck with an odd looking face that is halfway there but not completed. Remember you will not need botox or fillers if you have had a good facelift and good full face fat graft.

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With your fat graft experience, what are some of the doctors you recommend besides Dr Seo? I recently went to Wonderful and did with Dr Kim since the salesman Dominic was really good at selling me into their services and I totally regret it with uneven results...

 

[MissOrange]

Hi @MissOrange. I viewed your videos and am amazing at how good your lift looks. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but do you have any problems making animated expressions with your face? I ask only because I’m a very expressive talker and I’m afraid that may be an issue after a FL. Your thoughts are appreciated!

Hi @pie, no problems with animated expressions.

 

[MissOrange]

With your fat graft experience, what are some of the doctors you recommend besides Dr Seo? I recently went to Wonderful and did with Dr Kim since the salesman Dominic was really good at selling me into their services and I totally regret it with uneven results...

Hi @chynababyface, I am sorry to hear that. I have heard good things about Dr Hong at Fresh for fat graft but he is not a board certified plastic surgeon. I only looked at Dr Hong and Dr Seo after having fat graft by Dr Kim at DA clinic that was not good in my opinion.