FaceLift Post Operative Care Infomation
All cosmetic surgery involves risks and individual results vary. Cosmetic surgery is a serious decision. Decisions about whether to proceed should be made after careful consideration and following at least two consultations with a qualified medical practitioner.
This page provides post-operative instructions for patients who have had facelift or neck lift surgery with Dr Roth. Please read it carefully before your operation and keep it accessible during recovery. If anything is unclear, contact the rooms.
Dressings and Headband
Immediately after surgery you will be wearing a bandage around the head which is removed by Dr Roth on the first or second day after surgery. You will then be given a facial and neck compression wrap to wear. This should be worn continuously for the first week following surgery, then at night only for the following two weeks. You may remove it to shower.
Swelling and Bruising
Swelling and bruising are expected and will peak at 48–72 hours after surgery. Keep your head and shoulders elevated at approximately 45 degrees — use two pillows when sleeping — for the first ten days. Do not lie on your side as this causes uneven swelling. Apply cold compresses to the face and neck for 20 minutes per hour while awake for the first three days.
Care of Incisions
If yellow crusting or dry blood develops along the incision lines, clean gently with a cotton bud dipped in 3% hydrogen peroxide diluted 50/50 with water. Apply the prescribed antibiotic ointment to the wound three times daily for the first week, then white petroleum jelly (Vaseline) three times daily for a further week. Do not rub the incisions. Do not massage the face for the first six weeks — this can pull on the deeper sutures and cause them to fail.
Diet
Avoid foods that are hard to chew for the first two weeks. Begin with liquids and soft foods, progressing gradually to a normal diet. Maintain good fluid intake — six to eight glasses of water per day.
Medications
Take prescription pain medication as directed. Avoid alcohol while taking pain medications. Avoid aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, Vitamin E, and herbal medications as these increase bleeding risk.
Activity Restrictions
- Turn your head, neck, and shoulders as one unit for the first week
- No strenuous activity, heavy lifting, bending, or any activity likely to raise your blood pressure for the first two weeks
- Gentle walking is permitted from the second week
- For 24 hours after anaesthesia: no alcohol, no driving, no public transport without a companion, no signing legal documents
- You may bathe 48 hours after surgery — a bath is preferable to a shower initially
- Avoid direct sun exposure for one month; use SPF 30+ sunscreen on all exposed incision areas
Hair Care
- Wait at least 48 hours before wetting incisions
- Continue daily washing with normal shampoo once permitted
- No hot blow dryers, curling or flat irons for the first two weeks; cool setting only
- No hair colouring for six weeks
Suture Removal
Sutures in front of the ear and under the chin are removed at five to seven days after surgery. The remaining sutures are removed at nine to ten days. Absorbable sutures are placed behind the ear and in the deeper tissues — these do not need to be removed.
Follow-up Appointments
You will be seen on the first or second day after surgery for dressing removal. Further follow-up appointments are scheduled at suture removal and at six weeks. Make-up may be applied from day seven, avoiding the incision lines.
Contact Dr Roth’s rooms on (02) 9982 3439 during business hours. Outside business hours, attend your nearest emergency department or GP. Patients who had surgery at Castlecrag Private or North Shore Private may also contact the ward nursing staff. Note these hospitals have no on-site medical staff overnight and no emergency department.
Supplements, Treatments and Recovery Aids — What Helps and What Doesn’t
Once you get home you’ll almost certainly read about treatments, supplements, and devices that promise faster or better healing. Some are helpful, most are unnecessary, and a few can genuinely work against your result. This section helps you tell the difference.
The Essentials — Please Do These
Optional Extras That May Help a Little
Safe and reasonable if you would like to use them, but your result does not depend on them.
There is modest evidence that LED therapy can ease swelling and discomfort and support skin healing. It is gentle and low-risk, so it is fine to use if you enjoy it.
Some small studies suggest it may speed early healing. We mainly reserve it for specific situations and will recommend it directly if we think it would genuinely benefit you. It is not something you need to arrange on your own.
If any of your scars become firm, raised or pink as they mature, silicone gel is the one scar product with good evidence behind it. Most facelift scars settle beautifully on their own — wait and ask us first rather than starting it routinely.
Things That Aren’t Necessary
Popular online and harmless in themselves, but the evidence does not show they make any real difference to your recovery.
Widely recommended for bruising, but careful studies show little or no benefit — particularly around the eyes.
Slightly better studied than arnica, but the overall evidence is still weak and inconsistent.
These only help if you are actually deficient. If you eat a normal, balanced diet, extra supplements will not speed your healing.
Despite its reputation, it does not improve scars and can cause skin irritation in some people. Please do not use it on your incisions.
No good evidence of benefit after facelift surgery.
Please Avoid These
After a deep plane facelift specifically, the following can work against the result we have achieved together.
This is the most important thing to avoid. The lifting in your operation is held in place by deep internal sutures that need several weeks to settle and become secure. Massaging the face and neck during this time can disturb that delicate repair and undo the result — and the evidence that massage even helps swelling is very weak to begin with. The swelling will resolve on its own. Please do not have facial or lymphatic massage unless we have specifically cleared you for it.
Anything that actively moves or works the muscles of your face and neck in the early weeks can stress the internal repair. Please leave these alone while you heal.
Arnica, bromelain, high-dose fish oil and similar supplements can thin the blood slightly and increase the risk of bruising or bleeding if taken close to your operation. If you choose to use any supplement, please check with us about timing first.
Dr Roth’s Clinical Perspective
The question I am asked most often in the recovery period is about lymphatic massage. Patients have usually read about it online or had it recommended by a friend who had a different procedure — liposuction, or a tummy tuck — where there is some evidence it helps. After a deep plane facelift, it is a different situation entirely. The lift is not held by the skin. It is held by deep sutures that are still settling into the tissues for the first several weeks. Anything that moves the face aggressively during that period is working against those sutures, not helping them. The swelling will resolve. It resolves in every patient. It just takes time, and trying to hurry it with massage carries a real risk of undoing the work.
On supplements: I have patients arrive at their post-operative appointment with a bag full of arnica, bromelain, vitamin C, collagen powder and various other things recommended by well-meaning friends or online forums. I don’t want to dismiss the impulse — people want to feel like they’re doing something useful. But the honest answer is that if you are well-nourished, rested, and not smoking, you have already done the things that matter most. The three essentials on this page — rest, the ointment, the garment — are not there to fill space. They are genuinely the most important things you can do.
If you are unsure about anything during your recovery, call the rooms. That is what we are there for.
— Dr Jason Roth, MBBS, FRACS (ORL-HNS), IBCFPRS
Specialist Otolaryngologist & Head and Neck Surgeon
Specialist registration — Otorhinolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery
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