One of the first questions that patients ask Dr. Babak Azizzadeh during a facial plastic surgery consultation is, “How much downtime is going to be required?” Regardless of the type of facial plastic surgery you undergo, there are always two phases of recovery.
Phase 1 – Immediate Recovery
The immediate phase of recovery generally takes about 10 to 14 days. Some may feel better sooner and others may take a little longer to start feeling better again.
Feeling better during Phase 1 of recovery means you are getting your energy back, bruising and swelling have gone down and you feel ready to go back to work or school, you are not longer in any pain, etc.
Phase 2 – Healing Process is Completed
The second phase of healing varies dramatically based on the procedure.
- Complete Facelift Recovery – It takes approximately 3 to 6 months to see the final healing and results of a facelift procedure.
- Complete Rhinoplasty Recovery – It takes approximately 2 to 3 years to heal completely from a rhinoplasty. Over this time, the swelling will continue to go down. No one but you will notice that your nose (usually the tip) is still a little swollen during this recovery time.
- Complete Eyelid Recovery – Generally it takes patients 6 months to recover fully from eyelid surgery or blepharoplasty.
It is important to know that these are just approximate recovery timelines for facial plastic surgery procedures. Every surgeon performs surgery in a slightly different way that may yield a different recovery timeline, and every patient recovers differently. So please speak to your surgeon about the downtime you should expect for your particular procedure.
Contact the CENTER for Advanced Facial Plastic Surgery
If you have are interested in surgery with Dr. Azizzadeh, please contact our office at 310.657.2203 to learn more about scheduling a consultation.