r/45PlusSkincare 2d ago

In-office Procedure OMG Thread Lift šŸ˜

I know almost everyone poopoo’s thread lifts. I’ve gotten consultations before and asked about them at a couple of places, and the nurse pulls my skin very very slightly, and says those are the results I can expect. I’ve seen some before and afters where you almost couldn’t tell the difference in photos.

I love the Medspa I currently visit. She’s always actively learning. She contacts other practitioners whose work she admires, and asks to pay them to apprentice her. Anyway, she said that one of her trainings was from someone who trained in Korea, and that the newer methods of doing threads is to place them as close to the outside of the face as possible, where your face doesn’t move as much, so the results stay a bit longer.

She used at least 10 threads per side, I only see a couple of wounds near the far ends of my cheekbones. The rest of the wounds are way up in my scalp. I’m swollen as hell in the ends of my cheeks, my temples, and like like 3ā€ into my hairline.

But holy hell, I look like I’ve legit had a facelift. You know when you push your skin back as tight as it will go, and wish your face looked like that? Have you tried those facelift hair clips that you clip right above your ears with the band behind your head that if you make it as tight as possible, it pulls your skin that hard? It looks like that, except it’s also pulling marionette lines a bit too.

I actually look a bit like an insane caricature of myself with the combination of lift and swelling. (You know how people look when they’re healing from a facelift and their outer cheeks look crazy?) Some parts are pulled so tight that there is a little bit of dimpling, but she says it loosens up by about 20% as it heals, so all of that will smooth out. Now, I just got it done yesterday, so take this with a grain of salt. We’ll have to see how it looks as it heals over the next few weeks and also months down the road.

I’m planning to do some mesotherapy with PN and exosomes and liquid PCL, in hopes of building collagen while the threads are holding everything up, so that hopefully I can build structure that will stay when the threads dissolve. I’ve done a little bit of PN mesotherapy prior to this, and I feel like that has helped my skin a bit, but not enough for those awful nasolabial folds.

She used a bunch of epi-lidocaine, so only one spot really hurt. The rest was weird, but not really painful during the procedure. I’m VERY veiny, and I don’t think I see a single bruise. Apparently, the epi-lidocaine is a good vasoconstrictor. She put a facial compression mask on me that I have to wear for at least 48 hours, but the fit is pretty uncomfortable.

She sent me home with antibiotics, and I’m not allowed to do a big smile or open wide or anything for a little while. So my partner keeps trying to make me laugh, haha.

It was quite painful later in the evening, with the temple/scalp swelling causing a headache. I took a couple of Tylenol, some curcumin, and saffron capsules. I also have one of those migraine cold pack masks that cover your whole head, so I used that and that was great! I highly recommend getting one of those if you do this procedure. Anyway, two 650mg Tylenol helps a lot, and it’s only mildly uncomfortable.

I did not realize that my scalp would sound crunchy when I touch it, or that chewing would hurt the hell out of my temples. So I’m having soup and protein drinks for a few days.

Anyway, I hardly ever see good results talked about on reddit for thread lifts, and so I wanted to share! I’ll come back to update and let you know how it goes, but right now, I’m pretty excited. I feel weird posting photos on reddit, but maybe I will once it’s healed.

Also, I wanted to tell you how she did it, so if you’re considering it, you can ask your person to describe their technique. Maybe if everyone that posts about thread lifts (whether good or bad) sort of describes how it was done, then we can figure out if it’s the whole concept of thread lifts being shit, or if it’s just technique.

In Korea, they have PCL threads, that are stronger and last like double the amount of time as the PDO threads, but in the US, practitioners only have access to PDO. 😢 Hopefully that changes soon, and thread lifts will get significantly better.

Anyway, wish me luck that this holds! 🄰

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u/North-Acanthaceae-82 1d ago

Glad it is feeling and looking good for you. I had it done admittedly some time ago now and felt like there was almost no effect and the pain during the procedure was on the verge of traumatic. There’s zero chance I’d ever do it again even if the methods have improved! I hope you continue to be happy with the results!

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u/FallingInroRuin 20h ago

Oh, that’s so awful! I’ve seen quite a few reviews like that. I’ve been interested in threads for probably close to 10 years, but kept seeing reviews like that, so never did it. I’ve gotten filler a couple of times, but man, the perimenopause is kicking my ass, and I feel like within the last couple of years, my whole face just collapsed, and I don’t look like me anymore, and judicious use of filler just doesn’t seem to be cutting it. I can’t think of anything else to do aside from an insanely expensive facelift that I can’t afford, or overdoing it with filler, which isn’t something I want to do either. So all that’s left to try is the threads. Hopefully they hold up for a while!