Neck Lift

Neck Lift Information Resource for Southern California including Orange County, Newport Beach, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and San Diego.

Welcome to Orange County’s best information resource for plastic surgery and, in particular, face lift / neck lift surgery. Dr. Cruise, board certified plastic surgeon, Newport Beach, CA, has filled every inch of this site with the most comprehensive neck lift information available. Patient education is a priority for Dr. Cruise. With this in mind, he was adamant that the information be highly relevant, easy to understand and, above all, lots and lots of neck lift pictures.

To give you a brief overview, here are some of the important topics that will be discussed. This is in addition to the many neck lift before and after pictures available for your review.

• What causes the neck to sag?
  Dr. Cruise outlines the neck aging process in exquisite detail in the Custom Face Lift section. It shows how the neck muscles sag with time and how a neck lift restores a youthful appearance.
• What does a neck lift do?
  Does it correct the turkey neck band? Does it define the jaw line and neck angle? What are a neck lift’s limitations?
• Do I need a face lift or a neck lift or both?
  Find out when one is better than the other.
• Neck lift before and after pictures
  Find people with similar concerns as your own.
• Neck lift complications, risks, recovery and safety
• Neck lift cost
  Is financing available?

The purpose of the site is to give you the good AND the bad to help you achieve your goal. There is a significant amount of information. Make sure you visit the custom face lift section. This section outlines the effects of all the major procedures of the face including eyelid surgery, brow lift, fat transfer, neck and face lift, chin implants, to mention a few.

Overview of Neck Rejuvenation

The effects of aging show early within the neck region. The skin begins to hang loosely and the muscles underneath lose their tone. These changes produce the characteristic look of the aging neck. If you look at any young person who is not overweight you will see that the skin is closely adherent to the neck creating a very sharp angle at the level of the Adams Apple. This angle is called the cervico-mental angle and makes a profound impact on the appearance of the neck.

uspension technique. Notice the dramatic improvement of both neck angle and jaw line. Click to enlarge.

In youth, the cervico-mental angle is very sharp approaching 70 degrees. As one ages or gains weight, this angle becomes flatter and flatter for different reasons. With aging, both the skin and the muscles become lax. The muscles form cords that draped down from the chin giving the characteristic “turkey neck” appearance.

With weight gain, the angle flattens because of the excess subcutaneous fat. The treatment for these two problems is completely different.

In youth, the cervico-mental angle is very sharp approaching 70 degrees. As one ages or gains weight, this angle becomes flatter and flatter for different reasons. With aging, both the skin and the muscles become lax. The muscles form cords that draped down from the chin giving the characteristic “turkey neck” appearance.

With weight gain, the angle flattens because of the excess subcutaneous fat. The treatment for these two problems is completely different.

In the case were the cervico-mental angle has flattened because of fat accumulation within the subcutaneous tissues, Dr. Cruise can normally improve the neck contour with liposuction, with or without a neck lift. When liposuction is performed on the neck two things happen. One, the subcutaneous fat is removed and two, during the healing process the skin re drapes more tightly against the neck creating a leaner appearance with a sharper cervico-mental angle.

The process of facial aging is described more thoroughly below and within the pages describing face lift. Dr. Cruise has spent much time and has acquired considerable experience with what causes the appearance of neck aging and what needs to be done to correct it. The key to neck lift surgery is to tighten the underlying muscles that have become lax, re-create a sharp cervico-mental angle, create a well-defined jaw line, and then re drape the skin to accommodate the new contour. It is important to understand that the majority of the work needs to be done underneath the skin level. It is not just a skin tightening procedure.

Dr. Cruise has determined that, in his hands, the best way to re-create the cervico-mental angle is to re suspend the muscle as is typically done, but also to augment this re suspension by securing the muscle in its proper location with a technique called suture suspension. The effects are quite dramatic and predictable as demonstrated in the above before and after pictures.

Above picture demonstrates how the platysma muscle is suspended under the jaw bone giving a well defined mandibular border as well as creating a youthful neck angle.All of the sutures for midline plication are placed under the skin and are not visible. Midline platysma muscle suture eliminates Turkey Neck.

It is a very exciting time in plastic surgery because we are just beginning to solve the puzzle of facial aging and Dr. Cruise is very much involved with the progress. Even though facial aging affects the entire face and neck, sometimes a patient is really only concerned with a particular area such as the neck. In this situation, only the neck needs to be addressed. Often the patient will return to have their face and eyes done when they are ready. This is an excellent way to approach facial rejuvenation. You should only have corrected what really bothers you. You can always come back and have other things done at a later date.