Dealing with swellings and hematomas after facelift

I need help...1 days after surgery I have harden tissue under my jaw, chin and one cheek has very harden spots which are drawing up and causing depressions. The other cheek has similar but to a lesser degree. Dr.

gave local injections of Kenalog however I am not sure if it is doing anything. I had a lot of swlling and edema and the dr. aspirated fluid from them about 3 0r 4 days after surgery. However, they were still swelling days after. Under my left cheek and chin my tissue is solid and hard. Does anyone know if this is common or rare?

I had a facelift 1 month ago. First off when I woke up from the surgery my eye was killing me, it turns out they spilled benadyne in my eye when they cleaned my face. It continued to hurt for days. I think my dr felt bad about it because she sent her nurse to my house the next day to take my drains out. I am still swollen and a little bruised on my neck. I guess I am impatient but I did not know this procedure would take so long to see the full results and be so uncomfortable. I have been getting lymphatic massages weekly and that is helping with the swelling. I would recommend it. I am glad I found this blog , it helps to know what I am experiencing is normal and I am not alone. Sounds like a lot of you had hematomas, I feel fortunate I did not have one. Take care everyone!

Thanks to everyone for such honest posts. It certainly appears that we all heal differently. I am six weeks post-op. I too had hematomas immediately after surgery. I was rushed back to emergency and my ps redid everything. I developed very large areas of severe bruising on my cheeks and my both sides scabbed but more so on the right. I have some hardness which appears to be reducing. I still have a quarter use area that is depressed and hopefully will fill in over time. Neck still has ridges, ears still have small lumpy areas and neck chin still lumpy. I still think the results are worth it. It will be a wait and see deal.

I am 45 and did the same thing thinking I would look better... Big NO!

My sister had neck surgery 10 days ago. She has had over 100cc of blood taken from the left side of the neck. Do you think she needs to go to hospital. The dr draines it in his office.

Thanks for your post. it has helped.

I'm 56 also. You have a lot of bothersome things. At 6 weeks we expect to be presentable, but we're never told about lumps, dents lasting for months! It's like the best thing to do is take mths. off work if you can so we don't have to cope with the double stress of how our face looks and facing other people.

I had to have my face lift redone. First one was 2 years ago. It's now 5 weeks. My original problem is pretty much fixed, but I have a dent on my jaw line, dime size like yours. The jawline was, and still is swollen. About the 5th day I got a bruise in the centre, which has collapsed into a dent. Once again, I have to wait and see, and worry. At least if I have to get filler there, it won't be too expensive because it's not a big area. But fillers are a life long expense.

I just had a mini deep plane lift with mid face implants. Whew. I feel okay yet a bit scared! I have an amazing surgeon, so I know this is going to look amazing. But yes, we have to be gentle and realistic with ourselves. We have to go through the healing process. I just want to hide because I have not told anyone about this. Luckily I can stay away for a bit - take a long deserved vacation. But I know it'll be obvious when I return that I had something done. The swelling is what freaks me out right now. I just want to be assured that my look will be natural and not freakish (as it looks now). Patience (I keep telling myself.) Relaxing and meditating helps!

You are so right on! I had facelift, upper/lower eyes, browlift on November 9. And yep, a big hematoma which has compromised my recovery a bit. Still bruised (almost two months) and the sides of my face are like a hardwood floor. Tenderness in my head where they went in endoscopically for the brow lift - tingles, and feels very funny. I expect not to see the full results for at least another 4 months. I have been getting ultrasound/massage on my bruises and raised scars which seems to really be helping. I'm also using Scarguard (doctor recommended). Every morning (because my neck is sore and stiff from not moving around at night) I use a heating pad and at night I do the same but also use a massage tool with the big disk. Keep that blood heated up and moving! Yes, it's going to be awhile. Don't freak out - almost everyone has many of the same symptons. Look, in a year you'll forget all about the pain. Sort of like childbirth! Right? lol! Goftheu, thanks for your honest and helpful post!

I had a hematoma the day after surgery which was drained in the doc's office. The following two weeks he drained more blood out. It's a simple process and my doc was expecting me to call him the day after surgery. Because I was so sore and swollen (all three times) I didn't feel a thing. Hematoma's are more common than I think we think. And IF my doctor were to have told me all of these things prior to my facelift? Of course I wouldn't have done it. :>)

Hi everyone i am a doctor myself and had a face lift 7 weeks ago.:-D

i am 49 years old. as i do a lot of sports and had a lot of stress during the last two years it seemed to me i burned all my subcutaneous fat tissue. thus i was tired of this angry looking and tired face. as i am not a surgeon or plastic myself i did a lot of research prior to my face lift. as this is a real important topic and there is a lot of confusing reports in the internet i plan to write my own experiences down in a book.

at present my face is also still swolllen under my eyes (did a midface lift with little neck extension plus lot of lipostructuring). many patients do here experience tight feelings of the face and prolonged swelling. in contrast some people report of a remarkable fast recovery. from my point of view this ican only be partly explained due to individual healing time. keep in mind that good plastic face surgery is very invasive!! i suppose some of the remarkable fast healers are explained that not a detailed face lift is performed. as i learned myself about facelift this surgery is not only highly invasive but also needs detailed knowledge of anatomy with a vast amount of anatomical preparing time. thus, if i read that face surgery is performed in 1,5-3 hours i can not imagine that proper face lift is performed.

in my case i choose a specialized face clinic doing only faces (tumor surgery including aesthetic surger, nothing else ) and is well known in germany (apologize my bad english, as i am a german citizien). my mid face lift lasted 10 hours without any complication . thus 3 hours taking of fat and restructuring the face and 6-7 hours for the face lift. imagine only suturing of the one side of the face lastst in general 30-40 min!! add twice 40 min-makes 1-1/2 hours, how should a whole face lift be performed in 2-3 hours?? and be aware i had no other surgical procedurte done in my face only a midface lift (no blepharoplasty or other lift) the point i want to make is that tight feelings and swelling are normal at 6-8 weels post op if face lift is performed properly! and if somebody tells you to do a midface left in 1-2 hours: run away.

this is never possible . well this is all my personell opinion and there is so much to talk about. i do share frustrating feelings about the healing time and the tight feeling of the face including numbness. so far my cheeks are still numb. however, lots of the fat has ingrown and the scars are hardly visible. >;)

greetings robs

I had surgery 10 days ago. I am very swollen still. Doctors sees me about every other day. now. I feel like I am being choked to death. Most of my face is numb, eyes on down. I am getting scared now. I hope I dont have to be reopened. How are you doing now.

To Karen & Anita,
Had surgery on April 4th, no bruising until 6th day after surgery. Was feeling so good, I transplanted some flowers having my head down and apparently this brought on a hematoma. Had it drained twice, looking so much better this date is April 21st. I still wrap my neck and head which I think helps the healing process.

I had a facelift 10 years ago, resulting in hematomas on both sides of my jaw line. It became difficult making excuses not to go to work, being I just didn't want the staff to know. The doctor examined them on a regular basis but did not drain them. It took two months for the blood to dissolve. I used warm moist compresses. I was and still am happy with the results..........but the whole experience was dreadful. No more surgery for me! Sorry you had to experience this too. I have not idea what caused it???

I'm 10 days out from my lower facelift/necklift earlobe reduction. This is by far the best advice I have read!
Thanks for posting.