Neck lift after smart lipo can be done as soon as 3 months but the standard that many follow is 6 months by Dr. Philip Young of Bellevue | Seattle: This is the standard for most all revisions. 6 months allow the tissues to heal. Prior to this, you can have friable tissue that will bleed more and could lead to more difficult surgery. Also the 6 month standard allows the person to see more of the final result. Some people do revisions earlier and as early as 3 months with those risks in mind. Smart lipo can remove the neck fat and do some tightening, but will not replace what can be done with a traditional neck lift. I like to do my neck lifts using techinques that I developed based on over 1200 neck and facelifts. I have learned that a lot of what is taught to surgeons doesn’t lead to the best results. You should go to someone that has a lot of experience doing neck lifts. Many surgeons take short cuts for many different reasons that don’t benefit you. A well done neck lift will take up to 3-4 hours to really get right. As you can see in the diagram below, the platysma muscle is the muscle that I tighten to tighten your whole neck. I sew that muscle in the middle starting just under your chin and then continue down to the base of your neck and then back up again in a corset type manner. I don’t cut the muscle, which many surgeons do, because I don’t think that it allows the muscle to tighten the whole neck evenly. Also cutting the muscle can create odd appearances with your neck that don’t always look good. Also, I elevate the platysma and take out fat under the chin to further help with contouring the neck. Within this area, I sometimes alter the muscles as well.
Playtysmaplasty | Neck Lift Anatomy