Nowadays, we carry out almost all our face lift surgery under a combination of local anaesthetic and sedation. While this may sound rather scary, the fact is that a face lift under sedation is not only safer, but has fewer unpleasant side effects than treatment under general anaesthesia. In fact, most of our patients having a face lift under local anaesthetic and sedation report that they actually enjoy the experience!

Almost everybody is able to tolerate sedation with complete safety – this is a major advantage over general anaesthesia. Prior to having sedation there are some simple precautions to be observed. You can access our instructions for patients having sedation via this link.

The type of sedation that we use consists of a continuous low-dose infusion of an anaesthetic agent called propofol, administered through a small plastic cannula placed in the back of your hand. The Consultant Anaesthetist can alter the rate of infusion to make you as sleepy as you wish. The only stimulating part of the whole procedure is the initial phase (which lasts perhaps two minutes) during which your face is numbed with local anaesthetic injections. We typically make patients very sleepy during this initial phase. Once the entire face is numb there is no need for patients to be deeply sedated – at this stage we tend to lighten the level of sedation so that patients feel relaxed and perhaps lightly sleepy. Some patients do request that they are ‘asleep’ during the whole procedure and where appropriate this is simple to achieve. The disadvantage is that these patients tend to be slightly drowsier for a few hours post-operatively than otherwise. Sedation is typically not associated with any sensation of sickness or vomiting after treatment. In fact, most people return to normal within an hour of their treatment.

People’s subjective experience of sedation is very variable. Some people
remember nothing at all of the events of surgery and some have ‘garbled’
memories. No one has ever reported any unpleasant or noxious experiences.
Several accounts of personal experiences of sedation can be read on our forum. 

Another major advantage of sedation is that because there is no need for full
general anaesthetic and recovery facilities, we are able to work in a minor
operating theatre and return patients directly to the comfort of their own
room. This significantly reduces our hospital costs and this saving
(approximately £1600 per case) is passed on directly to patients.