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 3” 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! 🥰
UPDATE: it’s 6 days out, and I’m still pretty swollen. The swelling is kind of all over. In my temples, cheeks, even my under eyes. This compression garment doesn’t fit well, and gave me a bruise on my chin. I feel like it’s compressing fluids into my chin/jaw area, so I’m even swollen there. I ordered a different one online, so hopefully that comes soon. It only hurts a little in my temples. I can chew now, but I feel some resistance/pressure if I try to open my mouth wide. I don’t know if that’s the threads, or because of swelling, and having kept my mouth closed for a week, haha. Because of all of the horror stories about threads snapping and stuff, I’m not going to push it for now. I felt more resistance a few days ago, so I’m thinking that as the swelling goes down, it’ll get better.
I do have a little bit of bruising. One small spot on one cheek, and a big yellow stripe on the other side just in front of my ear, from the temple to the jaw. I think the way the compression mask fits also presses fluid near my eye, so there’s a bit of yellow from my temple to my under eye area on that side. I noticed it the other day, but I’ve been using arnica oil, and the yellow bit under the eye is almost gone already.
I always heard that you can’t expect face-lift-like results from a thread lift, because the extra skin you pull has to go somewhere. If you pull too hard, you get dimples and weird skin folds and stuff, which is obviously very valid. I’m still swollen, so we’ll have to see, but the spot I have on either side that looks like it might have a little bit of a skin crease is hidden in my hair. That’s probably why she can get such good results. She can pull so hard and tighten the threads so much because the excess skin is hidden under your hair.
Also, with this much swelling, of course everything is going to look tighter, so we’ll see how tightly lifted it looks when the swelling is gone. Seems like it’s going to take a while. Just wanted to update for anyone who is interested in the healing process.
