PDO Threads Against a Surgical Facelift
Choosing between PDO threads and a surgical facelift comes down to how much change you want and what you will go through to get it. Two published sources set out the trade, and they point in different directions.
What the thread side offers
According to www.plasticsurgery.org, a thread lift offers immediate results without the downtime or scarring that occurs with a surgical facelift procedure. For someone who wants to avoid a long recovery, that is the draw.
Reading the patient page itself
The American Society of Plastic Surgeons keeps a thread lift page on the same subject. Read it in full and compare it with any provider's own handout.
What the caution says
Save Face, at www.saveface.co.uk, states that while PDO thread lifts can produce good results for carefully selected patients, they are not a replacement for a surgical facelift, and they are not without risk.
Where a small question turns costly
Both statements can hold at once. Skipping downtime and scarring is attractive, but the costly version of this choice is paying for threads when what you wanted was the result of a facelift. Save Face's point that threads are not a replacement is the reason to settle that before you book. Its piece, PDO Thread Lifts vs. Surgical Facelifts: Managing Expectations and Safety, is built around that comparison.
More to read on the thread side
A prospective comparative clinical study of cog threads combined with botulinum toxin type A for nasolabial folds shows how threads are studied on their own terms. The page FAQs: PDO Thread Lifts at blog.joinportrait.com answers common questions on the subject.
Questions to settle before agreeing
- How do you decide whether I am a carefully selected candidate?
- What result should I expect from threads, and what would a surgical facelift do that threads will not?
- What are the risks in my case?
- Who will place the threads, and what happens if I am not satisfied?
If the answers keep returning to what a facelift would do, that tells you which conversation you actually need to have.