What Is Dr. BYUN’s Famous Midface Lift?

You might not be feeling it, but are you looking tired, sad, or upset? Does your facial structure seem to have an emotion of its own? Is your face not representative of the younger person inside? If you answered yes to any of these, we might have a solution for you!

The midface lift, or vertical face lift, can provide an answer to all of the above issues. This lift has been studied, developed, and applied for over 20 years by famous facial plastic surgeon Dr. BYUN. It targets the cheek and jowl areas that often suffer from drooping, by pulling the tissues Up and In. This significantly changes the appearance of these areas, reversing the effects of age on the face.

Patient 2038

Midface Lift Candidacy

You may be a good candidate for a midface lift if you are bothered by sagging or drooping in your upper cheek and lower eyelid area. You might have a “heaviness” under your cheeks, prominent nasolabial folds, or “hollowness” in the area under your eyes.

To qualify for surgery, you should be in good health and not have any chronic medical conditions that could affect your healing process. You should have reasonable expectations of surgery that you discuss with Dr. BYUN during your pre-operative consultation.

How to Prepare for a Midface Lift

To prepare for a midface lift with Dr. BYUN, you must stop smoking several weeks prior to surgery. You also need to stop taking certain medications or adjust your current medications if they raise the risk of surgical complications like bleeding. Dr. BYUN’s team will provide you with a complete list of medications to avoid.

Dr. BYUN may ask you to undergo lab testing or see your primary care provider for a medical evaluation prior to your surgery.

The Midface Lift Procedure Details

A midface lift is an outpatient procedure performed with anesthesia. It is a slightly shorter surgery than traditional facelift.

Dr. BYUN utilizes techniques that he researched and developed himself, along with a specialized device called the Endotine Midface implant, a bioabsorbable suture used to connect delicate tissue. After making an incision along the hairline near the forehead, Dr. BYUN inserts the suture into the cheek area as it will hold the cheek and malar fat pad in the correct position while the tissues heal and reattach. This procedure provides structure and vigor to the cheek area. Then, a more standard facelift incision is made at the side of the face by the ear. Excess skin is then excised in order to lift jowls along a sagging jaw, which, along with the cheek procedure, gives the face an altogether more youthful appearance.

Midface Lift Recovery

After a midface lift, a bandage will be placed around your head. You need to have a companion drive you home and stay with you for at least the first 24 hours after your surgery.

Mild to moderate bruising and swelling are common after a midface lift. Icing your face and keeping your head elevated at all times (even while sleeping) helps control these aftereffects.

You should be able to return to work about a week after the procedure, at which point the majority of the bruising and swelling will have subsided. It can take a few more weeks for residual bruising and swelling to resolve.

Will I Have Scars from a Midface Lift?

Dr. BYUN is careful to place the surgical incisions in the natural creases and transitions of the skin, so scarring is very discreet. With the proper scar management, your scars should fade very well over time.

How Long do Midface Lift Results Last?

To maintain your midface lift results, you should follow healthy lifestyle habits. These habits include, and are not limited to, eating a nutritious diet, staying active, protecting your face from the sun, and maintaining your weight. Using professional-grade skin care is also wise. Dr. BYUN and his team can recommend a suitable product regimen as well as other procedures or treatments to help prolong your results.

Revolutionary Vision,
Unmatched Outcomes

Can I Combine a Midface Lift with Other Procedures?

Patients often opt to combine a midface lift with other rejuvenating procedures for more transformative results. For instance, a midface lift can be combined with a forehead lift to elevate a sagging or low brow position, and smooth the skin of the forehead. Another option is to combine a midface lift with a blepharoplasty (eyelid lift) to remove excess eyelid skin and “open up” the eyes. Dr. BYUN’s midface lift can also be combined with other Zones.

Dr. Byun focuses on 4 areas of the face (4 Zones):

Zone I – Neck & Lower Face: (Best for someone with a “turkey neck” – the Platysma Muscle from the Neck to the Face)

Zone II – The Mouth Area, Chin and Jaw: (Best for someone with a Marionette Line, or a sad/mean look)

Zone III – Midface, Lower Eye & Cheek: (Best for someone with a tired look or dark circles, a heavy smile line(s) called Nasolabial Fold)

Zone IV – Upper face, Forehead, Upper Eyes & Brows: (Someone with heavy lids, sad eye shape, hooded brow or forehead lines)

Dr. BYUN’s Midface Lift Technique

Dr. BYUN first presented this technique to the National Plastic Surgery Meeting at the American College of Surgeons in Orlando in May 1998. He demonstrated how the aging of the midface involves the interconnected muscles and tissues of the lower eye, the cheek, and the corner of the mouth, and lifting this area meant all of these issues needed to be managed simultaneously. Therefore, Dr. BYUN proposed that elevating the malar cheek pad using small incisions would solve all of these problems, reshaping the central face and restoring youth to the cheek.

We have provided a sample copy of an Operative Report. The procedure is subject to change per the patient’s needs.

PREOPERATIVE DIAGNOSIS: Facial rhytids

POSTOPERATIVE DIAGNOSIS: Facial rhytids

OPERATION: Midface lift with elevation of the malar fat pad and the elevation of the jowl using Endotine Coapt Suture

ANESTHESIA: General

Operative Procedure

After the induction of general anesthesia in a supine position, the patient was prepped and draped in the usual sterile fashion. A total of 50 ml of ¼ % Lidocaine with Epinephrine were injected to the face area where the temporal incision was made. Subperiosteal dissection was carried out in the supraorbital area and lateral orbital rim and the inferior orbital rim area subperiosteally. This was done bilaterally using the Ramirez dissector.

Next the coapt, endotine sutures were introduced bilaterally and this was pulled up and anchored to the temporalis fascia with 3.0 Vicryl. This successfully elevated the descended malar fat pad subperiosteally.

Next, the retro tragal facelift incision was made from the sideburn area down to the earlobe area where the subcutaneous tissue was dissected and the SMAS flap was elevated there using 3.0 Vicryl to improve the pre-jowl region. This was done using 3.0 Vicryl. Dissection was done also in a similar way on the left side where the subcutaneous tissue as well as the SMAS flap was developed and these were anchored thus superiorly using 3.0 Vicryl. The skin was closed using 4.0 Vicryl and 5.0 Catgut. Good hemostasis was obtained. The skin was closed using 6.0 Prolene.

Schedule A Midface Lift Consultation With Dr. BYUN

For more information about midface lift cost and the midface procedure, please request a consultation with Dr. BYUN today.

Midface Lift for Acne Scars

Dr. BYUN uses his own “polish and pull” technique that he has developed using his Endoscope assisted Midface Muscle Lift. 

This specialized procedure, specific to Dr. BYUN allows individuals that suffer from acne scars and divots to have clean, restored, and polished looking skin.

While many patients often seek out dermabrasion, lasers, or fillers, very few know that the permanent scar tissue underneath actually needs to be detached and cut away to smooth out the craters in the skin. Rather than fillers that cannot reverse the permanent damages of acne, Dr. BYUN’s process allows for the careful detachment or lifting of the scarred skin from the old scar tissue sitting on top of muscles. The midface muscles are placed back to where they fell from (due to the aging process). Dr. BYUN then meticulously tugs on the skin to redrape it over the new structure and form of the new muscle position. Because the skin now sits on top of a plumper muscle surface, the acne scars, and pits are tremendously improved. Surgical incisions are hardly seen as they are small in size and well hidden in one’s hairline.

His approach truly repairs the damaged skin that is a full thickness injury from the old acne scars. He often wishes that we had ‘spare parts’ to replace the damaged tissues, but we don’t. Therefore, we have to make sure we do not damage what we have, but improve the functionality without damaging tissues any further.

What to Stay Away From:

• Lasers only work on ‘normal skin’, and unfortunately do very little to help restore thinned out, damaged skin from the acne.
• Accutane often damages normal skin.
• Fillers dissolve and migrate, thus only putting a ‘band aid’ on the actual problem.

Patient 1850

This Patient’s acne scars were a daily reminder of her teenage acne. With Chicago’s top plastic surgeon Dr. BYUN’s “Polish and Pull” Technique, this patient’s confidence has been restored.