In ours In the I Tried It series, columnist Leah Rumack tries out the latest and hottest cosmetic procedures. This time, she’s setting her sights on a new alternative to eye lift surgery.
“Your tops look perfect,” says my surgeon happily, but he’s not flirting. He rhapsodizes about my eyebrows, which he breathed new life into by gently lifting them half an inch or so and tugging at the creepy skin on my eyelids until they retreated in fear.
Back in The Before Time, when I was worried about my looks instead of the end of days, Michael Roskies, a facial plastic surgeon and the new medical director of SpaMedicatold me there was a new in-between procedure for droopy eyelids and droopy brows that hits that magic spot between endless rounds of Botox and a full browlift surgery.
Like many middle-aged people, my big beauty complaint is that I always look tired
Like many middle-aged people, my big beauty complaint is that I always look tired. This is because over time your forehead droops, the outer edge of your brow droops and the skin on your eyelids sags. To address this three-in-one punch, Roskies suggests I try a procedure SpaMedica devised the Suture Suspension Brow Lift, which is a combination of AccuTite radiofrequency treatment on the skin of my forehead and eyelids and a brow lift thread my AccuTite has only been available in Canada since the fall, and SpaMedica is one of the few clinics to get their hands on it. The device looks like a miniature hair iron—and it works almost like a hair iron. Intended for small, sensitive areas, one half slides under the skin and the other goes over top, delivering radio frequency waves that smooth the area by melting the underlying fat and tightening the skin as the doctor (only doctors can do AccuTite) the runs along the stretch.
Roskies suggests imagining my forehead as if it were a grilled cheese sandwich. “Once solidified, a grilled cheese can only come apart if you reheat the cheese in the middle layer,” he says, blissfully unaware that he’s ruining lunch forever. “The top layer of your skin is the bread and the cheese is the bottom layer of skin and fat. So, we melt that cheese and slide the top layer of bread up. We’re holding this bread with the suture suspension loops so that while the cheese is setting, this bread is in this position.”
I don’t quite realize the extent of what I’ve agreed to until the receptionist calls me to book my appointment at OR “Sorry,” I laugh. “Did you say OR?”
While you can get AccuTite on its own if your only wish is to shrink small patches of creepy skin (about $2,500 per area), Roskies says my sleepy look is actually more due to a droopy brow than loose skin of the lids that I fixate on, so I go for the full Suture Suspension Brow Lift (about $7,000), which is AccuTite on my eyelids and forehead combined with a thread lift to pull the whole party. It’s a bit more than the cursory injections with friendly nurses I’m used to, but I figure what the hell—the results will last at least a year, it’ll reduce the need for botox, and I’m nothing if not a fearless journalist and also hopelessly vain! But I don’t quite realize the extent of what I’ve agreed to until the receptionist calls me to book my appointment in the OR
“Sorry,” I laugh. “Did you say OR?”
AccuTite doesn’t have to be performed in an operating room, but since SpaMedica has theirs, Roskies prefers it. It’s not technically surgery, but I still have to go through all the standard pre-op stuff like getting blood work and an EKG, getting into my sexy hospital gown and compression leggings, and being picked up by a friend the day after. of.
I emerge with a large bandage on my forehead, blood in my hair and a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers in my bag
The whole thing takes about an hour and a half, and I’m awake the whole time. I don’t feel much—they do local freezing, gave me a couple of Ativans, and keep the gas handy. I emerge with a large bandage on my forehead covering the threads, blood in my hair and a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers in my bag, but I can slap on my Jackie O glasses afterwards and waltz out in wonder.
However, I must hide at home. First, I have threads sticking out of the top of my scalp — they’re kept long at first so the Roskies can pull on them like puppet strings to adjust the height and shape of my brows at my follow-up appointment five days later , while the fat and skin are still elastic.
While most people don’t experience extensive bruising, I develop huge, swollen purple bruises under my eyes as Roskies voluminous fluid injected into my forehead so it could lift my skin away from the muscles and nerves to make it disappear safely with AccuTite, drains . I’m not in too much pain, but I’m quickly realizing that the five days off I had planned before returning to an office won’t be enough to keep from terrifying everyone with my Quasimodo face. It ends up taking almost two weeks for the bruising and swelling to go away, although I can venture to look a bit misshapen and heavy on the concealer after about a week.
Six weeks after the procedure, I still have a horizontal scratch on one eyelid where the AccuTite device was placed, which Roskies assures me will heal. The threads don’t completely dissolve for at least three months, so if you look closely at my forehead, you can still see some crazy vertical lines where they hide underneath (thankfully, I have bangs). The creases in the eyelid skin that I had in the outer corners of my eyes are gone. But the most exciting thing is that I definitely look fresher and people definitely notice.
“That must be some coffee you’re drinking,” a friend remarks when she drops in on me early one morning.
“You look like a princess!” admired by another.
Little did I know that the world was about to enter a life of close range video calling where now magically I am always looking awake no matter what time it is.
