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If real life teaches us anything, it’s that you get what you pay for.
Nowhere is that bit of common sense more evident than in the world of plastic surgery.
A type of cheap facelift procedure called a thread-lift has recently been singled out
as an example of a waste of time and money.
The thread-lift procedure, which makes use of implanted metal barbed threads
may be less costly than standard facelift procedures
but it doesn’t work well and cannot be recommended
That’s according to a team of state researchers and independent assessors in New York
in a study published in the current issue of The Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery
The study, which admittedly only surveyed 33 patients
compared the results of three procedures:
thread-lifts alone
non-surgical facelift procedures, including fat injections and chemical peels
and thread-lift surgery plus non-surgical procedures.
One month into the survey, patients from all three groups showed noticeable improvement
But when the researchers came back to examine the patients’ faces a second time
12 to 31 months later, only the patients who had undergone the nonsurgical treatments
with or without thread-lifts
showed lasting improvement
The patients who underwent the thread-lift operation alone showed
no long-lasting improvement
The authors concluded that any improvement in skin tightness in thread-lift patients
was caused not by the barbed threads but by plain old swelling
As the swelling decreased, so did the tightness, leaving the patient
with a face full of “fishhooks,” a lighter wallet and nothing to show for it.
The researchers concluded that, given these findings
as well as the risk of adverse events and patient discomfort
use of this procedure for facial rejuvenation simply could not be justified.