Mid-face lift

No. A mid-face lift elevates the malar fat pad and cheek soft tissue in the middle third of the face, which improves the under-eye area, cheekbone fullness and the nasolabial fold. A traditional facelift works on the lower face, jawline and neck, takes longer in theatre and longer to recover from, and does not by itself correct mid-facial descent — which is why the two are frequently combined.

Patient-facing guidance from large hospital systems commonly quotes around 10 years, with real variation between individuals. A long-term retrospective review of endoscopic mid-face lifts found objective improvement in mid-facial height, sustained on validated mid-face and global aesthetic scales over extended follow-up. Ageing continues either way, so the result is a reset rather than a permanent stop.

An all-in package for an isolated mid-face lift runs €3,100 to €6950 as of 2026, covering surgeon and anaesthetist fees, theatre, 1 night as an inpatient, pre-operative bloods and anaesthetic assessment, medication and dressings, your Istanbul follow-ups and suture removal, transfers and interpreting — not flights, not hotel nights beyond the bundled 7, not a revision. For a US reference point, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons put the average surgeon fee for a facelift at $11,395 in its 2023 statistics, a figure that excludes anaesthesia, operating room facilities and other related costs. ASPS publishes no separate line item for mid-face lift, so the two numbers are an anchor, not a like-for-like comparison.

It can improve the tear-trough hollow that comes from soft tissue descending away from the orbital rim, because the operation releases that tissue and re-drapes it over the rim, smoothing the lid-cheek junction. It does much less for dark circles caused by pigmentation or thin skin. When the under-eye is the main complaint, we usually pair it with lower blepharoplasty or fat repositioning.

Sutures come out around day 7, pain usually eases by days 7 to 10, and most people return to non-physical work at about 2 weeks, though bruising may still need covering. Light cardio is generally cleared at around 4 weeks; strenuous training, heavy lifting and bending wait until about 6 weeks, so the fixation is not loaded while it is still settling. Residual swelling and tenderness on chewing can take up to 6 weeks to resolve.

Fillers add volume over the cheekbone, but they do not release the retaining ligaments or reposition descended tissue, so they are answering a different question. They are non-surgical with essentially no downtime and last roughly 3 to 18 months, against years for a surgical lift. If you have mild volume loss and little descent, injectables are usually the better answer; if the tissue has genuinely dropped, they will not do it.

It depends on the approach: the endoscopic transtemporal route hides the incisions behind the temporal hairline, the transoral route places them inside the upper gum with no external scar, and the subciliary route uses a fine incision just under the lower lash line. Preauricular facelift-type incisions sit in the creases around the ear. Alopecia along a temporal incision and hypertrophic scarring are recognised complications, uncommon but real.

Anyone still using nicotine in any form around the surgery — it is the strongest modifiable predictor of skin flap necrosis and wound breakdown, and we postpone rather than operate through it. Uncontrolled hypertension or diabetes, a bleeding disorder or anticoagulation that cannot safely be paused, active infection at the site and previous radiotherapy to the face are all reasons to defer or decline. Two more are specific to this operation: if jowls and a slack neck are the real complaint, a mid-face lift does not answer it, and if the concern is a flaw others do not see, surgery reliably makes body dysmorphic disorder worse rather than better. Significant lower-lid laxity is not a bar, but it has to be corrected in the same sitting rather than left.

Call us straight away, rather than waiting for the next appointment, for rapidly increasing swelling, tightness or pain on one side — that is how a hematoma presents, usually within the first 24 to 48 hours. The same applies to spreading redness, warmth or discharge at an incision, fever, any change in vision or severe eye pain, a lower lid that has begun to pull away from the eye or an eye you cannot fully close, and new weakness raising a brow or moving one side of the face. Once you are home, calf pain or swelling and sudden breathlessness need emergency care where you are, not a call to Istanbul — recent surgery and a flight each raise clot risk on their own.

Because it is swollen, not because it was overcorrected. The mid-face holds fluid stubbornly, and for the first 2 to 3 weeks the cheeks sit fuller and higher than the finished result — judging the outcome at that point, and asking for it to be changed, is the commonest mistake patients make. Deep swelling takes months to clear; the contour is honest at about 6 months, and that is the fair moment to assess it. Firmness, numbness and one side settling faster than the other are normal along the way, not warning signs.

No — it is a different intervention with a different lifespan. Barbed suspension threads pull on soft tissue without releasing the retaining ligaments that hold it down, so the correction is modest and typically fades within about a year to 18 months as the threads absorb. That can be the right trade if you want minimal downtime and accept repeating it, but it is not a durable substitute for surgical release and fixation, and repeated thread work can leave fibrosis in the very planes a later lift has to dissect.