transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] I think most people assume when you say you have regret regarding your facelift, that something went wrong with your surgery, that there's a botched result, and people can see it. It's like very obvious. But that's not always the case. I had my surgery, I'm coming up on six months, and I didn't have any complications during my surgery, or really any major complications after it. My surgery actually went right. I had very minimal pain. In fact, I would say it went better than I expected, in many regards. But even still, I have regrets. And there are things that I wish I knew, wish I had been more informed before I went into this. The regrets that I have are things I haven't heard a lot of women talking about. And I think that's a problem. The fact that no one really talks about these things. I have regrets over some of the expectations that I had, miscommunications that occurred, and from some things that I don't think a surgeon could ever prepare you for. And I definitely was not prepared for the way people respond when you decide to be as public about it as I've been. I think when people are considering a facelift, they think of one procedure, one recovery, one result, and it's so much more layered and complicated than that. There's different techniques, different ways to prepare for the surgery that makes a really big difference in your ultimate result, different ways that you can handle your healing, different outcomes, different levels of pain. And like the biggest shock of all for me was that I didn't experience pain. I thought pain was going to be the hardest part. I thought it was going to be brutal, but that wasn't the hardest part. Just because you're not in excruciating pain doesn't mean you're comfortable, doesn't mean that you're happy, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you were emotionally prepared for the surgery. No pain doesn't mean easy, and it doesn't mean everything went perfect. My name is Chalene Johnson. Thank you for joining me on this edition of The Chalene Show, where I'm talking about my age-affirming surgery. That's what I like to call it. I mean, everybody else calls it a facelift, but for me, I was affirming the age that I felt on the inside. Let's get to it. As fully prepared, as much as I did to be fully aware, informed and the insane amount of research that I did, there's still so many things I just wasn't prepared for. I didn't hear anyone talking about these things, and these are things I wish someone had told me before I had my surgery. I woke up and wasn't in any pain whatsoever. I remember I actually went live on Instagram. I have no recollection of it whatsoever because I was so fully drugged. I was really happy day two, even though my face was gigantic, I looked like a scene from The Mask, and you just feel so incredibly unattractive and uncomfortable. I wasn't in pain, but I was definitely uncomfortable. I'm going to talk about some of the surprising emotions that come with this weird sensation you have. But overall, everything went well. That's not the part that I have some regrets about. We're going to get to that in just a moment. But before I go there, I also want to explain exactly what I did, because I know many of you are going to say, who's your surgeon? How much did you pay? What did it cost? And so many people just compare numbers. They go, oh, she had a face lift. It was how much money? Where did she go? What did you do? And can I get your doctor's number? But I want you to know that there's so much more to it than that. I don't care. I would tell you exactly what I paid for. But I think you also need to know exactly what I did. And basically, I had a full head transplant. I asked for the Chris Kardashian, give it all to me. I wanted everything. Now, my doctor didn't agree with some of the things I wanted. He said, no, you're not a good candidate for that. And or it's overkill. You don't need that. You're gonna look crazy if we do that. For example, I wanted to do my brows and he's like, no, no, you have nice lifted brows. So I guess I would have looked like that. So maybe that would have been a little crazy. He's like, you gotta have something you want to do later. Right? Cause he knows me. I said, I'm the kind of person who I want to do tweaks whenever I need them. This isn't not a one and done for me. I told him that I said so. And he's like, good, then let's do something that looks very refreshed, but you don't look crazy. So here's what I've actually had done. I did an extended deep plane face and neck lift with central compartment neck dissection. Oh my God. Laryngeal setback, platysmal and lateral functional platysmal sling, a little tiny bit of CO2 laser under the eyes, plus an upper bleph and an under eye pinch. Okay, so that's it. That's all. Just that. So a lot of neck reconstruction. I had very, very pronounced platysmal bands like these. I mean, they're still there. And he moved my larynx box back, I guess. I don't know. I mean, I looked at my whole surgical plan before I had the surgery, but an extended deep plane surgery is very different from a lower facelift where you're just pulling the skin back. With this surgery, not to go into too much detail, but they're literally like moving muscles, moving ligaments, really like moving the structure of your face back to where it was. Things I didn't do that people have asked me about is I didn't do an under eye bluff. I didn't do any temporal lifts. I didn't do a lip lift. I didn't do anything with my nose. I didn't do any skin resurfacing. I didn't do any volume. I didn't do any fat transfers. And some of that, I kind of have regrets over it. I kind of wish I had and we'll talk about that in just a moment. But so those are all the things that I did. The one thing that I didn't know I needed and I wouldn't have even asked for it was an upper bluff. My eyes didn't bug me. I didn't realize though, until after the surgery, this is one piece of advice I have for you. If you're feeling tired, if you're already like, I'm getting the surgeries, but like maybe you're not ready for the very extensive nature of an extended deep plane facelift. I'm telling you, I think the upper bluff on my eyes made the biggest difference. I know so many people, like men and women who've had this done and have had it done like even twice and they look great. They still look like themselves. I think men have to be very, very, very careful. We know there's certain celebrities who have done it and it just looks a little strange. But I think that made the biggest difference in helping my eyes to look younger, more youthful and restored. It's so funny after I did my surgery, everybody and their brother was commenting on like, your makeup looks so much better now. You look so much younger. I'm like, I hope I look younger. I had a facelift, you know, but I have noticed I'm wearing much less makeup. I just think when your eyes start to feel hooded, you're just struggling with all that extra skin. And I didn't realize it. That's one thing that I'm like the most excited about is my upper bleph. And I share that with you because you need to write all of that down. If you're trying to look at like, what certain doctors charge and what you should pay for. And I, by the way, I don't think you should ever select a surgeon just based on price. When you do that, you could end up in a whole heap of trouble and end up spending a lot more money in the long run. And it's your face. It's not like you can hide it. We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a very important public service announcement regarding you becoming an advocate for yourself. When it comes to your care, you still have to be an advocate. As educated, as helpful, as knowledgeable, as intelligent, as credible as your care providers are, they still don't know you. And that is why I always want to remind you when you're seeking care, especially as it relates to your hormones, you've got to take the lead. You can't expect your doctor, your provider to tell you what to do. Like if you want to talk about GLP-1s and microdosing it, well, then you've got to bring that up. If you're interested in switching the type of hormone replacement you've been on and you've got a friend who's tried this or that, you've got to bring that up. You've got to come prepared. You have to know your options. You need to come with a list of questions. And you get to guide the conversation. You get to tell your provider, your clinician, where it is you want to go. I mean, yes, you can let them be the Sherpa. Obviously, they are there to help you, but they can't read your mind. And sometimes they're reluctant to suggest things for fear that they might offend you or for legal regulations. So don't be shy. Be prepared. And this is true whether you're going to a new dentist or a new OBGYN or you've just discovered MIDI Health. Now, if you don't have a doctor locally that can treat you, that you feel really confident that they've got up-to-date training when it comes to your health, your hormone care as a woman, I'm really excited to be able to suggest a solution for you, MIDI Health. And MIDI was founded by women to solve a problem we have here in the United States that most physicians, most doctors, most clinicians have zero or very, very little up-to-date training when it comes to women's hormone health. And we all need access to affordable care that's covered by insurance. And MIDI Health has set out to make that a reality. MIDI clinicians are all menopause experts. They understand the symptoms, the latest research, and they can share with you all of your options, not just the one that they're partial to. All women should be working with a medical team that actually gets it. Now this is a company that offers virtual visits. This makes it really comfortable for you to share and discuss your symptoms in a virtual visit from the comfort of your own home. There's no membership fees, there's no hidden costs. Your visit and most all of your prescriptions are likely covered by your insurance provider. They do specialize in insurance covered care. Book your virtual visit today by going to chalene.com/midi. The one thing that I found so unsettling was the numbness. They tell you that your face is gonna feel numb. They tell you that you're going to experience that for some time, but I don't think I was prepared for that and I'm still numb. It's just it's not painful. It's just unsettling, especially right in the beginning where it's like you can't even tell where your skin is. It is because everything gets severed and moved. I mean, I'm being graphic here, but they like take your face off and they take your neck off and they take your whole head off and they put your whole head on another table. And so the nerves get severed. And that is such a strange feeling. It gave me a true understanding for people who have neuropathy or people who have had an injury. That numbness just feels so weird. And so like I just remember like not being able, it just didn't feel like my face. And I like to, what do you call it? I like to call it exfoliating, but let's just face it, it's like shaving. I like to shave off all the peach fuzz. And I was so afraid to do that because I couldn't tell how hard I was pressing. I also, my doctor recommended that I do lymphatic facial massage and I couldn't tell how hard I was pressing. Luckily, he said, it's okay, you can be aggressive, it's no big deal. So that was unsettling, but not painful. One of the biggest surprises I experienced was the fact that, like I said, I had no pain. I prepared for the worst. I remember seeing other women who had had facelift and like just how scary it looked. And I've had other surgeries and she is not a newbie to the plastic surgeries. There's a lot of aftermarket upgrades here. Let's keep it real. But this was the least painful surgery of any surgery I've ever had. And I've joked about this, but like I've had manicures and pedicures that were more painful. That doesn't mean it wasn't uncomfortable. It was definitely uncomfortable. But in terms of pain, and I asked my doctor, why is it? I had no pain. And I've talked to many other women who they too experienced very little, very little pain. That leads me to one of my personal regrets of things that happened post-surgery. And that is because I spoke so positively and made it sound so easy. I regret that I've since heard from more than a couple women who've gone to had facelifts and I don't want to say they're angry with me, but they're like, it wasn't as easy as you made it sound. For some of them, it was incredibly emotional. And I have a theory on that that I think is really important for you to assess for yourself if you're considering having the surgery, because you do not want to get surprised by this emotional impact this could have on you. But I do regret that I didn't say often enough, this is just my experience. I mean, you're making like one minute short videos for Instagram and TikTok, and you kind of speed things up. And I didn't always explain all the things that I had done prior to surgery that made my recovery so much easier. I didn't always explain the full extent of my recovery plan because it was extensive. I treated recovery like a full-time job. The reason why I didn't have any complications, one of the reasons why, is because of the extensive planning that went into my pre-surgery preparation, like how I was preparing my body, how I was preparing my immune system, how I prepared my environment, like everything. And so because I wasn't always explaining that, I think I worry, and I know, I know that there's been women and men maybe who have had a surgery since that, and theirs wasn't as easy. In fact, one close acquaintance of mine had her surgery like three weeks after mine, and I sent her a message to check in on her. I'm like, how's it going? And she sent me a picture of her face, and I was horrified. Now you might be thinking, oh, did she not go to the right? She went to an impeccable surgeon, like the best. Her husband had done a facelift like two days before. What if they got a two for one discount? Just joking. She went to an impeccable surgeon. What happened is she got sick. Like the day after her surgery and she vomited and it made her face just explode like a seroma, which is a filling of fluids and tissues. And that made all the skin swell. And I'm sure you can imagine the pain, the discomfort, how scary that would be. And you're someone who I was like, girl, it's so easy. You're going to be so healthy and it's going to be no problems at all. All surgeries are a risk, no matter how impeccable. You can pay $300,000 for your facelift. There's still always a risk of complications. There's always a risk of death. So one thing I want to make perfectly clear is that this is not you going to get a manicure. Like this is a life changing, very serious decision. You need to go into it, having done all of your research and all of your preparation. We talk about supplements a lot on the show. And I'm often asked like, how do I know if they're not FDA regulated? How do you know if you're actually buying from a good company? It's a great question. And it is an important question. I don't care what kind of supplement you're looking at. Make sure you're buying from a reputable company. It's one of the reasons why you always hear me talking about Organifi. I drink their immunity, take that for my immune system. That's how I get in those essentials. And so many of us, like, instead of worrying about all these, like, extra high tech things you can do to biohack your body, focus on the essentials first, you know, and that's what you can count on when you go with Organifi. I take Organifi immunity every day for that reason, as well as Organifi Pure. Now Pure I take for the brain-derived neurotropic effect. Someone who has a difficult time focusing in general can use all the help she can get. Organifi is spelled O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I. And I'm spelling that for you because when you go to organifi.com/chalene and you use code Chalene, you're going to get 20% off all of their products. That's pretty huge. Again, it's Organifi organifi.com/chalene. Use code Chalene for 20% off. Also, if you're looking for a collagen powder that blends so nicely in water, you've got, I mean, it's so hard to get in enough protein in the day, so that's a wonderful way to get in additional protein and at the same time boost your collagen production, which helps with your skin, your hair, your nails, your joints, all of those things. So again, check out Organifi. Those are just three of my favorites, but they've got so many great solutions when it comes to the nutrients that, you know, even if you're eating pretty perfectly, no one is 100% perfect, right? So check it out. organifi.com/chalene. Use code Chalene for 20% off. The recovery was like a full time job. And I knew it was going to be a full time job. I've done surgeries before. And so I knew that I wanted an incredible result. And part of having an incredible result is taking your recovery seriously. I had friends who came and stayed with me afterwards. Shout out to Jen, shout out to Warren, shout out to Jessica. Like I sent my husband back to California. You know, he's kind of queasy around like blood and those kinds of things. And I wanted him to see me after I'd healed for a couple of days anyways. I think he came back after like day five maybe. But those first couple of days, I would highly recommend you either hire someone to take care of you. A lot of people now are doing like an extended stay in a recovery house. I think that's a wonderful idea. The first night I spent in the facility where I had my surgery with Dr. Mascarro, he is in Palm Beach. And I'm gonna talk to you about what it takes to get in to him to see him as a surgeon and other surgeons and why so many surgeons are, they're shifting to this methodology where they won't take you, they won't even see you unless you're referred by an existing patient. And I'm gonna explain to you why that is. And I actually think it's probably a good idea. Nonetheless, that he's in Palm Beach, I didn't just go by referrals. I'm gonna explain to you what it means to have a plastic surgery patient advocate because game changed. Anyways, I knew going into this, especially because I was working with a patient advocate, everything I needed to do in order to really make sure that anything I could control to improve my result, I was gonna do it. I went to hyperbaric oxygen chamber treatments five days a week. I did a full red light therapy bed five days a week. Now, that's excessive. The average person isn't going to allow for that in their budget. I budgeted that in. I knew I'm gonna consider this part of my surgery budget because what result you get isn't just the day of the surgery. It's what you do before and what you do after. And that's the piece most women miss, most men miss. Anyone who's having a surgery who's not thinking about how to prepare before and what to do after to have the best result is really only thinking about the piece that one other person can control. But the part that you can control makes the biggest difference in your result. In addition to that, I went to a very strict anti-inflammatory diet. I took supplements beforehand. I checked with my physician and then also did my own research to figure out which supplements I needed to cease doing, like 30 days prior to my surgery, things that would thin my blood. I also started really bolstering my immune system. In fact, I delayed having my surgery because at one point, my immune system had been compromised because I had been exposed to mold. And when your immune system is compromised, and the older you are, the slower your body heals. You're not 21 anymore, girl. So I wanted to stack the deck in my favor. I also did vitamin infusions, again, making sure that everything that I was doing was coordinated with and approved by my physician as well as my plastic surgery patient advocate. It's just so nice to have all these experts saying like, yes, that's ideal. No, you don't want to do that. And I had my friends here to help take care of the management of my meds, the cleaning of my incisions, the changing of my bandages, when to ice, when not to ice, when to sleep, when not to sleep. You know, somebody here like my friend Jen, like she's just attention to detail. I would never remember like all the things I need to do. It was a massive list. So you want to treat that very seriously and think about your post surgery plan. It will impact your ultimate result. Additional costs that many people do not consider is, again, if you need to hire additional care, maybe you're going to have a nurse check in on you several days or you're going to have an at home care specialist living with you temporarily or just flying a friend in or staying in a recovery home. There's the cost of special bandages and the different medications, the ointments, the facial wraps, the compression wraps. Oh my, that's a big one. Y'all, I have opinions about the compression wraps that really changed my healing process and I disagreed with the advice of my doctor and I told him I was going to be going against his wishes when it came to the compression garments. I'll explain that in just a moment. Don't let me forget. But there's other costs like buying the wedge that you know, because you want to sleep upright. You can't sleep on your side. You can't sleep on your back. Can't sleep on your, I mean, you can sleep on your back. Can't sleep on your stomach. I train myself to sleep on my back before my surgery, but there are costs that most people just don't associate. The cost of having to take time off of work, the cost of being able to do all these different modes of recovery. Like I said, hyperbaric oxygen, the place where I go, I get unlimited services. So that was great, but you can pay up to $250 per session. So it's figuring out how you're gonna budget for all of these things in advance. It's gonna make you far less stressed. I did my research. I really communicated regularly with my surgeon and my plastic surgery patient advocate. I talked to past patients. I watched a million videos. I did all of my homework. Nonetheless, one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't communicate certain things that I felt like it would be being too picky or this is gonna be rude if I tell the doctor this is something that I want or if I like remind him or I point this out. There's a level of intimidation I think most of us have when we're sitting in front of a doctor. And that regret is that I didn't express everything in explicit detail that bothered me or that I wanted to have addressed or exactly the way I wanted things to look. Now I made it perfectly clear. I'm like, I am not going for like, you know, supernatural, nobody knows I had work done. I'm gonna be very open about this. I'm gonna document the whole thing. I think that we should normalize that women can do whatever they want. It's their face, it's my face. I'm paying for it. I can do whatever I want. I truly believe that. But I also think that because I'm in the public eye, I have an obligation. I mean, it's just the right thing to do is to explain what I'm doing and why. I mean, everybody knows why. And you don't have to get a surgery. I was very specific with him. I said, I don't wanna look like nothing has been done, just like a little refresh. I want people to go like, whoa, you look younger. I want them to go like, girl, your jawline is snatched. I told him that. I'm not going for that very subtle reaction. I wanna look younger. I wanna look the way I feel inside. And so we were very explicit about that. And I showed him pictures and I actually taped my face up. I had been face taping for about a year prior to having my face left. And that's something I recommend you do because it does give you a sense of what it will look like. And I also think because I had been face taping, face taping is terribly uncomfortable. It is so uncomfortable. You have to be okay with how uncomfortable it is. But I showed him, like, this is what I want. And I showed him exactly where I placed it and what I was dissatisfied, et cetera. However, there is this area in my face where everyone loses a certain amount of volume in their face as they age and around their temples, et cetera. And you typically are gonna lose more on one side versus the other. Just the way things work, we're not symmetrical. And I definitely have a loss of volume on this side of my face. I recognize that. I knew that. But we never talked about it. And we should have because it's more pronounced now because you're pulling things back. We're not filling the face. In certain lights, I can see it. And when you've spent that much time and money and downtime and prep time and recovery time and you think to yourself, I could have just done that while I was in there, you know? And I talked to my plastic surgery advocate. She is Melinda from the Beauty Brokers. There's a team of women actually that work for the Beauty Brokers. Highly, highly recommend them. She saw it too. In fact, she pointed out. Next thing I want to talk about is these smile lines. Just that little crease right there, what are they called? Nasolabial folds. I'm gonna get it wrong. Okay, they're minor. It's no big deal. I thought it was gonna be like nothing, right? So after the fact, I asked my doctor, here's what he explained to me. And this is what I want you to understand. First, let me explain what he said. He said, I have an option here. If I pull you back further, look what that does to your lips. Look how that distorts the bottom of your face. So what we think we want and what's actually possible aren't always the same thing. And if I had had that conversation with him ahead of time, I would have gone into it with that expectation. And I'm fine with it now. But, you know, the first couple of months, I was like, did he not pull it back tight enough? No, he pulled it back exactly what he needed to and could without distorting my face. Here's what you need to understand going into this. You're not a robot. This is not Photoshop. In Photoshop, you can make your nose skinnier. You can make your left eye match your right eye. You can change your features. And I guess you're changing your features with some plastic surgery too, but only to an extent. And you're still a human being, which means the way the skin lays, the way things heal, the way that you heal, the way that you recover, it's not a science. It's really an art form. And every single person is different. So if you're going into this thinking that you're going to come out perfect, you shouldn't go into this. And most good surgeons are going to turn you away because you have to have realistic expectations that things are going to be improved, but nothing will ever be perfect, ever. So if you're chasing perfection, you have to figure out what's going on in the inside first. And I know that you're like, Oh, you sound like such a hypocrite. Aren't you chasing perfection? No, I love aging. I just don't like gravity. I don't like gravity at all. That's what we're chasing. I had the opportunity to sit down with probably one of the most well-known over 45 beauty influencers. And I said, girl, don't try to sell me anything. Just tell me, like, what's the one thing that makes the biggest difference in women's skin? And she's like, an SPF. And I know there's like lots of controversy. And some people are like, oh, don't wear an SPF. She's like, yeah, don't wear an SPF if you want to look older. She's like, it's just a game changer and you can tell the difference. So I started wearing a full body SPF even on the days when it's kind of cloudy. And I'm here in Miami, so there's a lot of sun. I needed to find an SPF that felt good on my skin, that wasn't sticky, that didn't have all the nasty ingredients, it wasn't tested on animals. So I went with OneSkin. OneSkin's full body, their full body SPF is amazing. But you really get the one-two combo when you combine it with the OneSkin body lotion. Their body lotion has peptides in it. It's literally like putting vitamins topically on your skin. It helps with collagen production, it locks in the moisture. Then you put the SPF on top of it, and it doesn't feel like your typical SPF. Like my skin looks so much better, so much more hydrated. And I know I'm protecting it. So I'm happy to tell you that OneSkin is now a sponsor of the show. Why? Because I'm like, girl, you need a discount on this stuff too. So all you do is go to chalene.com/lotion. They've got great skin care. Like I love their eye care. I love their SPF for your face as well. If you didn't want to use a full body, because they have a face SPF that's tinted. That's it's delicious. Check them out. Go to chalene.com/lotion, because we cannot have you getting additional steps in and risking damaging your skin. We can't have you looking like a piece of beef jerky. No, I need your skin young and supple and well hydrated. Go to chalene.com/lotion. All right, back to the show. One thing that does not get discussed often enough is the emotional impact that having a surgery can have very unexpectedly on many people, especially women. I can't tell you how many women I've heard from who experienced just this emotional response after their surgery that they were not expecting. And I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychologist, I just pretend like I know everything. But I will say, I've had quite a few friends who've had this happen. And from the people that I've talked to online who've experienced this, the thing they have in common, many of them, is that they had experienced trauma as a child. And if you think about it, when you're doing a surgery, that's got to trigger, even on a subconscious level, feelings of not having any control. You're completely out on a table. Someone is touching your body. Someone has their hands inside your body. They're holding your life in their hands. And I don't know, I just think that is something that's not addressed often enough. And that can have a major impact on your healing. I don't think you should go into that lightly. Even if you've already done the work, you should, you could expect that this might happen. You might feel just as lack of control and it ended up being far more emotional than you had ever experienced. And that's another reason why it's really important that even when you ask your doctor, how long before I feel like myself again? Everyone wants to know like, how quickly can I go back to work? How quickly can I go back to the gym? I'll tell you, I was in the gym way sooner than most people are. But again, I had this crazy healing protocol. By the way, I have detailed every single supplement, every single product that I bought, everything in complete detail. It's like two hours basically worth of content. It's currently on my Patreon. My Patreon is like a private podcast. It's where I put the stuff that like, you know, the general popular, it's the deep stuff. It's like Dear Diary. But I did a whole series just on how I prepared for everything related to the price, the different quotes I got from different doctors, how I found my plastic surgery advocate, everything that I bought, everything that I did, how I prepared ahead of time. It's a lot. And if you decide to be public like I was about what it is you're doing, you also need to be prepared for the fact that everybody and their brother thinks that your face is now a group project. Because I was so open about what I was having done, what exactly I did, how I felt about it before, I'm always very transparent. I've got several videos teaching you how to tape up your face, all of the beauty tricks, but you need to be prepared that if you're going to talk openly about your appearance, people will feel entitled to tell you what they think about your appearance. And that's perfectly fine. I don't care. I really don't. It does not bother me, but you have to be prepared for that. And I don't think the average person is. I know they aren't because I would have friends who would be fighting in the comments with some stranger with a cat profile because of something they said about my face. I'm like, girl, I don't care. Why do you care? If you're going to make videos about what it is you're doing, people are going to have their own opinions. And sometimes they can be hurtful. Sometimes it can be uninformed. Sometimes they can be well-meaning, but you're like, really? Is that any of your business? Some of the funniest comments I got, like the people who are like, oh, you looked better before. Okay. Why are your eyes turned down? I have turned down eyes. I didn't change the shape of my eyes. Oh, you've been pulled too tight. Oh, he didn't pull you tight enough. Why didn't you do your eyebrows? Why didn't you do your lips? Why did you do this? You didn't need it. You know, all the things. Who cares? At the end of the day, I am level 57. I like to say that instead of age 57, because who wants to go back a level? No one. I love that I'm age 57, because with that comes the knowing that I don't care what strangers think. It's none of my business that they think. They're in my business. Just ignore them. And by the way, healing is not linear. What I mean by that is the moment you think you were out of the woods and you can go back to like all the things that you were doing is the moment you'll be doing too much too soon. I know that's true for me. You have to take it slow. Your healing, your surgery, if you're doing a facelift, think of it not as like a day or a couple of weeks or a month. Think of it as a season. You should really think of this as a six month season because every day you're seeing changes. My face is still reshaping. And the doctors said that I will continue to see changes up to a year. So even though I want to fill this little spot right here with something, I want to do something for that. I probably shouldn't until I hit the one year mark and I am not a very patient person, but I'm going to do that. Healing isn't linear. When I hit January, I used a new product on my face and my skin's barrier had been disrupted. Think about it. I'm doing a facelift and that's a lot of trauma. I used some new product on my face and it just swelled and it got red and it got inflamed. And I experienced what is known as contact dermatitis. My skin, it's like a new organ almost. It responds very differently to different products. I never used to have sensitive skin. Now I have sensitive skin. I also think it's important for you to note that doing the facelift doesn't change the texture of your skin other than make it even thinner. And that's one of the struggles we have as we age is that your skin starts to feel thin, right? And so I've changed my skincare routine and I really just use two actives and a lotion that helps to protect the skin's barrier. I did a previous episode about that. That's kind of nice. I'm using far fewer products on my skin today because I really am just focused on the integrity, the thickness, producing more collagen and the texture of my skin versus adding a million different serums and potions and lotions. The final thing I want to give to you is a piece of advice. I think it's the most important piece of advice that I can share with you. And that is if you can afford a facelift, don't shop around based on price. It's not the thing that you should be looking at. First and foremost is, in my opinion, the best money you will ever spend, the best money I've ever spent was having a plastic surgery patient advocate. Number one, you're going to go into this feeling so much more confident, so much more assured that you've got somebody in your corner who is your advocate, who knows exactly what it is you want, who only cares about your final result and isn't being paid by the surgeon and who can help you make those decisions because asking and talking to lots of past patients doesn't mean you're going to talk to the people who have been botched by the surgeon. Looking at the surgeon's credentials, a lot of times they can hide their past experiences, the number of times that they've been sued and settled, and the number of times that someone has left them horrible reviews and they threaten them with a lawsuit of defamation and then those reviews were all deleted. Really today, especially if someone's just huge on social media, that doesn't mean anything. It means that they've got a lot of extra time worrying about growing their practice. The best doctors, in my opinion, are the ones who are like, they're really focused on their practice. Hiring a Plastic Surgery Advocate will ensure that you are getting someone who's within your budget. Even if you want to go overseas, they will help you find that person. They will help you match a surgeon to what it is, the final aesthetic that you're looking for and it just gives you this peace of mind. It's one extra layer of insurance because something can go wrong. It often does go wrong. You have to remember that that's a very high likelihood, but you reduce the likelihood of that when you stack the odds in your favor by using an advocate. Lastly, I wanted to say this. Plastic surgery, especially facelifts, have become all the rage. So it's very hard to get into the best surgeons because they have a wait list. And it makes sense to me why they do. And it makes sense to me why they only work with referrals from actual clients. It's because, you know, you've got a wait list for a consultation, and then you get in there, and you've waited a year and a half for your consultation. You're like, wait, I thought it was only going to be $10,000, you know? And now they've taken up somebody else's spot with someone who, A, can't afford it, and B, isn't mentally ready, all the things. So when they're getting a referral from either a plastic surgery patient advocate, then you're probably going to get in. You don't need a referral from an actual patient. I know many of you are going to reach out to me and ask if I can refer you to my surgeon. I can't, unless I actually know you. And I've referred many of my friends and they're on the wait list. But if you go through an advocate, there's a very good chance that you will be able to get in with a doctor. Because that doctor knows that advocate is going to screen to make sure that you are mentally, physically and financially ready to do this and to do it the right way. Let me know what questions you have. I'm sure there's more. I could talk about this for hours, hours. So drop your questions for me below. And thank you so much for listening and not judging. We're Girls Girls here and we support each other. I love you. I mean it. And I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 2:
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