Do you have what’s often characterized as a “heavy-looking” brow? Does your brow droop downward, making your eyes look half closed even when they’re not? Do you wonder if you’re a good candidate for brow lift surgery?

Try this little test: Place one palm horizontally across your brow, just above your eyebrows. Lift gently upward. With this action, do your eyes seem to brighten and open up? Do you see some laxity in the thinning skin of your upper lid, but not a lot of excess skin sagging? If so, then you may be a good candidate for brow lift surgery—either in addition to or in lieu of an upper blepharoplasty.

How Does A Brow Lift Change My Looks?

Brows and foreheads often show the first signs of aging. Your skin begins to lose its elasticity due to gravity and natural aging, textural sun damage, and habitual facial expressions.

With age and gravity, your eyebrow position drops lower over time, usually most notably at the outer corners. Multiple rows of horizontal wrinkle lines spread across your forehead. Worry or frown lines etch deep furrows between your brows. A brow lift wipes away these signs of age in your upper face.

Over time, aging may imprint on your face a permanent expression associated with anger or grumpiness, sadness or fatigue on your face. You may notice people tending to misread or misjudge your true mood or intentions.

With a brow lift, you can change all of that.

What Should I Do Before Brow Lift Surgery?

With brow lifts, as with any surgery, there are always things to plan for before treatment. Be sure to review our surgical planning tips so you are well prepared for a good experience. Consult the surgical recovery chart to plan ahead for adequate healing downtime post-op.

Brow Lift Surgery Details

If your goal is surgical rejuvenation of your upper face, endoscopic brow lift is currently the preferred technique. The benefits of this technique include much smaller incisions than older brow lift techniques and no significant change in the position of your hairline.

• A series of 2-4 small incisions is placed behind your hairline and thus is well disguised.
• Through these incisions, the endoscope serves as a surgical guide. Muscles that are the source of frown lines or forehead wrinkles are located and removed or de-functioned.
• Dr. Macdonald then elevates your eyebrows and repositions them to their more youthful, higher location.
• Surgery takes 1-2 hours.

Brow Lift Surgery is Often Combined With…

Brow lifts are most commonly combined with facelifts and neck lifts. Together, they provide the most satisfying and holistic surgical facial rejuvenation.

A brow lift addresses rejuvenation of your upper face—forehead, brow, and lateral eye areas known as crow’s feet. A facelift focuses on revitalizing the lower two-thirds of your face—lower cheeks, jowls, and chin.

Post-Surgery Healing After Brow Lift

• Post-surgical pain and discomfort is minimal.
• Swelling and bruising is normal within the first 3-7 days post-op, as with any aesthetic surgery.
• Bandage dressings applied immediately following surgery stay in place for 2-7 days, depending on your comfort level.
• Any sutures are removed at 5-7 days post-op.
• You can expect to resume non-strenuous activities within 3-4 days.
• Most patients comfortably return to work within 5-7 days.
• For the first 3 weeks, you may notice tenderness or residual numbness in different spots of your forehead. This should gradually subside over the next 2-3 months once you are substantially healed.

Read more about recuperating after brow lift surgery to best minimize any discomfort or side effects. It’s always wise to slowly resume strenuous physical activity programs following any cosmetic surgery.

Alternatives to Brow Lift Surgery

If you want to smooth the lines and wrinkles around your forehead, brow and eyes and lift your brow non-surgically, try using BOTOX® or Dysport™.

These non-surgical injectable treatments between the brows, forehead, and around the crow’s feet effectively lift and elevate the upper face. The downside of these injectables is that treatments need to be repeated every 4-5 months to sustain the positive effect. Still, this is another good cosmetic option for you to choose from if you are reluctant to proceed with surgery.