Video: How does recovery for a facial plastic surgery procedure compare to that of an abdominal one?
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All types of plastic surgery involve some kind of recovery period, but what exactly that recovery looks like varies depending on the procedure. The recoveries for facial and abdominal plastic surgery share some similarities, but there are also some important differences you’ll want to be aware of. Don’t worry—in this video, plastic surgeon JoAnna Nguyen breaks down the main similarities and differences between the two.
Key Takeaways
- Swelling is a normal part of recovery for both facial and abdominal plastic surgery.
- There’s typically less swelling with facial procedures since there’s more drainage and blood flow from the face compared to the abdomen.
Video Transcript
In general, every surgery has similarities in that there's an acute inflammatory swelling phase, and that can decrease as time goes on. With swelling, you want to basically help the swelling go down with the motion of gravity. So with facial procedures, there tends to be less swelling because your head is elevated at all times when you're walking around, and there's just a lot of lymphatic drainage and blood flow to the face compared to the rest of the body. There are more small compartments in the face as opposed to the abdomen, which is just larger compartments.
