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I Got a Non-Surgical Eye Lift to Look More Awake

Don’t let the words “non-surgical” fool you, though. It was intense

In our I Tried It series, columnist Leah Rumack test-drives the latest and buzziest cosmetic procedures. This time around, she sets her sights on a new alternative to eye lift surgery.

“Your peaks look perfect,” my surgeon says happily, but he isn’t flirting. He’s rhapsodizing about my brows, which he has given new life to by delicately hiking them up about a half-inch and sizzling the crepey skin on my eyelids until it retreated in fear. 

Back in The Before Time, when I worried about my looks instead of the end of days, Michael Roskies, a facial cosmetic plastic surgeon and the new medical director of SpaMedica, told me there was a new in-between procedure for droopy eyelids and sliding brows that hits that magical spot between endless rounds of Botox and a full-on surgical forehead lift.

Like many middle-aged people, my big beauty complaint is that I always look tired

Like many middle-aged people, my big beauty complaint is that I always look tired. That’s because over time your forehead descends, the outer edge of your eyebrow droops and your eyelid skin gets looser. To counter this three-in-one punch, Roskies suggests I try a procedure SpaMedica has coined the Suture Suspension Brow Lift, which is a combination of an AccuTite radio frequency treatment on the skin of my forehead and eyelids and a thread lift for my brows. AccuTite has only been available in Canada since the fall and SpaMedica is one of the few clinics to get its hands on it. The device looks like a tiny hair iron—and it works pretty much like a hair iron, too. Meant for small, delicate areas, one half slides under the skin and the other goes on top, delivering RF waves that smooth the area by melting the underlying fat and tightening the skin as a doctor (only docs can perform AccuTite) runs it across the area. 

Roskies suggests imagining my forehead as if it were a grilled cheese sandwich. “Once it’s solidified, a grilled cheese can only be separated if you reheat the cheese in the middle layer,” he says, blissfully unaware he’s ruining lunch forever. “The upper layer of your skin is the bread, and the cheese is the undersurface of the skin and the fat. So we’re melting that cheese and sliding the top layer of bread upward. We hold that bread with the suture suspension loops so while the cheese is solidifying, that bread is up in that position.” 

I don’t quite realize the extent of what I’ve agreed to until the receptionist calls me to book my time in the O.R. “I’m sorry,” I laugh. “Did you say O.R?”

While you can get AccuTite on its own if your only desire is shrinking small spots of crepey skin (about $2,500 a region) Roskies says my sleepy look is actually more due to a droopy brow than the loose eyelid skin I fixate on, so I go for the full Suture Suspension Brow Lift (about $7,000), which is AccuTite on my eyelids and forehead combined with a thread lift to yank the whole party up. It’s a bit more than the cursory injections with friendly nurses I’m used to, but I figure what the hell—results will last at least a year, it will cut down on the need for Botox and I’m nothing if not an intrepid reporter and also hopelessly vain! But I don’t quite realize the extent of what I’ve agreed to until the receptionist calls me to book my time in the O.R.

“I’m sorry,” I laugh. “Did you say O.R?”

AccuTite doesn’t need to be performed in an operating room, but since SpaMedica has its own, Roskies prefers to. It isn’t technically a surgery, but I still have to go through all the standard pre-surgical stuff like getting blood work and an EKG done, and wearing the sexy hospital gown and compression tights and having a friend pick me up afterwards the day of.

I emerge with a large bandage across my forehead, blood in my hair and a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers in my bag

The whole thing takes about an hour and a half, and I’m awake the whole time. I don’t feel much—they’ve done local freezing, given me a couple Ativan and keep the laughing gas handy. I emerge with a large bandage across my forehead covering the threads, blood in my hair and a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers in my bag, but am able to slap on my Jackie O glasses afterwards and waltz out with aplomb.

I do need to hide at home, however. For one thing, I have threads sticking out of the top of my scalp—they’re kept long at first so Roskies can pull on them like puppet strings to adjust the height and shape of my eyebrows at my follow up appointment five days later while the fat and skin are still elastic.

While most people don’t experience extensive bruising, I develop massive, bulging purple bruises under my eyes as the tumescent fluid Roskies injected into my forehead so he could lift my skin away from the muscles and nerves to safely zap it with the AccuTite, drains. I’m not in a lot of pain, but I realize quickly that the five days off I’d planned before I head back into an office are not going to be enough to not terrify everyone with my Quasimodo face. It ends up taking almost two weeks before the bruising and swelling goes away, though I’m able to venture out looking only slightly misshapen and heavily spackled in concealer after about a week.

Six weeks post procedure I still have a horizontal scratch on one eyelid where the AccuTite device was placed, which Roskies assures me will heal. The threads don’t completely dissolve for at least three months, either, so if you look closely at my forehead, you can still see a couple of wiggly vertical lines where they lurk underneath (thankfully, I have bangs). The crumples of eyelid skin I had at the outer corners of my eyes are gone. But most excitingly, I definitely look more fresh and people definitely notice. 

“That must be some coffee you’re drinking,” one friend remarks when she bumps into me early one morning. 

“You look like a princess!” marvels another. 

Little did I know that the world was about to enter a lifetime of close-up video calls, where now I magically always look awake, no matter what time of day it is.  

 

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