If you’re like me, no doubt you’ve heard of the Lifestyle Lift®, but know little about it. To be honest with you, I wasn’t sure if it was some type of skin pill or Oprah-like, "better yourself" intervention when I initially heard of it. Brimming with curiosity, I couldn’t wait to check it out.

Simply put, the Lifestyle Lift®, developed for people 40-65 years old, is a 1-hour “face-lift,” minus the general anesthesia and lengthy recovery. Created by David M. Kent, D.O., a facial plastic surgeon, the Lifestyle Lift® is designed to tighten wrinkles, frowns, loose neck, jaw line and facial skin while the patient is awake. A line is drawn along the ear with a surgical marker, which is then numbed with a needle of local anesthesia. A small incision is made along the line. The doctor is then able to pull the fascia (a dense white band of connective tissue under the skin) through this incision to tighten the skin. Small sutures are then stitched to hold the skin in position.

“The trick is to lift this mask [of fascia and muscle] underneath the skin and not put tension on the skin itself,” said Dr. Kent in a recent radio interview. “Some people [doctors] actually lift up the skin, which creates a lot of tension and a larger scar.”

This is a major difference from the traditional facelift in which patients were put under general anesthesia and a long incision was made from the temple, around the ear, down around the neck. With the traditional technique, the healing takes weeks or even months. With the Lifestyle Lift® results are nearly immediate and tend to look more natural than the sometimes overly-tightened look of the traditional face lift. Patients can usually return to work the next day.

So what’s the downside? As with every procedure, however, there are risks. Even though the Lifestyle Lift® uses an anesthesia that is less of a risk than the general anesthesia used in a traditional face lift, complications can still arise. No medical procedure is 100 percent risk-free because everyone’s body is different. For instance, some people may still need additional surgery like liposuction along the jaw line if there is too much fat in this area. Others may experience minor swelling or discomfort along the incision line. Still, some are simply not good candidates due to other contradictory medical problems (i.e. skin diseases) or if the skin needs more extensive plastic surgery than what the Lifestyle Lift® can offer.

To decrease complications, patients should seek out experienced surgeons with the official Lifestyle Lift® certification. To date, more than 15-20,000 Lifestyle Lift® surgeries have been done. Lifestyle Lift® experts say the surgery can last as long as a traditional face lift (10-15 years). Average cost is $3,800.