Gold Thread Lift

Throughout ancient times, gold has been recognized for its luxurious and beautifying properties for the skin: a daily part of Egyptian skin care and anti-aging. It has been said that Cleopatra slept in a gold mask almost every night. In ancient Rome, gold products were applied for treatment for a wide variety of skin problems. In ancient Chinese medicine, gold products were a key to youthfulness and smooth skin tone, the queen of the Chiang dynasty used a gold massager everyday. Recent western super-luxury anti-wrinkle cosmetics contain gold dust claiming its rejuvenation property worth $500 a jar.  And there is a Malibu, California opulent spa pampers you with 24K facial for $500. No doubt, gold thread lift is fascinating to patients because of gold’s purity, luxury, and malleability.



Gold Thread lift Procedure:

This technique involves implantation of a thin gold filament (i.e., 24 carat gold, less than 0.1 mm in diameter) into the sub dermal skin line by threading a web of gold filament into your skin and underlying soft tissues with real 24 karat gold threads.  It began with your surgeon covering your face in cream to numb it before injecting you with local anaesthetic. Then your doctor will weave a gold thread web to hold the facial tissues in place and prevent sagging of the skin. The procedure is completed in one single treatment that lasts approximately 60 to a few hours.

After the procedure, prepare to see that your face will be quite appalling bruised, black eyes coming on and prick marks all over the face. It should be subside by the 2^nd and 3^rd weeks.

After that, gold thread will stimulate an increase of production of collagen and fibroblasts in response to the presence of a foreign substance. Collagen is formed around the implanted threads. In the theory, new tissue formation is stimulated and increased metabolism and blood flow occurs in the treated areas, which results in skin rejuvenation. This gold thread facelift takes a few months to show the results, as the gold mesh stimulates the body’s own production of collagen, which in turn plumps up the skin naturally. Over five to ten years, the fine gold sutures gradually become fragmented as they are broken down naturally. The effect of rejuvenation can last to 8 to 12 years depending on the individual body type, age, initial state of the skin and patient’s way of life.

Gold Thread Lift History:

The gold thread lift procedure was first commercialized in Europe in the late 1970s. Many brand-names for the gold thread lift procedure are: Gold Filament, Gold Lift – UK & USA, UK; Remaillage – France; Gold Reinforcement – Russia; Happylift – Korea, and Gold Silk – China, each of which has its specific procedure based on years of development from practice & trial and error. The differences in each procedure can be based on the additional use of other suture barbed-thread thread such as APTOS®-Threads (tiny spikes threads made from a special bio-compatible material) along with pure gold thread from different suppliers. Each brand-name also offers a different pattern of threading a web of gold filament and other substance into the face.

Keys to Consider:

There are a few gold thread suppliers in the world. You need to make sure the clinics you plan to undergo the gold thread lift use the thread that is FDA approved and fully compliant with US FDA Quality Systems Regulations. Contact us, if any questions.

More importantly, you need to make sure the doctors who will perform the procedures for you are board certified, well-trained, and have performed the gold thread lift procedures for a period of time. This is because even this procedure is promoted and marketed as minimally invasive, non-incision, or non-surgical procedure, it is a complex procedure to interwoven threads under the skin with the use of a special needle. Surgeons must be skilful not to pierce the tissues apart and not to damage to large vessels and nerves. A surgeon comment, ‘If you are stitching a surface wound you can see what you are doing, but when you are stitching beneath the skin, you are virtually doing it “blind” which, if you are in the wrong hands, could be hazardous.’

Top doctors in this method are scattered in worldwide but for the most part they are in Europe (where its origin) and Asia (where is its cultural esteem and obsession with gold). Please contact us for info about top doctors in this procedure.

Gold Thread Lift can be performed on cheeks, forehead, eyes, mouth and neck, and other areas including hands, cleavage, arms, stomach and hips.

Price:

Prices vary from a start of around US$3,000 in Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore to a few thousands Euros in Voronezh, Russia to a few thousands pounds in South-East London.

Risk and Complications:

One patient reported that a couple of days after the procedure, she was shocked to look in the mirror and see two gold threads popping out of her forehead.  A quick visit to her facelift doctor was able to remedy this, as the doctor clipped a centimeter off the end of each thread and the rest of the threads did stay inside.

This is something that can occur pretty commonly with a gold thread lift, but if the facelift was done properly it should only happen during the first week or so after the procedure and is easily rectifiable.  It is simply the result of the body rejecting the gold threads, which it sees as a foreign object, but as gold is something that is not harmful to the body, it shouldn’t keep on happening.

Also, a medical journal paper published in Aesthetic Plastic Surgery:  The ‘‘Golden Thread Lift’’: Radiologic Findings cites a case study of patient 48-year-old patient reported intense pain in her face.

“Within 10 years she had undergone three ‘‘golden thread lift’’ suspension procedures, the last one 2 years previously. Skull radiographs showed complete fragmentation of all the implants into small pieces, and a total loss in their vector orientation. None of these fragments were oriented straight, as would be expected for them to function as a suspension vector for facial lift. They are

unevenly distributed and oriented within the facial and cervical soft tissue. A complete surgical removal of all these foreign bodies was also impossible, although a later attempt might be made to remove some of them in open face-lift.

Although adverse chemical or immunologic tissue reactions are very unlikely with an inert implant material such as gold, such foreign bodies may become infected. In the reported case, just the fragmentation and migration of the implant material resulted in very disturbing pain. Because these procedures are administered commonly for relatively young patients and complete surgical removal is virtually impossible, these residuals may remain for decades, with symptoms worsening through time.”

cosmetic surgery gone wrong

Further Read:

• http://www.realself.com/review/Non-surgical-Face-lift-My-experience-in-Gold-Threads-and-Biological-Poymer-Gel#replies
• http://www.springerlink.com/content/27qq505615l241q5/fulltext.pdf/
• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1043156/My-24-carat-gold-facelift-theres-knife-sight.html#ixzz180IyQxVc