Denise, a patient of Beverly Hills, Calif., surgeon Dr. Carl Truesdale, underwent full-face rejuvenation surgery in early 2026
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Her immediate facelift results went viral, and she tells PEOPLE how it impacted her recovery
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She previously underwent a rhinoplasty and breast augmentation
When Denise, a mom and nurse from Northern California, decided to get plastic surgery in her late 50s, she wasn't nervous about what was to come. By then, she had already undergone a breast augmentation in the '90s as well as a rhinoplasty. When she went into the operating room in January for full-facial rejuvenation, it wasn't the operation itself that shocked her — it was what came after.
Four months ago, Denise, who was 57 at the time of her procedure, underwent a deep plane facelift, neck lift, lip lift, eye pinch and CO2 laser treatment performed by Beverly Hills, Calif.-based surgeonDr. Carl Truesdale.
"I've never had any kind of facial plastic surgery in the past that was this extensive," she tells PEOPLE of what inspired the transformation. "But as I got into my mid-50s, my skin really started to lose its elasticity, and it just started getting to where I thought, 'Well, let's fix this before it turns into a major issue.' " She also got a little nudge from her friend, who told her, "Well, why don't you? You'd spend that much on a car.'"
So on Jan. 6, she underwent the intense surgery without telling anyone, and her results were so seamless that no one in her personal life suspected plastic surgery. "When I went back to work, people would pass right by me, and a couple people would say, 'Oh wow, you looked good and refreshed. You had some time off. You must have went on vacation,' " she recalls.
The reaction to her appearance was a lot different online.
While Denise stayed mum about her procedure in real life, her teenage daughter — who traveled with her to Beverly Hills for the surgery — revealed that she started goingviral online. "I remember standing there in the kitchen, and my 19-year-old said, 'Mom, oh my gosh, you're on Instagram.' And I'm like, 'What do you mean?'"
Truesdale is famous for his clients' before-and-afters, and his social media video of Denise right after her procedure — stitches and all — garnered over 11 million views on TikTok. In fact, it gained so much traction that Denise says her friend from Alaska, who hadn't known about her procedure, texted her to ask if she'd had surgery.
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The original video received a fair share of negative comments and scrutiny, but the reactions were nowhere near how Denise herself felt. "It was really pretty shocking to me, and I just had to step away from it, because a lot of people don't understand why you [get plastic surgery]," she says, adding that her immediate results were far from what she'd see a few months later when everything settled in.
Once the shock factor wore off, Denise realized that "people are always going to say things," and now she's very pleased with her results, particularly that of her laser peel, which has left her with a "really fresh base again."
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"I feel a lot better and feel refreshed," she adds. "I don't care how many years it turned back. I just wanted to freshen up and just do what I could do at the moment to make the rest of my years age a little better."
Now her appearance matches her youthful energy. "Being a nurse for 32 years, I'm hoping to retire in the next five years. I feel like I'm still a kid inside. I have a really immature side, and then I have a really serious side. So having the facelift is a good thing."
Denise is looking to maintain her facelift with facial peels, laser treatments and Botox. She encourages older patients like herself who want to undergo plastic surgery to do it. "If someone's saying, 'Oh, wow, you should really fix that,' that shouldn't be your motivation. You've just got to want it."
Read the original article onPeople
