Woman, 66, Lost 110 Pounds and Got a Dramatic Facelift So Shocking, the Internet Thought It Was Fake (Exclusive)
Tina Heaton, 66, had a deep plane extended facelift, deep neck lift, browlift, lip lift, and more done by Dr. Laxmeesh Mike Nayak. Heaton tells PEOPLE the procedures cost roughly the price of a "small second home"
Nayak Plastic Surgery
Tina Heaton before surgery and 10 weeks afterTina Heaton, 66, lost 110 pounds and got a deep plane extended facelift, deep neck lift, browlift, lip lift, earlobe filler, upper and lower blepharoplasty with fat transfer and full face deep CO2 laser resurfacing
Her plastic surgeon, Dr. Laxmeesh Mike Nayak, posted the results on Instagram, which instantly went viral, with many people debating whether or not Heaton was actually real
Heaton says now people are asking for "The Tina" to get a similar dramatic result
Tina Heaton decided in 2021 that she was ready for a lifestyle shift.
Her daughter was about to get married, and she didn't want to be "morbidly obese" at her wedding. It was the kick-start she needed for what has become a whole new era of her life.
Heaton, 66, who lives in North Carolina, ended up losing about 50 pounds by the wedding, but she didn't stop there. Using a GLP-1, she was able to lose another 60 pounds to get down to a healthier weight for her height, she says. But the weight loss dramatically changed the shape of her face, and Heaton tells PEOPLE that it changed how she saw herself in the mirror.
Nayak Plastic Surgery
Tina Heaton before surgery and at 6 weeks"I felt so good inside [because of the weight loss], but then didn't feel so great when I looked in the mirror," she admits. "It seemed like it happened with that last 50 pounds ... it's when my whole face deflated and the jowls were hanging and my neck was hanging down."
Heaton wasn't bothered by the loose skin anywhere else on her body, she says, only her face upset her, because that's what she always had to present to people — and what she had to look at.
"It was heavy on my heart," she admits. "It was like, I just can't do that. I can't look at this face that had melted. And so that really started it all. It wasn't really anything about wanting to look younger. I never thought I'd like to look 30 years, 20 years younger. The only thought I had was, I just want to get this lifted back up and feel like I'm proud of myself."
After doing her research, Heaton decided to go to plastic surgeon Dr. Laxmeesh Mike Nayak of Nayak Plastic Surgery in St. Louis, Mo. She initially had her consultation in summer 2024 and found herself on his very long waiting list. (Dr. Nayak tells PEOPLE his current waiting list is about a year and a half long.) At the time of her consultation, she would have had to wait until October 2025 for the facelift she wanted, but because the clinic offers "premium days" — premium-priced days that offer a way to move higher up the waiting list if a spot opens up — Heaton was able to have her surgery in January this year.
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Nayak Plastic Surgery
Tina Heaton 10 days after surgery"She had real heaviness that had built up under her jawline, so one of the foundations of her procedure was a neck lift," Dr. Nayak tells PEOPLE. "Her total procedures were that deep sculptural neck lift to really create the face, a lower facelift — lifting the face back where it's meant to be, lifting the brow back where it's meant to be. I also did her upper and lower eyelids, a lip lift and then full face laser resurfacing to improve the fabric itself."
All in all, Heaton's surgery took just over six hours to complete, and she stayed in St. Louis to recover for two weeks with her husband before heading back home to North Carolina.
In the weeks that followed, Heaton gradually started to see her face settle into what she truly hoped it would be. But it wasn't without some anxiety: anxiety over what her friends would think, anxiety over the healing process and anxiety over what the final result would be.
Nayak Plastic Surgery
Tina Heaton after 4 weeksRelated: A $15K 'Awake BBL' Procedure Is Trending Right Now, But Is It Safe? Patients Tell All (Exclusive)
And then there were the social media comments.
Dr. Nayak has a huge social media following, with over 400K followers on Instagram, 173K followers on Facebook and 89K followers on TikTok. He actively shares his patients' stories on his social media channels (with their consent), and the comments range from kind to critical. With Heaton's story, the reaction was swift and largely disbelief.
"You see all the internet sleuths. They literally can't believe it," Dr. Nayak says, noting that with Heaton specifically — whose pinned Instagram on his profile has 35K "likes" — commenters thought she was fake because the mole in her neck didn't line up in the before and after photos. What they failed to take into account, though, was that her neck had been lifted, so of course the mole wasn't in the same place.
Heaton took the comments in stride, ignoring all of them except for one. Even though she watched several people criticize her for going under the knife and wondering how she could (quite literally) face her friends and family, she chose not to respond. It was when one commenter came to her defense and said maybe she was "excited" for a "new start" that Heaton jumped in and told her she "nailed it."
Because Heaton is excited for a new start in her twilight years. She's now 10 weeks post-op and her swelling is virtually nonexistent. Now when Heaton looks in the mirror, she gets a daily burst of joy that she looks the way she truly wants to look.
"Every day that I get up, I have this little bit of joy that I haven't had for a while," she says. "Especially when I go look in the mirror, I'm just reminded every morning it's like a nice little gift and a surprise. I'll look in the mirror and I'll go, 'Oh my gosh, I did that.'"
When she embarked on her journey, Heaton says her "biggest fear" was not looking like herself in the end, but she still sees her own face with her own features — including her perfectly imperfect teeth, which she did not change, despite tweaking everything else (including her hair) over the past few years.
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Nayak Plastic Surgery
Tina Heaton after 6 weeksRelated: Kaitlyn Bristowe Shares Before-and-After Photos of Her Plastic Surgery as She Hits Back at Critics
The plastic surgery was an investment for Heaton, who says it was certainly a "blessing" to have been able to afford, between the procedure and the trip to St. Louis.
"I got lucky that I could afford Dr. Nayak and my husband was supportive of me going to him knowing you could possibly buy a small second home for what I have invested," Heaton says, adding that she sees many people on social media requesting "The Tina" procedure to get a similar result to hers and likely feeling discouraged when they get a quote. Dr. Nayak's pricing is displayed transparently on his website, with deep plane facelifts starting at $150K.
For Heaton, it was all worth it. She spent many years focusing on other things in her life (particularly being a mom, which has always been her top priority), but lately she's been able to celebrate herself.
"I'm turning a page and redefining myself a little bit," she says. "And I like the redefinition because it's actually fun for me. I still never want to erase all the wrinkles and all the things that make me me. And that's why Dr. Nayak is so good — it's such a natural result."
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