A flurry of plastic surgery and beauty-related news from foreign lands lately:
Is Taiwan Asia's next one-stop plastic surgery shop? Who knew? I just visit for the food...
Indian students flock to plastic surgery to get ahead. I think this happens here in the US as well, but people tend not to be so frank about it (and we're not just talking about the citizens of Hollywood, either).
Vaseline skin-lightening app stirs debate. Now this isn't a new phenomenon in Asia; many East Asian women are quite fastidious about sun avoidance and a number of creams/lotions/potions/treatments promise to lighten or brighten are directly marketed at them. But the app seemed to take it one step too far.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Plastic surgery bits and pieces: roundup
Wow - just when I was starting to get worried that celebrities had given up on plastic surgery...
Experts: Lindsay Lohan Got Filler in Her Lips Before Jail. Not exactly a peer-reviewed journal, but fascinating nonetheless. Was it Restylane? Or Juvederm? The world holds its breath...
Teenage singer Charice gets Botox for 'Glee' debut. I admit, I really have no idea who this young Filipina is (am I showing my age?), but I hear that Glee is quite a popular show. I understand one wants to make a good impression, but why did this beautiful 18 year old think she needed Botox???
Vampire facelifts: Cosmetic surgery's crazy new trend. Ditto for the whole Twilight phenomenon. But the plastic surgeon's responses in this Salon interview are pretty entertaining.
Don't rule out plastic surgeons yet. That's right. No dinosaurs here.
And finally, I leave you with this heartwarming story that has nothing to do with plastic surgery (but yes, there is still some surgery involved).
Experts: Lindsay Lohan Got Filler in Her Lips Before Jail. Not exactly a peer-reviewed journal, but fascinating nonetheless. Was it Restylane? Or Juvederm? The world holds its breath...
Teenage singer Charice gets Botox for 'Glee' debut. I admit, I really have no idea who this young Filipina is (am I showing my age?), but I hear that Glee is quite a popular show. I understand one wants to make a good impression, but why did this beautiful 18 year old think she needed Botox???
Vampire facelifts: Cosmetic surgery's crazy new trend. Ditto for the whole Twilight phenomenon. But the plastic surgeon's responses in this Salon interview are pretty entertaining.
Don't rule out plastic surgeons yet. That's right. No dinosaurs here.
And finally, I leave you with this heartwarming story that has nothing to do with plastic surgery (but yes, there is still some surgery involved).
Thursday, July 15, 2010
News bits and pieces in the plastic surgery world
Not too much going on out there, save for the usual celebrity plastic surgery speculations and denials. Maybe everyone's on summer holiday.
Cosmetic surgery, Hollywood style. From the LA Times online, putting the blame on TV/mass media for the current plastic surgery "craze". Make of it what you will.
12 ridiculous plastic surgeries. A rather entertaining slideshow of "crazy" plastic surgery-type procedures. There are some valid procedures in the mix here; I'll leave it up to you to figure out which ones. And over here, some snarky OC commentary.
The new face of surgery. Not everything in plastic surgery is nip/tuck. This sounds like a great development for victims of facial trauma everywhere.
Frenchwomen's secrets to aging well and 10 ways to age like a Frenchwoman. My favorite bit from this NY Times Style section article is the quote from a Paris plastic surgeon: the point of plastic surgery in France is “to keep the natural beauty and charm of each individual woman, not to fit some current ideal of beauty.” My thoughts exactly - and that's how Dr. Weintraub and I approach every patient at Duet Plastic Surgery.
Cosmetic surgery, Hollywood style. From the LA Times online, putting the blame on TV/mass media for the current plastic surgery "craze". Make of it what you will.
12 ridiculous plastic surgeries. A rather entertaining slideshow of "crazy" plastic surgery-type procedures. There are some valid procedures in the mix here; I'll leave it up to you to figure out which ones. And over here, some snarky OC commentary.
The new face of surgery. Not everything in plastic surgery is nip/tuck. This sounds like a great development for victims of facial trauma everywhere.
Frenchwomen's secrets to aging well and 10 ways to age like a Frenchwoman. My favorite bit from this NY Times Style section article is the quote from a Paris plastic surgeon: the point of plastic surgery in France is “to keep the natural beauty and charm of each individual woman, not to fit some current ideal of beauty.” My thoughts exactly - and that's how Dr. Weintraub and I approach every patient at Duet Plastic Surgery.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Friday Figure Fix: Next installment, coming up
Never fear, Friday Figure Fix will be here... Give me a little time to work on the next "boob"-related topic. I think what we'll tackle next is the challenge of making breasts that are too big (headaches, neck strain, back pain, shoulder grooving, social discomfort) more manageable.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Friday Figure Fix: Making them bigger, part 3
This week's Friday Figure Fix wraps up "Breast Augs 101" for all you rabid MPL fans out there. We covered some common questions, the technical aspects (and more), and today we'll discuss some of the complications of breast augmentation. With this kind of surgery, in a skilled plastic surgeon's hands, complications are fortunately uncommon; but they do happen. This week's post is not necessarily to scare anyone off, but to be realistic, provide you with as balanced a picture as possible, and help you become a better informed consumer.
To begin with, breast augmentation (as I keep harping) is still surgery, so all the common risks inherent to surgery apply: bleeding, infection, scarring, need for revision, etc. Some of these standard surgical risks do merit a deeper discussion in the case of breast implants.
Bleeding. We'll include hematomas and seromas in this part of the discussion. But first, some bleeding is expected; we are talking about putting surgical steel to the skin and parts beneath, right? Surgeons, and especially plastic surgeons, have a love/hate relationship with bleeding. On the one hand, bleeding is good - it reassures you that the tissue you're working with is alive; on the other hand, bleeding is bad - blood belongs on the inside, not where you're working...
Anyhow, when we're dealing with breast implant surgery, the rate of bleeding complications is fairly low; we're generally working in an easily identifiable layer where a lot of pesky blood vessels are not typically encountered. So hematomas (collections of fresh or clotted blood) and seromas (collections of clear fluid created by the body) do happen after breast augmentations, but rarely. A few surgeons place drains (tubes to help evacuate fluid from the body) to prevent hematomas and seromas from developing after breast augmentations, but most (including us at Duet) usually don't.
Infection. A lot of times in surgery, wound infections can be dealt with in a fairly straightforward matter; throw some antibiotics at the problem, and things get better. In plastic surgery when we're dealing with implants, we take any hint of infection much more seriously. Because if those implants become infected, surgery often needs to be performed urgently to remove them. If that happens, the body has to be allowed to heal - for several weeks to months - before you can put implants in again.
Asymmetry. Most women are not perfectly matched to begin with. One breast is often larger than the other, and sometimes the alignment of the nipples/areola can be off. Although plastic surgeons do their best to achieve symmetry, if you started out uneven you might still see some of that after a simple breast augmentation surgery. Sometimes the difference seems more exaggerated, because the size of the implants.
Scarring. Again, all surgery causes scarring. As we discussed a few weeks ago, there are ways to disguise the incisional scars necessary to place the implants in the right place. Rarely, those scars can become unsightly, itchy, or even painful. Some of that is caused by surgical technique, but a lot of it depends on your genetics and personal history (some folks, unfortunately, are just prone to scar worse than others).
Capsular contracture. This is a particular kind of scarring specific to implants. Whenever something foreign is placed in the human body, the body reacts by forming a capsule, or scar, around the non-self matter. It's sort of like oysters creating a pearl around an irritating grain of sand.
Sometimes the body overreacts to the foreign body, however, and capsular contracture can develop. The scar capsule that naturally forms around the breast implant is usually soft, pliable, and unnoticed by the patient. When it becomes a problem, that capsule becomes hard, contracted, distorted, and in the worst case, painful. This requires additional surgery to remove the capsule and sometimes even the implant.
Need for revision/replacement. Unfortunately, breast implants are not lifetime devices. On average, a woman who gets breast augmentation can expect to have some sort of surgery every 10 years. Surgery may be needed to remove scar capsule, as mentioned above, or replace the implant, which can leak, rupture, or deflate. This is not to say that surgery should be scheduled regularly, like a yearly physical or oil change. I've seen some women need their implants replaced within a few months, and others (who had the very first implants, in the 1960s) who have never had a problem.
But once you have breast implants, you do need to be vigilant about your breasts - self exams, mammograms, and just an awareness of what normal looks and feels like for your breasts. If you have saline-filled implants, it's relatively easy to know if the implant is leaking (you'll notice that one boob is smaller than the other, because the leaking saline is simply absorbed by your body). It's a little tougher to tell with the silicone-gel filled implants, since the cohesive gel doesn't run, so regular screening MRIs to look for leaks and ruptures are necessary.
And of course, while the vast majority of patients are very happy with the results of their breast augmentation surgery, a few women wish they had gone bigger, smaller, or not at all. Revisional surgery - to upsize, downsize, or remove the implants - can be performed.
More questions? Feel free to email me - AngelineLimMD [at] DuetPlasticSurgery [dot] com.
To begin with, breast augmentation (as I keep harping) is still surgery, so all the common risks inherent to surgery apply: bleeding, infection, scarring, need for revision, etc. Some of these standard surgical risks do merit a deeper discussion in the case of breast implants.
Bleeding. We'll include hematomas and seromas in this part of the discussion. But first, some bleeding is expected; we are talking about putting surgical steel to the skin and parts beneath, right? Surgeons, and especially plastic surgeons, have a love/hate relationship with bleeding. On the one hand, bleeding is good - it reassures you that the tissue you're working with is alive; on the other hand, bleeding is bad - blood belongs on the inside, not where you're working...
Anyhow, when we're dealing with breast implant surgery, the rate of bleeding complications is fairly low; we're generally working in an easily identifiable layer where a lot of pesky blood vessels are not typically encountered. So hematomas (collections of fresh or clotted blood) and seromas (collections of clear fluid created by the body) do happen after breast augmentations, but rarely. A few surgeons place drains (tubes to help evacuate fluid from the body) to prevent hematomas and seromas from developing after breast augmentations, but most (including us at Duet) usually don't.
Infection. A lot of times in surgery, wound infections can be dealt with in a fairly straightforward matter; throw some antibiotics at the problem, and things get better. In plastic surgery when we're dealing with implants, we take any hint of infection much more seriously. Because if those implants become infected, surgery often needs to be performed urgently to remove them. If that happens, the body has to be allowed to heal - for several weeks to months - before you can put implants in again.
Asymmetry. Most women are not perfectly matched to begin with. One breast is often larger than the other, and sometimes the alignment of the nipples/areola can be off. Although plastic surgeons do their best to achieve symmetry, if you started out uneven you might still see some of that after a simple breast augmentation surgery. Sometimes the difference seems more exaggerated, because the size of the implants.
Scarring. Again, all surgery causes scarring. As we discussed a few weeks ago, there are ways to disguise the incisional scars necessary to place the implants in the right place. Rarely, those scars can become unsightly, itchy, or even painful. Some of that is caused by surgical technique, but a lot of it depends on your genetics and personal history (some folks, unfortunately, are just prone to scar worse than others).
Capsular contracture. This is a particular kind of scarring specific to implants. Whenever something foreign is placed in the human body, the body reacts by forming a capsule, or scar, around the non-self matter. It's sort of like oysters creating a pearl around an irritating grain of sand.
Sometimes the body overreacts to the foreign body, however, and capsular contracture can develop. The scar capsule that naturally forms around the breast implant is usually soft, pliable, and unnoticed by the patient. When it becomes a problem, that capsule becomes hard, contracted, distorted, and in the worst case, painful. This requires additional surgery to remove the capsule and sometimes even the implant.
Need for revision/replacement. Unfortunately, breast implants are not lifetime devices. On average, a woman who gets breast augmentation can expect to have some sort of surgery every 10 years. Surgery may be needed to remove scar capsule, as mentioned above, or replace the implant, which can leak, rupture, or deflate. This is not to say that surgery should be scheduled regularly, like a yearly physical or oil change. I've seen some women need their implants replaced within a few months, and others (who had the very first implants, in the 1960s) who have never had a problem.
But once you have breast implants, you do need to be vigilant about your breasts - self exams, mammograms, and just an awareness of what normal looks and feels like for your breasts. If you have saline-filled implants, it's relatively easy to know if the implant is leaking (you'll notice that one boob is smaller than the other, because the leaking saline is simply absorbed by your body). It's a little tougher to tell with the silicone-gel filled implants, since the cohesive gel doesn't run, so regular screening MRIs to look for leaks and ruptures are necessary.
And of course, while the vast majority of patients are very happy with the results of their breast augmentation surgery, a few women wish they had gone bigger, smaller, or not at all. Revisional surgery - to upsize, downsize, or remove the implants - can be performed.
More questions? Feel free to email me - AngelineLimMD [at] DuetPlasticSurgery [dot] com.
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