Archive for the ‘Cosmetic Procedures’ Category:
New Procedure for Smooth Belly?
There are quite a few women, and men too, who are really not happy with one particular area on their body. The belly fat is the number one complaint on the body between women and men, and the reason that typical tummy tuck surgery is still one of the number one requested cosmetic surgeries today. Tummy tucks though, are actually quite invasive procedures.
They not only suck the fat out from underneath the skin, but they also take some of the skin off as well because often times people who request tummy tucks have excess body fat and therefore have stretched, excessive skin that needs to be removed as well. After all, we weren’t born that way, that stomach had to have gotten stretched out over the course of our lives due to genes, poor eating and exercise habits, or child birth.
A cosmetic surgeon named Dr. Schulman has now come up with a new procedure that is made to help patients who request to have a flatter stomach, and yet are not so severe that they need a full on tummy tuck. This new procedure is something he has coined the “smooth tummy tuck”. It allows him to do agressive liposuction, and also remove any hanging skin in one operation, whereas other operations may take several to get the right, smooth and natural look, which means, yep, you have to go under more than once and why would you want to do that more than you have to?
The difference is that there is no muscle repair involved because the muscles were not invaded, fat was just sucked out, so your recovery time is a lot less, and your scarring is more minimal, making for an overall more desirable procedure as well as a more desirable overall effect. It may even reduce the look of cellulite since it sucks out excess fat, and therefore would also of course minimize the straining of the fat against the skin.
The new technique takes about two hours, and recovery takes about five days total. The patients see and feel an immediate result which is what leaves them so very happy. Hey, if I had problems in that area, I might think about it! Maybe some day, when I get tired of my saddle bags, this type of procedure is something I’d treat myself to 
One of the stars of “The Hills”, the hit reality show with other reality stars – if that’s what you can call them – Spencer Pratt, her irritating husband, Lauren Conrad and Audrina Patridge, has really gone overboard on getting plastic surgery procedures to meet what she thinks is the beauty ideal that is forced on women in the Hollywood entertainment industry.
Do I smell the next Joan Rivers on the front? She’d better be careful, or she may end up looking like some alien version of herself like other plastic surgery addicts in the business such as the “Cat Lady” who literally looks like a cat now and other victims of bad plastic surgery or simply overdoing it, Priscilla Presley, whose formerly gorgeous face has been marred by a botched filler job, and Joan Van Arc, whose waxen, frozen appearance leaves one feeling sorry for her rather than astounded by her newfound youthful look.
I feel really bad for women, or men, who go overboard in this area, because it almost seems like they really don’t like themselves and are trying to alter their very existence into something that is completely different than what they were born with. The results are often devastating and can have serious mental health implications. Heidi Montag seems to be headed down this path, and I don’t know if she’s considered this, but excessive nipping and tucking never lead anyone to a successful career, but likability and perseverence have.
At least Ms. Montag, or shall I say Pratt, is willing to talk about her obsession with the knife and has admitted to it, and her before and after pictures aren’t horrendous, but I can’t help but wonder when she will morph into something that is totally unnatural looking, since you know that’s what happens to women who are addicted to procedures. I’ve never seen any of them stop doing it, and eventually, they just start to look bad. Hopefully she doesn’t go down that path, but from what it sounds like, she isn’t planning on stopping these procedures any time soon.
Heidi’s story is one of caution to those of us that start to pick on every little thing about our appearance. You have to, at a certain point, embrace your features. Sure, there are a few things we all want to change about our appearance, but going under the knife to correct it all will leave you not only bankrupt, but with a void you can never seem to fill, and unhappiness.
A former Miss Argentina has died after going under the knife for gluteal (that’s the scientific term for butt or rear end in case you didn’t know) surgery to enhance the appearance of her butt and make it look more lifted and round. The 38 year old mother of two died in surgery after she threw a blood clot to her lungs and experienced acute respiratory failure. Efforts to save the woman were not successful, and she passed away at the scene of the surgery reportedly.
Incidents like this during surgeries are uncommon, but there is definitely a risk any time you put yourself under the knife, so it’s wise to consider this when you are considering plastic surgery of any kind. Argentina is actually one of the countries that has a very high rate of plastic surgery. People actually engage in medical tourism to go get plastic surgery there because the cost is lower and yet the standard of care and the quality of the work is still pretty high.
After looking at pictures of this woman on the news sites, I’m not quite sure why she was going in for any surgery at all. She was gorgeous. It’s too bad that the pressures are so great that she felt she needed this unnecessary procedure. I’m not anti plastic surgery at all either, I advocate it. However, I think that some of these procedures are really going overboard.
In a move that’s bound to limit cosmetic surgery even more than it already has been by the current economic problems we face, congress is now considering a new way to help pay for their so called “health overhaul”, which by the way I’m very leery of, in case you can’t already tell by the tone of my writing. They are proposing a possible part of an answer to the shortcomings of how to pay for the multiple new programs for helping get a lot of uninsured Americans health coverage, by taxing cosmetic surgeries and possibly other cosmetic or nonessential procedures that are totally elective.
I’m sure that plastic surgeons aren’t thrilled about this idea, nor are a certain set of actresses, models and other high end socialite types who are addicted to plastic surgery and other cosmetic procedures, but they are seriously thinking of taxing this, which is kind of the equivalent of a “luxury item”, so that they can help to bridge the gap that currently exists and pay for their health care reform ideas.
What really bothers me about them squeezing yet more tax out of people who tend to make more money than average, is that they are not instead looking at the billions of wasted dollars that are spent every year in government spending, but they are looking to further squeeze the nation’s higher paid people, who already pay the majority of the taxes in the US, and who already pay for the shortcomings of multiple other programs.
I just don’t like the idea that if you make more, or if you happen to be able to afford certain items because you’ve worker your butt off for them, you are punished by the government by paying even more than your fair share of taxes. It’s another way that the government really squeezes every nickel out of the higher income brackets, and I suppose I’d just like to see them find more creative ways to pay for their ideas than this.
Not that I plan on doing a whole lot in the plastic surgery department, but to me this just speaks to the problem that America tends to reward mediocrity too much. I’m all for being charitable, and I believe in doing my part to help the less fortunate, but there has to be a line drawn, and I think this extra tax is just another sneaky way of eeking more money out of Americans.
Ah, you gotta love the British. They seem to come up with new methods to surgically alter their appearance, and nonsurgically, faster than us beauty and looks conscious Americans. Just take a look at any British tabloid or even a regular news site, and you will see that their obsession with celebrity and appearance rivals only us here in America, so it’s no wonder that we’re all long lost cousins. They’re especially concerned, like we are, with anti aging and wrinkle prevention and treatment.
The latest news of Britain is something called a ten minute facelift. It’s basically a nonsurgical, cheaper way to look like you’ve had a facelift without the surgery and the thousands of dollars, although it will still cost you per session, with one session costing about 450 pounds, which is close to 800 or 900 dollars now in US currency. That could get quite pricey, so let’s talk about what it aims to do.
The treatment starts with a blueberry scrub and a chemical peel. This enhances the results of the more intense therapy later on, but is not necessary for the treatment to work. Then comes the mesotherapy, which to my understanding is small shots, under the skin, of vitamins and other beneficial ingredients, in this case they should help to enhance collagen production and tone up the skin from underneath, otherwise I don’t see the point of them for this sort of treatment.
Mesotherapy, if you recall, is actually a controversial treatment that is administered by some practitioners to help break up fat cells and flush them from the body by injecting natural ingredients underneath the skin which essentially explode and destroy fat cells, in this case though, the ingredients injected are supposed to enhance the plumpness of the face.
The ingredients that are administered under the skin for the ten minute face lift are elastin, hyaluronic acid, which is a natural biodegradable acid that helps plump the skin up, and a variety of other vitamins beneficial to the skin. Now, comes the painful part. A local anesthetic is administered to the whole facial area. Then shots of special fillers are given throughout the face that help plump and fill the entire face for a younger and more lifted look. The effect can be especially helpful for “jowls” that women hate that come with aging for a lot of men and women, it lifts them up and helps to tighten them for a period of time.
Then, the practitioner, who is only one French practitioner at the moment who came up with the treatment, takes his hands and manually smooths out the injections so that they are all distributed evenly under the skin, and this part is supposed to be painful as well. The before and after pictures are amazing though, if you want to google “ten minute facelift” and see for yourself. It is temporary, but it last for several months and call forestall more serious measures.
I have to admit, the sound of this newer treatment is quite intriguing. I get a newsletter from a skin care center in my area, and one of their newer offerings is called a collagen microdermabrasion treatment, which from the description presumably offers a microdermabrasion extreme exfoliating treatment, along with some sort of collagen enhancing treatment. Collagen enhancement can come from a variety of things, most notably some sort of deep heating of the tissue, to something akin to electrical currents or even lasers to get down in the deep layers and help stimulate collagen production.
As you well know by now, collagen is the building block that creates smooth, supple skin, and because we lose a lot of collagen as we age and it does not replenish like it used to, we are faced with worn looking, deflated skin which of course results in wrinkles and fine lines being visible. It’s your basic wear and tear of aging, and it’s all due to the loss of collagen which is a domino effect of several elements in our lives such as environmental toxins and pollutants, photo damage from the sun’s damaging photo UV rays, and a variety of other degradations of the structure of this precious compound.
The collagen microderm treatment is supposed to be exclusive to this one skin care treatment facility called the Skin Center in the Ohio and PA area, and what it does is combines the affects of microdermabrasion, which is a somewhat serious exfoliation of the skin’s outermost cells which reveals fresh cells that are more vibrant and bright looking, and also helps to rejuvenate collagen, and a collagen inducing treatment that is really different from anything I’ve read about before.
The collagen treatment is unique, as it massages a hyaluronic acid serum into the patient’s skin and then places a custom cut “collagen sheet” over the patient’s face, which is supposed to bind to the skin’s fibroblasts and help the skin to form it’s own natural collagen on it’s own. It is ideal for mature skin, and is supposed to be value priced as it is not an invasive procedure. Patients are said to have very little downtime, and it is ideal for getting before a major event since the complications are minimal and the downtime is minimal as well. ‘
If you’re interested, and you live in the Ohio or Pennsylvania area where the Skin Care Centers are located, you should give them a call, they seem to be reasonably priced and offer a wide array of the latest in skincare technology from what I’ve seen.
You read the horror stories about cosmetic surgery procedures going awry a lot, even though these risks are fairly remote, they nevertheless do exist, and everyone who undergos plastic surgery of any sort, especially the more invasive kinds where you are put under general anesthesia, should be aware that they are somewhat at risk, however remote, of enduring complications up to and even including death unfortunately.
It really is up to the individual though. I know some people who aren’t afraid to go under the knife at all, and others who avoid it like the plague. And well, to go under the knife for something that isn’t even medically necessary, those people would say no way, are you crazy!?
When you hear stories like the one out of Florida recently though, no matter if you’re squeamish or hesitant about plastic surgery and other cosmetic procedures of an invasive nature, you do tend to think twice about even thinking about getting anything done. A 37 year old mother of three children in Florida is now brain dead, and has been for several days, after she underwent liposuction surgery, which is a routine plastic surgery, at a medical spa in Florida.
She was ok all the way up until the very end of the surgery apparently, which incidentally is not described as a full on liposuction with the anesthesia because it isn’t known whether this is one of the less invasive forms, as the spa was not licensed to perform actual liposuction with anesthesia. The doctor’s lawyer did say that his client was unaware the spa was not licensed to perform procedures which require anesthesia, which leads me to believe it was the full kind where you have to go under because it is very invasive, but mum’s the word so far on that.
He also says that all emergency procedures were obeyed and at the right time, trying to exonerate his client from any wrongdoing, since you know there will be a lawsuit when a mother of three is now braindead and will most likely die from this.
Liposuction is a surgery where fat is extracted from the body’s problem areas in fairly large volumes, whereas lesser forms of liposuction, which can only take out smaller amounts of fat, are less invasive and do not require a patient to go under the twilight sleep that is induced from regular anesthesia, rather they are usually given sedatives and local anesthetics to help with any pain and discomfort.
In the craze to have mega groomed, sexy, framing eyebrows, there is a newer trend that I find intriguing and want to know more about, called threading. In fact, I saw a guy at the mall with a stand who was threading a girl’s eybrows just recently, so that’s when I knew this trend was really starting to take off. Here’s what I don’t like about threading that I just read though. I am of the school of thought that you should only pluck one hair at a time, otherwise you may overpluck and undershape.
However, it looks like threading involves removing several hairs at one time. Not a fan of that, personally although this may appeal to some people to get it overwith faster. That being said though, threading the eyebrows may be ideal for men, since men tend to have more out of control, thicker eyebrows than women in general, and also since men don’t require the level of shaping as women do, in my opinion, in fact guys look ridiculous when their brows have been overly groomed.
Eyebrow threading involves taking a double strand of cotton thread, and utilizing it in such a way (by an experience technician), that it removes one clean line of hair at a time, and ideally if it is done right, it does not produce any type of irritation or redness, and it looks very clean and uniform. Obviously, this technique can be great for those that just want a clean shape and who already have a lot of eyebrow to spare, or for cleaning up guy’s eyebrows, but caution should be used since if your technician is inexperienced, they can create uneven lines, or overpluck, and let’s face it you’re screwed if you’re overplucked, you can’t really grow them back until they want to come back on their own.
The good thing about threading is that you get the clean line, there are no chemicals or irritants, because it is all natural, and there should be little to no irritation or pain or redness as long as it’s done right. Drawbacks are that you could end up with a botched job and uneven brows, which in my view may not be worth it, but then again I’ve been plucking my own eyebrows for twenty years now, so I’m used to it and I know what I like.
You’ve undoubtedly heard of a chemical peel before if you’re into skin care. It’s a process that you can get done in a dermatologist’s office, and also now that you can do in your home at a lower concentration most likely, where a solution is applied to the skin’s surface, usually some sort of naturally derived acid like glycolic acid, one of the more popular ones used for this common procedure. The acid removes the top layer of skin cells, usually within a matter of minutes. You can get this done in conjunction with microdermabrasion, but usually only if the solution used if fairly weak.
The micropeel is a bit different of an animal. The micropeel starts off with either a light scraping of the skin’s epidermis to remove that top layer, or an enzyme or acid solution is applied to remove the top layer. Next, a cryogenic process is used where a device lightly freezes the top layer of skin which further helps to completely remove the skin cells. Then it is scraped lightly off. This procedure can greatly help your skin with the signs of aging, sun spots, acne scars and general lack of vibrance, but several treatments are usually needed to see a significant improvement in the appearance of the skin.
I’ve had a peel with a combination microdermabrasion process done, and I really liked the effects of it, although I figured out that I could do this on my own skin in my own home for much less money, as long as I was careful, using my own in home microderm product with a salon home peel. Several brands now offer these types of products for home use, one of the most notable and well reviewed being an Oil of Olay combination that women go gaga for. You can definitely get better results in a spa, but you can get almost identical results in your own home as long as your careful and you get your technique down to a science.
Well, wherever there is money to be made, there are sure to be con-men and con-women who will take advantage of people who may not know any better or who are desperate to get something for a dramatically reduced price or without doctor’s approval, so they can rope people in by appealing to their inner bargain hunter or by simply swindling them into thinking they are a credentialed person. It’s no different when it comes to plastic surgery. It’s not as common here in the US as it is in other countries where illegal cosmetic surgery is out of hand, like Mexico and Brazil, but it’s still something that needs to be dealt with swiftly by authorities because it truly is a life or death situation.
This story is out of the US, New York more specifically, where a woman wanted to get silicone injections into her rear end and thighs (I know, most of us want to slim those down, but some cultures view a shapely figure with lots of curves and a high waist to butt ratio to be very attractive – see cellulite treatments for information on how you may be able to slim down these parts). She began going to a woman a few years back to receive the injections, which would dissipate with time, so she would have to keep going back to keep up the appearance.
Silicone is not legalized to be used for injection into body sites as an enhancement tool, and there are also other thick liquids that are currently being used, illegally, by people who are either licensed or completely unlicensed (it’s illegal either way, but definitely more dangerous when performed by those with no credentials since there is probably a technique used that should not be).
The reason is that it can migrate to other areas of the body, because it is a free floating liquid, and because it should not be used in the body that way, whereas other injectables like restylane and juvederm are ok for that because they have minimum migration risk, and if they do migrate they are generally an inert, unharmful substance to the human body. The woman in New York had gotten these silicone injections for a few years with no incidence, but her last injection proved to be her last.
She contracted an embolism in her lung from the silicone migrating which is actually a fairly rare occurrence, but I’ve read about it happening in foreign countries where this kind of illegal enhancement is very common, which is where the silicone (or some other material) attached itself into the lung, causing complications. The FDA says that if it receives the complaints, it can prosecute those that are using this as a cosmetic surgery filler illegally, but many times these incidents go unreported, either because they aren’t caught, or because the treating doctor did not report it (doctors are not required to report this).
The people who illegally perform these procedures typically get around to patients by word of mouth, and it is particularly popular right now in the Latina and transgender community, where buttock and thigh and breast enhancement is popular but the population segment cannot afford the traditional legal surgeries or procedures to get what they want. Like I had mentioned before, although this silicone treatment is dangerous, the complications are actually fairly rare, and abuse is underreported, so it’s very difficult to catch the offenders unless (unfortunately) someone dies that has received care.
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