The lead author on the study, Dr. Matthew Richardson, said that the technique gives those having a facelift a way to use their own tissue which would otherwise normally be discarded with minimal risk of complications. However, usually those who have already had a facelift cannot undergo the procedure as the tissue used for lip augmentation is normally removed during the first facelift.

The study focused on a procedure that plumps up the lips with tissue taken from what’s known as the superficial musculoaponeurotic system (SMAS), a layer of tissues under the skin of the face.

In order to measure the long-term safety and effectiveness of the procedure researchers tracked 60 people for five years examining photos to see how plump lips stayed over time and which, if any, complications arose.

Just two patients had complications that required additional treatment, one to relieve swelling and the other for nodule removal.

According to an analysis of photos from a subset of 26 patients at three months, one year and five years both the upper and lower lips were fuller compared to before the facelifts and lip augmentation.
However, the authors did note that some people were missing at least one picture and others had to be excluded as they’d received additional cosmetic lip procedures during the study.

Those interested in undergoing the procedure should also be aware that it is unlikely to be covered by insurance and in most instances will cost something in the region of $5,000 to $8,000. Nonetheless, those interested can be reassured by the study as it showed that the procedure can be carried out safely and with long last effects.

Last spring Doherty underwent a single mastectomy and recently she has undergone reconstructive surgery on her breast. After the surgery Doherty took to Instagram to share a video from the doctor’s office where she thanked her surgeon Dr Jay Orringer and wrote, “I consider myself very lucky and very blessed to have this man as my doctor.”

The surgery was carried out in order to place a temporary implant known as an expander. The implant will help the muscle tissue expand in preparation for a permanent silicone implant.

Many patients that undergo a breast reconstruction will receive an inflatable tissue expander before receiving a permanent implant. Doherty received hers fairly soon after the mastectomy and explained that her it needs to be extra-enlarged before her next radiation treatment as the radiation will shrink it.
In the video Dr Orringer can be heard saying, “Radiation acts like a shrink wrap effect around the expander. Whether you lose 20 percent volume or 30 percent, it’s difficult to know.”

Doherty, who was diagnosed with cancer last year, has been extremely open about her battle with the disease and shared a number of personal and intimate videos with her followers documenting the journey to recovery.

Earlier in November she was given a Courage Award at the American Cancer Society’s inaugural Giants of Science Gala where she said that she accepted the award “on behalf of every single cancer patient out there because it takes a lot of courage.”

Doherty will have the permanent implant inserted once the expander has done its job and she has completed her radiation treatment.

Leading surgeons are complaining that hospitals don’t provide good pricing information to patients. At present it is thought that hospitals tend to take one of two approaches, neither of which is particularly helpful to patients. Hospitals are either declining to discuss pricing over the phone and instead tell patients to make an appointment or refer them to a website or they are spending too much time discussing pricing and never hear from the patient again.

One option that has been put forward to help is the development of apps to help patients gather information on plastic surgery and the associated costs the app can also be expanded into a website widget so that it is not limited to smartphones and tablets.

There is already a version of this available known as “Build My Bod” which is used by a number of doctors in Louisiana to help patients make health care spending decisions.

The app gives patients the chance to shop from a number of procedures with the bundled pricing components very clearly listed. For example, a joint replacement price would include the surgeon fee, anesthesia fee, hospital charge and rehabilitation costs.

It has also been found that those who use the app or website are 41% more likely to follow-up by booking a procedure.

According to the Affordable Care Act hospitals need to provide patients with pricing information. However, this regulatory element of the ACA has been slow going. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released proposed rules in 2014 and both the American Medical Society and the American Hospital Association support the concept of price transparency on their websites. However, in reality many hospitals are listing charges rather than the actual prices that a patient might pay which is unhelpful when patients are trying to make informed decisions.

Elva Mendoza Navarro, from Hidalgo, was sentenced to five years in prison after she pleaded guilty to the murder of Zenyasent Cisneros. Cisenros died as a result of complications from the injections she received in October 2013 at Bella’s Face and Body Spa which was owned by Navarro.

Court documents show that Cisenros had paid for a buttock enhancement procedure using Botox. However, the product used was mislabeled hardware store grade silicone.

Navarro’s attorney, Terry Canales, argued that Nevarro was unware that the Botox was fake when she injected six women with it and claimed that she also used the product on herself. Canales said that there was a possibility that Navarro had “been fooled herself and had no idea the product was not what it was labelled”.

In June 2014 Canales also represented Navarro in a federal case where she pleaded guilty to receiving and importing the liquid silicone she used to inject Cisneros with the intent to “defraud and mislead” her customers. In that instance she was sentenced to three years in prison which will run at the same time as the five years she was sentenced to in the more recent case.

Canales asked that the judge reduce the murder charge to manslaughter and recommended that Navarro be given probation as there was no proof of intent to kill Cisneros. Originally Navarro was facing 99 years in prison but in exchange for her guilty plea prosecutors dropped two counts of practicing medicine without a license and one count of kidnapping from a separate case.

After serving half of her sentence Navarro will be eligible for parole and she has already served about nine months in jail.

The case highlights the need for patients who choose to undergo Botox treatment to be sure that they are being treated by a fully qualified and American Board of Plastic Surgery recognized surgeon.

Riggins was arrested in March after a nine month long investigation and she is accused of running a crime ring that scammed more than $50,000 worth of breast implants, tummy tucks and dental work.

According to Orlando Police Detective Todd Herb they have arrested 14 women, most of who are residents of Pine Hills, and identified at least 12 victims of theft.

Herb said that the arrested women were either friends of Riggins or had met her in jail and some of them had amassed bills for more than $15,000. In exchange for her services Riggins either received a small fee or was offered favors by the women such as doing her hair or cooking for her.

All of them women are accused of using stolen identities to receive, or attempt to receive, plastic surgery or dental work from legitimate offices around central Florida. According to Herb they were undergoing everything from tummy tucks, to breast reductions to breast implants.

When they were asked how they would pay for their surgery the women gave stolen credit account information and said that the card belonged to a sister, cousin or other close relative. When the surgical office went to verify the account the women show as connected to it, although fraudulently.
However, in some cases the surgery office was notified of the fraud before the surgery began, in one case this was just minutes before. A woman was on the table about to be anesthetized when the doctors were told to stop.

The fraud victims were normally aged between 19 and 24 years old and when they were faced with the bill they alerted their bank or ignored it.

Riggins has a number of convictions dating back to 2009 which range from petty theft to grand theft.

Plastic surgery has a much longer and convoluted history than most people realize. It has mixed origins which lie in part in the correction of syphilitic deformities and racialized ideas about acceptable facial features as well as the aim of aesthetic improvement.

Some of the first known plastic surgeries took place in 16th century Britain. There were Tudor “barber surgeons” which treated facial injuries, an essential role in a society where an ugly or damaged face was considered to reflect a disfigured inner self. However, due to the pain and risks of surgery at the time cosmetic surgeries were generally restricted to severe and stigmatized disfigurements, such as the loss of a nose.

Purely cosmetic surgery didn’t really become commonplace until it wasn’t as painful and the risk to life had been greatly reduced. Thanks to the various advancements in the fields of anesthesia and hygiene this had been achieved by the 1880s.

Soon it wasn’t unusual to see adverts for various surgeries such as Derma-Featural Co’s adverts for treatment for “humped, depressed, or… ill-shaped noses”. However, the surgeries were still very primitive and full of risks. For instance the use of “paraffin wax” for nose jobs where hot wax was injected into the nose and them molded into the desired shape could result in the wax migrating to other parts of the face and cause disfigurements or even wax cancers.

Much of the work to advance plastic surgery techniques came about as the result of a desire to correct features such as ears, noses and breasts which were seen as “ugly” as they weren’t typical of “white people”.

In the US, where the immigrant population was steadily growing, pug noses, large noses and flat noses were seen as signs of racial difference and were therefore considered ugly. Similarly, small rounded breasts were considered youthful and sexually controlled while larger breasts were considered primitive and a deformity. As a result in the early 20th century breast reductions were common.

The changing views about noses, breasts and so on demonstrate how standards of beauty change with time and place. Surgical trends have always been linked to the qualities valued by the surrounding culture as well as ideas about race, health, femininity and so on.

While today plastic surgery is on the whole viewed as an entirely positive thing it is worth remembering that modern cosmetic surgery owes a huge amount to racism and not, as is often thought, to the helping of those injured in war or other horrific circumstances.

These days it’s near impossible to avoid the trend on social media sites, such as Facebook and Instagram, of young women in their teens and twenties posting photos of themselves with pouty lips and a baby-face full of fillers. In most cases this will result in some brief attention and a similarly brief increase in self-esteem for the poster.

Those who feel the need to compete to survive in the dating world will often be struggling with their appearance on a daily basis. The way in which we think tends to closely link our perception of our appearance with our sense of self-worth. Therefore, many go after standards such as fuller lips and smaller waists in order to feel as if they have the competitive edge.

This kind of thinking is often extremely unhealthy, especially in younger people who are still learning about themselves, their place in the world and how to interact with other. During these early stages of life it is common for people to give their appearance an unhealthy focus and in extreme cases it can become the sole contributor to a person’s sense of self-worth.

Social media often reinforces these unhealthy thought patterns, especially with the abundance of cosmetically altered photos of women. This can lead to young women feeling under pressure to have cosmetic surgery in order to be able to compete with those they view pictures of online. Of course this is often hugely problematic as people are failing to look beyond appearances and are left feeling permanently unhappy.

There have been many studies which show that while people are attracted to one another’s appearances it is not physical looks which lies behind successful relationships. Many younger men and woman have not yet learnt this and view appearance as the key to forming a fulfilling relationship. This can result in extremely unhealthy and toxic views, low self-esteem and a false need for plastic surgery.

Everyone wants to be respected by their peers and looked upon favourably by the opposite sex. While full lips, larger breasts, smaller waists and so on may initially attract a partner, when considering plastic surgery it is important to remember that these are in fact plastic and they are not the basis for a healthy and lasting relationship.

Recently six-year-old Jasper Damiano underwent reconstructive surgery on his left ear. Prior to the surgery Jasper, an enthusiastic magician, had real problems getting hats, glasses and goggles to sit properly on his head which caused him a great deal of frustration.

Jasper was born with his left ear growing out and down and as he got older it worsened continuing to grow down. While his parents did everything to ensure that Jasper felt like every other child it soon began to frustrate him and they went in search of a solution.

Their medical insurance wouldn’t cover the procedure to have the ear pinned back and they struggled to get a price estimate from a plastic surgeon as the surgery is so expensive. After about a year and a half the family came across the Fresh Start Surgical Gifts program which would allow Jasper to undergo the surgery for free.
In February 2016 Jasper finally had the surgery at the University of Chicago Medicine Comer Children’s Hospital. Each year the hospital provides free reconstructive surgeries for three children that were born with physical deformities. The hospital works together with the Fresh Start Caring for Kids Foundation, which is a collaboration of Fresh Start Surgical Gifts and the Plastic Surgery Foundation, in order to carry out the surgeries.

While immediately after the surgery Jasper was heavily bandaged in order to keep the ear in place, once they came off the benefits were immediately obvious and Jasper was soon back playing with his twin sister and younger brother.

The parents home-school their children which has protected Jasper from being taunted by other children. However, it was a real concern for his parents and they were eager to avoid having to subject Jasper to other children who may not be particularly understanding. As a result they are hugely grateful to the Fresh Start Surgical Gifts program as Jasper will now be able to mix with other children without the feat of being teased.

Jasper said that he wasn’t nervous about the surgery and his father said that the hospital ensured that the experience was as enjoyable as possible for him in order to avoid and pre-surgery worries.

His mother said that she was surprised at how much of a difference the surgery made to Jasper’s appearance. He keeps asking people if they want to see his ear and the family is now looking forward to taking him to swimming lessons where his goggles will be able to stay in place.

Another, more common, worry often associated with having a facelift is the way in which society and people’s peers react to plastic surgery. While there are those that do, wrongly, look down upon people who undergo plastic surgery, it is thankfully becoming less and less of a problem. This has been helped by a number of high profile celebrities, such as Sharon Osborne and Donatella Versace, publicly admitting that they have gone under the knife. It was roughly thirty years ago that Betty Ford became the first high profile figure to admit to having a facelift and since then Americans have gradually become more accepting of plastic surgery and this trend looks set to continue.

Furthermore, not every facelift is the same. While some do result in drastic changes which will be immediately noticeable, there are more subtle facelift techniques which have a lesser effect but still result in a more youthful and wrinkle-free face.

Because everyone ages differently it is impossible to predict at which point any one individual may benefit from a facelift. However, when looking in the mirror most people will have a pretty good idea of how they are aging and through consultations with board-certified plastic surgeons, such as Dr. Warren Lent, it is possible to determine if it is the right procedure for you.

Prior to having a facelift much can be done to reduce wrinkles and sagging skin with non-invasive cosmetic options. However, at some point a facelift becomes the sensible choice in order to decrease the loss of volume and sagging of the skin that aging inevitably causes. However, while some people may benefit from this in their 50’s others can wait until quite a few years later. In general people lose a great deal of facial volume during their 50’s so this is normally the right time to consider a facelift, especially as it is best to undergo the surgery at a time when the changes will look natural and not drastic.

As a result, these days undergoing a facelift is a far less stressful experience than many people realise. It has become an almost entirely socially acceptable procedure and thanks to advancements in surgical techniques it is also extremely safe. As long as you take the time to consult with a fully qualified board-certified plastic surgeon then you can be sure that you will be receiving the best possible advice and undergoing a facelift at the right time for you.

However, just like any other surgery it can be extremely worrying to hear about cases of botched surgeries. The alarming rise in botched surgeries and the fact that they are constantly being shown on cable TV is scaring people away from all types of cosmetic surgery. It is true that, like all surgeries, plastic surgery comes with a risk. However, that doesn’t mean that we should stop undergoing surgery altogether. In fact, having a skilled surgeon on your side makes the risk manageable and substantially smaller.

Reasons for Botched Plastic Surgery

People are often dazzled by the ‘before and after’ pictures shown in so many advertisements and then forget that plastic surgery is like any other surgery and needs to be performed in a well-equipped operating room. The perception that cosmetic surgery is simply a beauty procedure that can be performed in any beauty parlor is one of the prime reasons for the increase in botched surgeries.

When patients seek out cheaper cosmetic surgery in countries like South America they forget that the cost of surgery is basically the same everywhere. The cost of any surgical procedure involves all the surgical equipment required to make the surgery a success. Price differentials usually occur due to the fees charged by the surgeon. More skilled surgeons tend to charge higher fees because they are well trained, highly in demand and confident in their work. This means that anyone looking to undergo cheap cosmetic surgery in Costa Rica or Cuba is likely to have a surgeon that is working pro bono and there is a high chance that the standard of the surgery will be very low. Furthermore, if a person chooses to undergo surgery in a different county they will have difficulty reaching the surgeon if there are any complications post-surgery.

In fact, another major factor in the rising number of botched surgeries is substandard post-surgery care. People that opt for cheaper surgery are more likely to skimp on the medical care required after the surgery. This can result in a number of complications such as infection of the incisions, problems with the grafted skin cells and so on. Many of these can be so counterproductive that the entire surgery will have to be redone.

How to Avoid Botched Surgery

The simple solution is not to look for extra cheap surgeons based abroad. Cosmetic surgery will not become cheaper unless all forms of surgery become substantially cheaper. It’s only logical that if there is a cheaper way to perform one type of surgery then there will be cheaper ways of performing other types of surgery.

Always ensure that the surgeon performing your operation is board certified. This is extremely straightforward; all you have to do is visit the American Board of Medical Specialist (ABMS) website and verify their credentials. A quick search by name and zip code of the State, which they operate, should return the relevant information. Thanks to this you can be sure that you will be receiving care from a genuine specialist. However, this service is limited to the US so if you choose to undergo surgery elsewhere you will have no way of verifying the surgeon’s credentials.

Post-surgery care should be taken extremely seriously. Cosmetic surgery will often involve incisions and other traumas to the body, which will take some time to heal. This means that you have to properly treat wounds until they are healed in order to avoid the development of infections.

The Joy of Plastic Surgery

Due to an influx of negative publicity surrounding plastic surgery many people are wondering whether it is still a viable option. The simple answer is YES. Plastic surgery is not always about frivolous improvements to a person’s appearance, it is often a vital tool in improving someone’s quality of life, whether it’s through fixing a medical problem or an increase in self-esteem. Plastic surgery can enable burns victims to resume a normal life, it can help bald people feel more confident, it can help correct birth defects and so on. As long as you are consulting with a highly trained surgeon with respected qualifications then you are in perfectly safe hands and can enjoy all of the benefits that plastic surgery has to offer.