Against Plastic Surgery? Read This Now!

LEAVE A COMMENT 2013 July 17

Dr. Malcolm Roth is Chief of Plastic Surgery at the Albany Medical Center in Albany, New York, and former president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. A practicing board certified plastic surgeon for 25 years he is passionate about his profession and one of it’s most articulate spokesmen.

FOF talked to Dr. Roth about changing consumer attitudes towards plastic surgery and about changes in the field itself.

What is most rewarding about being a plastic surgeon?

We restore and enhance lives. We perform procedures in the reconstructive area that make people function better. A woman who has had a mastectomy, for example, can go to the beach looking as she did before. We work on children born with deformities and on cardiac patients who have infected wounds after heart surgery. We make people happier about their appearance and more confident about themselves.

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{Plastic Surgery} “Look At You!”

LEAVE A COMMENT 2013 July 10

Circumferential abdominoplasty performed by Dr. Feledy

“I come from a family of Rubenesque people,” says Mariane, 63. “I was always the fat kid on the block. That’s just the way it was.” But when Mariane became FOF, she says, she went from “chubby” to “obese.”

“I don’t like to talk numbers, but I was a good 100 pounds overweight by the time I was 50,” she admits. A new grandma, Mariane wanted to be able to get down on the floor and play with her granddaughter. “I also wanted to be around to see her grow up.” So, in 2000, she had gastric bypass surgery and lost over 120 pounds. She felt great, but she didn’t love the way she looked undressed. “The best way to understand it is to look at my ‘before’ pictures,” Mariane says. “There was a lot of excess skin and bad scarring all the way around.” She discussed corrective plastic surgery with her husband. “We talked about it off and on for 10 years. But you’re only ready when you’re ready. Last year, I thought, I have longevity in my family. If I fix this now, I could enjoy it for a good twenty years!”

Here, Mariane discusses exactly which procedure she had done, what surprised her most about the result and why she says her doctor is her “Michelangelo.”

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We Want To Move There, Too!

LEAVE A COMMENT 2013 June 4

Now that Dr. Mary Powers has opened an office in Westlake Village, CA, her two practices offer plastic surgery from Long Beach to Beverly Hills in Southern California. A Board Certified plastic surgeon with over 20 years experience, Dr. Powers chose Westlake Village because she says it appeals to her to her “aesthetic sense as a place to live and work!”

WLV (pop. around 9,000) residents are wealthy (average income is over six figures) and many are college educated.  Attracting both retired people,as well as young families, the town is like a “mini South Hampton, but with a lower pretense factor,” Dr. Powers says. “We have a lake instead of a beach [although the Malibu beach is 15 minutes away] and many country clubs,” she adds. “I love the area physically. It is surrounded by rolling, green hills and looks and feels like a different country from LA, but it’s only 40 minutes away.  There’s no traffic and you can’t see the air. The streets are wide, well designed and clean and they don’t have potholes.”

And, oh yes, while WSV residents care about keeping their well-planned community safe, secure and attractive, they also care about their appearance.  That is surely a good thing for Dr. Powers!

10 Years of Botox Were Enough

LEAVE A COMMENT 2013 May 23

“I didn’t used to have much aging in my face.  It just sort of happened in the past few years.”

Karen, 63, is a mother of three grown children, ages 40, 28, and 26, and is a retired computer programming analyst and apparel retailer.  She wanted to have her “crooked” nose straightened for a number of years. When her gynecologist referred her to Dr. Rondi Walker of Washington, DC,  Karen knew she’d found her surgeon. “I just trusted my doctor.”  Pleased with the results from the October 2012 septorhinoplasty (“basically, she rebuilt my nose),” Karen and Dr. Walker discussed a facelift at one of their follow-up appointments, when Karen noticed her jowls “just looked awful.”

Dr. Walker thought the best procedure for Karen would be a facelift, including upper and lower eyelid lifts (blepharoplasties) and fat transfer to the cheeks.  Her facelift was about three months later, in January 2013.

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{Life Changing Plastic Surgery Story} “It Was My First Time Ever Wearing A Two-Piece Swimsuit!”

LEAVE A COMMENT 2013 May 1

Julia on the beach post-op.

Julia*, 55, doesn’t cover up at the beach.  But this wasn’t always the case.  “I was looking in a mirror and my boobs were just hanging there,” this flight attendant and mother of three recalls thinking, about two years ago.  Julia knew working out and dieting would not resolve this issue, so she decided surgery was “the perfect choice.” It was an opportune time for her to have this done, as her skin was “already stretched out” with “deflated” breasts and a saggy tummy from three C-sections.  After extensively discussing her options with Dr. Jeffrey Ditesheim, Julia scheduled her surgery.

*Name changed to protect privacy.

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{Life Changing Plastic Surgery Story} “Before, When Someone Complimented Me, I’d Say, ‘Yeah Right.’” Now…

LEAVE A COMMENT 2013 April 17

Face, neck, upper and lower eyelid lift & lip filler performed by Dr. Powers.

Sonya*, 60, feels reborn. “I am so happy with my life, it’s the life I wanted.” It wasn’t an easy road for Sonya. She had custody of her ailing mother and became very depressed. “My mother had Parkinson’s and it was tough taking care of a parent who is very ill. She passed away two years ago. During that time, I was feeding my depression with food and gained a significant amount of weight,” she says. Sonya was medicated with antidepressants and desperately wanted to lose the weight. She found a chiropractor who put her on a diet and got her off the pills.

*Name changed to protect privacy.

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{Life Changing Plastic Surgery Story} “I Used To Have Buddha Hips…”

LEAVE A COMMENT 2013 April 10

Liposuction procedure performed by Dr. Wallace.

“I always swore I’d never get plastic surgery,” says 53-year-old Beth*, from Dallas, TX. “But somewhere around the age of 50 I woke up and changed my mind.”

A jewelry designer and mother of two, Beth never wanted to look “overly done,” a look she sometimes sees in Dallas, she explains. But after having two kids and emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy, she was “left with a not very pretty scar” on her abdomen and some other body issues that had been bothering her. “I’m your basic pear shape,” Beth says, “with smallish, B-cup breasts and what I call my Buddha hips.” Over time, she felt her shape was growing increasingly unbalanced. “Between the scar tissue and my widening hips, it was difficult to find ready-to-wear clothes that fit.”

So Beth decided it was time for “a little mommy makeover” and went for a consultation with Dr. Charles Wallace, a Dallas board-certified plastic surgeon. Here, she ta exactly how she got the “natural look” she was looking for.

*Name changed to protect privacy.

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A “Cool” New Fat-Busting Treatment Using H2O

LEAVE A COMMENT 2013 April 10

Charlotte, North Carolina — FOF recently caught up with Dr. Jeffrey Ditesheim about a “cool” new, minimally invasive lipo-technology, called AquaShape, that uses the pulsating action of sprayed water to remove fat and sculpt the body. Dr. Ditesheim is the first first board certified plastic surgeon in North Carolina to offer this procedure to his patients.

“AquaShape is a gentle way to eliminate fat and shape your body permanently,” the doctor told us. “It’s strong enough to remove fat, but gentle enough to minimize downtime.”

Liposuction is the most popular plastic surgery, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, with more than 205,000 procedures performed in 2011.Although lipo has evolved dramatically over the years, Dr. Ditesheim reports that some surgeons continue to use outdated techniques because they’re faster.

“The goal shouldn’t be to do something because it’s faster or more agressive,” he says. “I don’t look at liposuction as a way to destroy or remove fat; it’s about shaping the body to create a more beautiful or more proportional shape.”

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Game-Changing Advancements

LEAVE A COMMENT 2013 April 4

Texas—FOF recently chatted with Dr. Charles Wallace, board-certified plastic surgeon in Dallas, Texas, about the latest—and greatest—innovations in the field. “We’re really excited about a couple things that I believe are game-changing advancements,” the doctor believes.

The new implant in town!

“Sientra has introduced FDA-approved, shaped breast implants that come in a broad selection of sizes, profiles, projections, and surfaces, giving women more options for breast augmentation and reconstruction than ever before,” Dr. Wallace reported.

“The new Sientra implant is simply the best we’ve ever seen. In my opinion, it’s the first truly meaningful change in breast implants for decades,” Dr. Wallace explained. These high-strength, cohesive gel implants are made from a more viscous gel than other FDA-approved, silicone gel-filled implants, he said. “They feel natural, yet retain their shape very well and are less likely to rupture and leak. If they’re cut in half, for example, they remain form-stable. The silicone gel inside the shell does not ooze or migrate out of the casing.”

The Sientra implants also minimize the potential for ripples and wrinkles, so the results are more predictable, with fewer potential problems and less likelihood for revision surgery, the doctor added.

Sientra Implant Shape Retention Demonstration. Left: Cut implant with visible gel stability. Center: Pressure induced gel displacement. Right: Gel retraction demonstration shape retention.

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{Life-Changing Plastic Surgery Stories} “I Felt Like My Lower Face Was Sinking Into My Chest.”

LEAVE A COMMENT 2013 April 2

Written by Ramona Duoba

Deciding to have a surgical procedure often comes after a defining moment. You glance at your passport photo and can’t believe what’s happened to your looks during the last decade. You won’t go near the pool without meticulously wrapping a sarong over your swimsuit. You secretly pull back the skin on your face to see what you’d look like, minus the lines around your mouth, eyes or on your forehead. Penelope L.’s defining moment was a bit more dramatic. “When I did cardio exercise I had a sensation that lasted about a minute and then stopped suddenly. It wasn’t an ache or pain. It was something that was just different. It’s kind of hard to explain. The sensation was on my left side and probably had more to do with my breathing, but my breathing never stopped. The doctor recommended I have an EKG. On April 29, 2011, the same day as the Royal wedding, I checked in for an outpatient procedure. The last thing I remembered hearing was, ‘We’re taking you to the O.R.’ Fifty-year-old Penelope had three major heart blockages. “I was a walking time bomb,” she said.

How was a triple by-pass your defining moment?
Once I recovered I told myself I wasn’t putting off what I wanted to do. My jowls had to go. Sagging jowls run in my family. My mom is beautiful, but she has them.

When did you have the surgery and are you happy with the results?
I had a lower face-lift and neck lift surgery on December 14, 2012. I’m very, very happy with the results. I no longer walk around with my lower face sinking into my chest. Now I look more the age that I am and I really like that.

You are a practice administrator for a plastic surgeon, so you see patients and their results daily. What was the procedure like for you?
The lower face and neck lift were a breeze. I had I-V sedation, also known as a twilight. I just felt like I was having a really good sleep. Dr. Magassy pulled the neck back behind my ears and the lower face up in front of my ears. I came home with a wrap that looked like a helmet. The reason for this is to keep everything in place for the first 48-hours of healing. If you can imagine the wrap underneath your chin, pulling up, it helps with the contour. The wrap was the part that bugged me the most, but then again it was only 48-hours.

Did the procedure require liposuction?
Dr. Magassy always does a little lipo with this procedure. It’s called sub mental liposuction and it eliminates any fat that might be lying there.

Were you swollen?
Yes, but I didn’t bruise because I pre-medicated with Arnica Montana, a supplement to prevent bruising and swelling. The noticeable swelling lasted about two weeks.

How long was the recovery?
I had the surgery on a Friday and was back at work the following Tuesday. Since I work in a plastic surgeon’s office it wasn’t uncomfortable to be there with a swollen face. There was a little redness from the stitches, which lasted about three weeks. The area from the sutures is slightly raised so I use a silicone in a tube for scar management.

How did your friends and family react?
I went to have my nails done a couple of weeks after my surgery and the manicurist asked if I changed my hair color. When I told her I had a lower facelift she said, ‘You don’t look like you had surgery at all, you look well, like you had a vacation.’ No one asks if I had work done. Everyone thinks I look ‘well rested.’ I had the surgery just this past December and the friends I saw after Christmas just told me that I looked really good.

You’ve worked for Dr. Magassy for seven years. What do you like about him? Why did you choose him?
I’ve seen the results of many patients over the years and I liked them, so Dr. Magassy was an easy choice. He has the experience and I knew there would be a balance of the results I wanted and what he felt I needed. The results are subtle and natural. What you want may not be what you need.

How has this surgery changed your life?
It has enhanced how I feel about myself, the image I put forth in my job. I love telling people what I do for a living and what I’ve done to my face. I’m not hush-hush about it. I talk candidly about it. Getting natural results is the product of skilled hands. Don’t wait until it’s too late because once your skin becomes even more lax, you’re likely to look more pulled back after surgery. It’s harder to achieve a subtle result.

Are you considering other procedures?
Not now. Maybe I’ll have my eyes done, but I’ll let Mother Nature decide. When it’s time, I won’t think twice.



A note from Dr. Magassy:
Penelope was an excellent candidate for the lower face lift and neck lift surgery. Besides being motivated to do this surgery, she has nice bone structure. The surgery took about 2 1/2 to 3 hours under a local anesthesia. An incision is made in the hair line and the skin is raised. Penelope had sagging skin and it was very elastic, so her results are great. I see her every day and her attitude is terrific. I have seen this type of surgery make a big difference in a person’s life. They feel better about themselves. Much more confident. They feel as good as they look and vice-versa.