Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Articles

More and more women are posting about their recent lip augmentation. So much so that fall’s most popular fashion trend appears to be the perfect pout.

Lip augmentation is one of the fastest-growing segments of cosmetic surgery at the moment, and that’s more than a casual observation. Last year, nearly 31,000 procedures were done in the United States, not including injectables. That’s a 4% increase over 2017 and a 19% increase over just five years ago.

The massive celebrity of Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett Johansson is a big reason for the new interest, especially among very young women. But there’s more to it than envy. Lip augmentation itself has undergone a pretty dramatic makeover in recent years.

Fillers

For one, it’s not just a single procedure. It can be anything that enhances your lips, but the use of fillers and the injection of one’s own fat into their lips are the most popular forms. The likes of Restylane Silk and Juvéderm Ultra, both thinner, more versatile fillers, have been game-changers for lip augmentation.

Lip implant or fat-grafting surgery was once a fairly extensive process. Both have become much more efficient (more on that in a moment), but with injectables, the procedure lasts 15 to 20 minutes, and the recovery time is minimal, if there even is any.

Not to mention, plastic surgeons—make sure you find a board-certified with extensive experience in the procedure—have become so adept with the injections that they can produce very subtle, natural-looking enhancements. The days of the overdone lip augmentation are long gone.

Fat grafting

Fat grafting, also referred to as fat injections, is a longer-lasting treatment. Fat is removed from one part of the body, usually through liposuction, and used as a lip filler. The entire process can be done without a single incision.

Beyond the duration of the results, fat grafting is also popular because it creates a very natural-looking lip contour, and, without fear of an allergic reaction, it’s a very safe procedure.

Lip implants

If you can’t seem to shake the troubling image, from several years back, of a celebrity who very obviously had her lips done, know that today’s implants are very different. They’re made from a soft, pliable silicone rubber or biodegradable substance. And the procedure takes only about a half-hour.

That said, if lip augmentation is something you’re considering, start with a filler. It’s less of a commitment. The results typically last from six months to a year. It’ll also give you the chance to experiment with some different looks. (Injection technique and placement matter as much as the filler.) Then, if you like what you see, graduate to fat injections or implants.

Liposuction was the second-most popular cosmetic surgery procedure performed in America in 2018, behind only breast augmentation. And it appears to be gaining in popularity. Five percent more Americans had liposuction last year than in 2017.

But this isn’t the liposuction that you grew up hearing about. The more interest there is in a procedure, the more incentive there is to perfect it. That’s become the case with almost every kind of cosmetic surgery. As the stigma surrounding plastic surgery has fallen away, the new interest has given rise to widespread innovation.

Rapid evolution

In the case of liposuction, it’s felt most acutely because it’s a procedure that, for decades, didn’t really change much. We removed fat by sticking in a cannula and sucking—which made tunnels that could result in strange contours.

But there’s been so much evolution recently in the ways we remove fat that a technology that’s just a few years old can quickly begin to feel outdated. The cannulas got smaller and better. And in some forms of liposuction, instead of sucking out solid blocks of fat, surgeons are now melting it, which enables them to remove it more evenly.

The melting usually involves radio frequency or thermal energy emitted from a cannula. A new technique called BodyTite uses radio frequency in conjunction with liposuction to tighten skin. Before its arrival, surgeons could remove fat with liposuction, but if a patient had poor skin elasticity—which was just about everyone—they’d need a lift to remove the excess skin, which was a separate procedure.

BodyTite firms skin from 10% to 40%, which is enough to help skin bounce back if you’ve had 10 to 20 pounds removed with liposuction.

Rather than melting the fat, SafeLipo uses rapidly vibrating cannulas to emulsify it to the consistency of a smoothie, which allows it to be removed evenly and gently, without bleeding. Some of the remaining fat is then used as fat grafts, allowing the skin to be re-draped smoothly.

Smart surgery

Aside from better results, these new procedures are also enabling a much greater degree of precision. If, for example, your eyes go straight to a bulge of fat just outside your bra near your armpit every time you get dressed, a ping pong ball-size amount of tissue can be removed from that area under local anesthesia. Removing just that little bit can make a big difference.

The recovery is also garnering lots of new attention, driven largely by a concerted effort to discover and implement nonnarcotic (read: non-addictive) medications. One new slow-release pain medicine called liposomal bupivacaine can be injected during surgery and provide 48 to 72 of relief afterward.

So, think of liposuction as an umbrella term rather than a single surgery. And somewhere under that umbrella is a procedure that can help you achieve your unique goals.

The famous procedure of rhinoplasty sure hasn’t shown any signs of losing popularity. In fact, plastic surgery options for nose modifications have continued to be one of the most talked-about treatments in our Cherry Hill, New Jersey office.

Today on The Plastic Surgery Revolution, board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Steven Davis explores the history of rhinoplasty. Dr. D also covers the evolution of this procedure, and the most common places patients tend to be treated.

We are proud to offer rhinoplasty as a specialty of ours here at Davis Cosmetic Plastic surgery. Would you like to see before and after photos from our patients? Take a look and see if this is the right procedure for you!

If you are interested in scheduling an appointment with Dr. Steven Davis, please feel free to give us a call or contact us here.

We look forward to speaking with you soon!

Thank you for tuning in to The Plastic Surgery Revolution on the evolution of rhinoplasty. If you would like more content, please check out our Youtube channel.

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