Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Articles

Breast augmentation and enhancements are by far the most popular cosmetic plastic surgery procedure performed today. In 2017 alone, over 300,000 breast augmentations and more than 105,000 breast lifts were performed in the United States, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

Much of the reason that interest continues to grow year after year is because the procedures have evolved. These aren’t the breast implants that first entered the mainstream during the “Baywatch” era. Today’s implants come in a wide range of shapes, diameters, and projections that allows for a much more natural look.

Your augmentation would begin with a series of measurements that, one, ensure the ideal placement of the breasts in relation to your shoulders and, two, properly align the areolas and nipples. It’s a process I’ve come to refer to as Cup Crafting.

During this initial consultation, I’ll also ask you to describe how your ideal breasts would look: perkier, for instance, or fuller. Perhaps, simply, more youthful. This is the time, too, for us to address any questions or hesitations you may have about the procedure:

• Are there risks for future breastfeeding or mammograms?
• Will I need help at home after the surgery?
• Are revisions possible?
• What’s the cost of that surgery?

We won’t proceed until you’re fully confident in the procedure.

What to expect during the procedure
As for the procedure itself, this is what to expect: The surgery is usually done with either general anesthesia or conscious sedation, so you’ll either be asleep or sedated. It varies by patient, so we’ll discuss it beforehand.

During the surgery, I’ll make small, economic incisions to create a pocket to make room for the implant. Once I’ve positioned the implant, I’ll close and bandage the incisions. The entire procedure usually lasts less than two hours, and you’ll be able to go home soon afterward.

I practice conservation when making any incision, which reduces downtime and post-operative pain as much as possible.

What to expect after the procedure
Recovery varies from one patient to the next, but, on average, full recovery ranges from four to six weeks. You should feel significantly better within a week, though you’ll still want to stick to light activity and avoid strenuous activity until you’re fully healed.

Should you need pain medications after the surgery, you’ll have access to them in accordance with your overall recovery plan.

The incisions will leave minimal scars, but they heal very well and become harder to see with time. Plus, they’ll be located in an inconspicuous spot, so you likely wouldn’t notice them unless you looked for them.

It’s important to enter into a breast augmentation procedure with realistic expectations, and we’ll discuss them during your initial consultation, but this type of breast enhancement can:

• Improve the fullness of the breasts
• Improve asymmetry
• Increase the projection, size, and shape of the breasts
• Create a more balanced hip-to-breast ratio

Augmentation does have some limitations. In the case of severe drooping or sagging, many women will also need a supplementary breast lift, which can easily be performed alongside the augmentation, diminishing downtime and post-op discomfort.

How long will your results last?
Your breast implants should continue to please for about 15 to 20 years. Sometimes, significant weight gain or loss can affect their appearance, or the implant may shift or cause complications, requiring revision surgery. But I take a meticulous approach that results in an extremely low risk of the implant rupturing or migrating.

Not only are implants much more individualized than they once were, they’re also much safer. So feel confident in both your decision and the results.

It’s a new year, which means, for most of us, new expectations for ourselves. If living a healthier life is one of your goals, we can help with that.

Eating a balanced diet and exercising on the regular are the surest means to achieve and sustain the healthiest version of ourselves, but the physical results don’t always come as quickly as they feel like they should, which can eventually become our biggest deterrent.

Instead of heading down the same path this year, why not hit the ground running, so to speak, by supplementing your lifestyle changes with a cosmetic procedure that will remove that pesky, unwanted fat, and better position you to succeed? Here are two distinctly different options for your consideration.

The lowdown on liposuction
When you think fat removal and cosmetic procedure, liposuction’s likely the first thought to spring to mind, right? You probably even know someone who’s had it done, it’s that widespread. What is it, exactly? There are a few different techniques, though they all use a thin tube connected to a vacuum to suction fat from the body.

Tumescent liposuction is what you’re probably familiar with. It’s the most common technique. Basically, I inject a sterile solution into the area where I’ll be removing the fat, which makes it easier to suction the fat with less blood-loss and pain.

Depending on the extent of the surgery, you’ll be under either a general or a local anesthesia. And, in most cases, you’ll be going home the same day. That said, you should expect some bruising, swelling, and soreness for a few weeks. It shouldn’t be so much, however, that it keeps you on the sidelines for longer than a few days. You should be able to return to work the following week and be back to doing all your normal activities within a couple weeks.

Liposuction is a viable solution for removing unwanted fat from pretty much any area of your body—the thighs; the abdomen and waist; the inner knee; the cheeks, chin, and neck—but it is not a treatment for cellulite or loose skin.

The question I’m asked all the time about liposuction is: Is it permanent? The fat cells are permanently removed, but the procedure will not prevent you from gaining the weight back with new fat cells. Which is why liposuction should supplement other lifestyle changes.

It doesn’t get any easier than CoolSculpting
CoolSculpting is a lot less invasive, and it requires little to no recovery, but it is more of a gradual process. It’s an innovative procedure that uses controlled freezing to eliminate unwanted fat.

Years back, a couple of Harvard scientists noticed that some kids got dimples in their cheeks when they ate popsicles. They later came to realize that the popsicles were freezing and eliminating small pockets of fat cells. Simplistic as that sounds, that’s the premise behind CoolSculpting.

The procedure delivers precisely controlled cooling to a targeted area. The treated fat cells are frozen, then die. There’s no damage to the skin or the surrounding tissue. Over time, your body will naturally process the fat and eliminate the dead cells, leaving a more sculpted you.

You won’t be put under. In fact, you can catch up on emails while you undergo the treatment. Even better, you can return to your normal lifestyle as soon as you leave our office.

Some may see their desired results after as little as one treatment, but most usually need to undergo a few. Otherwise, it’s pretty much fat-loss on your terms.

With a steady stream of advances comes a broader range of options for a host of cosmetic procedures. Two of the more popular facial treatments at Davis Cosmetic Plastic Surgery, for example, tend to appeal to different kinds of people, but they both yield great improvements in both the texture and the pigment of the skin. So which one’s right for you? Let’s take a closer look at them.

Look years younger in 24 hours
HALO is fast becoming the future of laser resurfacing. The treatment itself is virtually painless and the recovery time is minimal.

This is how it works: Ablative fractional resurfacing is a well-established treatment that vaporizes aged tissue with less thermal injury. But the recovery time and side effects can be mild to moderate. By contrast, non-ablative fractional resurfacing causes thermal injury, but the side effects and recovery time are fairly minimal. HALO is hybrid of both, maximizing the desired results while minimizing the recovery time.

HALO’s been shown to effectively improve the appearance of lots of common skin conditions, like wrinkles, discoloration, and looseness, that can result from long-term sun exposure, an active lifestyle, and the basic wear and tear of everyday life.

Patients treated with HALO have seen powerful results in just one to two treatments, while older technology would have required five to six for the same degree of improvement. In most cases, only a topical anesthetic is used, and patients can apply makeup within 24 hours of their procedures.

Essentially, come in for the treatment on a Friday and be back in the office Monday, turning everyone’s heads.

Calling all early adapters
The platelet-rich plasma facial is a bit more invasive than HALO, but the potential benefits far outweigh the minimal discomfort for those early adapters who’ve come to swear by it.

Platelet-rich plasma isn’t brand-new concept, but we are just beginning to appreciate its full power as a rejuvenator and all the ways it can be applied. I’ve come to think of it as the gateway to learning about the body’s true rejuvenating abilities.

Google platelet-rich plasma facial and you’re going to come up with a bunch of entries about the “vampire facial.” Don’t be scared away. It’s just a nickname that grew out of the blood we draw for the procedure, which is harmless. Here’s a quick overview: We draw blood from your arm, separate the platelets from the red blood cells in a centrifuge, then inject the platelets into your skin via microneedling. In other words, I’ll run a needle pen over your face while squirting the platelets into the tiny injection holes.

A couple of things are going on there. First, the platelets are high in growth hormone. Second, the microneedling stimulates the skin to regenerate. Together, the procedure is meant to aid cell turnover. In plain English, you’ll like you’ve had a facelift, but you won’t have to suffer through the same extensive downtime.

If you Google vampire facial, you’ll find a lot of accounts that suggest you’ll be back to your normal lifestyle the next day. In my experience it varies from patient to patient, but it generally runs a bit longer than it does with the HALO. Despite what it sounds like, though, you shouldn’t feel more than a pin prick.

In a couple of years, we may be laughing at how over-the-top this all sounds. Research is just beginning to support all the reasons that, theoretically, this should be your go-to facial treatment.

To learn more about Cosmetic Plastic Surgery procedures offered by Dr. Davis at Davis CPS, please contact us or call 856.424.1700.