New Costmetic Surgery: Dimpleplasty

"Smile! Your dimple's showing. And if it's not, a trendy cosmetic surgery procedure can put a perfectly cute dent in your cheek that will show up with every grin.

The latest must-have facial enhancement, called a dimpleplasty, takes 10 minutes and is as popular with guys as it is with girls, according to Lemondrop.com.

"Dimpleplasty is getting hot lately," says Dr. Michael Fiorillo, a Park Avenue plastic surgeon. "Usually the patient who asks for it is trying to achieve a certain look. They see someone they like and want to emulate them."

After undergoing a dimpleplasty, "Every time you smile, you'll get that little Mario Lopez dimple," says Miami board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Salzhauer.

So how is an artificial dimple created? The surgeon makes a tiny cut in the skin to create a small depression, explains Dr. Richard Westreich, director of facial plastic surgery at Long Island College Hospital. A stitch is used to tack the underside of the skin in that area down to a deeper layer in the skin. It's held in place with a long lasting temporary suture.

"You make the cut from the outside because if you do it from the inside of the mouth you would have to cross through a lot of structures," Westreich says.

And when the suture dissolves? "There will be permanent scar tissue to maintain the dimple," explains Dr. Neal D.Goldberg, a White Plains plastic surgeon.

"And there's really no down time with recovery," he adds.

The cost of a dimple? Around $2,000 -- and don't expect insurance to pay for it.

"You will have about a week of bruising and that's it," Salzhauer explains. "It's very minor, superficial and low risk."

And just where are people asking for dimples?

"Generally speaking, on the cheek," Goldberg says. "But this procedure can be done anywhere on the body."

~ Source: NYdailyNews.com

If you are interested in plastic surgery in Charlotte, contact Dr. Bickett!

Cosmetic Surgeries Get a Little Nip and Tuck

"Cosmetic surgery wasn’t as popular in 2009 as it used to be, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, which annually surveys its members as well as dermatologists and ear-nose-and-throat doctors.

Such procedures, including nose jobs, eyelid surgeries, liposuction, tummy tucks and breast augmentations, fell in number by nearly 9 percent in 2009, the society reported Tuesday, to 1,521,409 from 1,669,026 in 2008. Nose jobs and eyelid surgery fell 8 percent among the 715 doctors who answered the survey, while liposuction was down a whopping 19 percent. Tummy tucks and breast augmentations declined 5 percent and 6 percent, respectively.

Pocketbook issues may be the story behind the numbers — an operation like a tummy tuck costs on average $4,936, excluding the thousands of dollars in anesthesia and operating-room fees. But perhaps Americans also started to make the best of their looks, investing in wardrobe enhancement instead of, say, liposuction.

“Cosmetic surgery is a luxury item,” said Dr. Michael F. McGuire, the president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, who practices in Los Angeles. “People are thinking twice about spending money, even if they have it. I’ve noticed even very wealthy patients, they are deferring.”
~ NYTimes.com

Aging is Natural

"Aging is an indiscriminate leveler. You might have been a shapely bombshell who made heads turn. You might have honed your intellect and résumé and let looks take a backseat. Still, most of us will pass a mirror one day and wonder who is that stranger with the droopy eyelids.

It would be easy to dismiss worries about such an aesthetic concern as weak. But two models-turned-psychotherapists argue in “Face It,” their new guide for women, that struggling with changing looks can be no less daunting than dealing with a financial loss, a demotion at work or a divorce.

After decades of counseling patients, Dr. Vivian Diller and Dr. Jill Muir-Sukenick say that dread about growing older can spur an existential crisis of sorts. Such dread isn’t about vanity per se, but has more to do with a loss of potential and questioning one’s place in the world. It can lead to depression, alcohol abuse or sleep disorders, they say.

Yet, therapy isn’t usually on the short list of solutions for those bothered by an aesthetic “problem.” A lunchtime laser treatment or a $180 face cream is.

Dr. Diller, 56, and Dr. Muir-Sukenick, 57, are here to tell American women — no matter how stellar their accomplishments — that it’s not superficial to admit that aging is upsetting. They encourage their readers to figure out what’s driving them to have daydreams about a refined face-lift rather than scheduling one.

At a time when cosmetic surgery is increasingly seen as a casual endeavor, and anti-aging injections as inevitable, “Face It” gives women practical steps to parse how they feel about this beauty paradox. “Should women simply grow old naturally, since their looks don’t define them, or should they fight the signs of aging, since beauty and youth are their currency and power?” the authors ask in their book.

The answer isn’t simple , if the 20 years’ worth of patient information that the book draws upon is any indication. (They also surveyed other women, 30 to 65, including models because they sometimes consult for modeling agencies.)

The mandate to not look your age has never been stronger. “We’re talking about a generation of pioneers,” said Dorree Lynn, a psychologist in Washington whose book about sex after 50 is expected to be released in April. “They don’t have role models for the way they are aging.”

Sixty isn’t the new 40. “That’s an outright lie,” Dr. Lynn said. “What is true is 60 is the new 60.”
~ Source: NYTimes.com

For more information on aging, and how to look and feel your best, perhaps with a tummy tuck, contact Dr. Bickett today!

Should Surgeons Meet Patients Online?

"Imagine the ease. It’s 2 a.m. and you can’t stop thinking about your saggy midsection. You log on to SurgeonHouseCall.com and create a free patient profile declaring your wish to get a tummy tuck. You fill out a brief medical history and include photographs of the problem area.

In no time, three plastic surgeons offer detailed opinions on the best course of action — with price quotes. It’s as if SurgeonHouseCall.com co-opted the LendingTree slogan, “When banks compete, you win.”

In less than a year, SurgeonHouseCall.com has recruited 55 plastic surgeons nationwide to offer opinions. Meanwhile, dozens of plastic surgeons also offer virtual consultations on their own Web sites. But does a patient who gets a plastic surgeon’s recommendation before a face-to-face visit really “win?” Conservative plastic surgeons say it’s fine to send an e-mail message with general information about a range of procedures to a patient, but the practice of offering a diagnosis without ever having met a patient can be problematic.

What’s more, offering a surgical recommendation to a distant patient may violate state laws, if the plastic surgeon isn’t licensed in the home state of the patient, according to the Federation of State Medical Boards, a nonprofit group representing 70 boards in the United States and its territories.

Critics also say that patients’ poor-quality pictures don’t provide doctors with adequate information. And patients seldom realize that no virtual recommendation is solid without an office consultation and medical clearance." ~ Click here to read the full article from NYtimes.com

Revolutionary Surgery Technique

Reducing fat around one’s midriff and thighs has become a defining quest of the modern age. It has brought us Zone Diet delivery, the ThighMaster and liposuction, which involves surgically vacuuming fat out of your body.

Dr. Lawrence Bass, a plastic surgeon, left, stands by as he waits to remove the Zeltiq applicator from a woman’s back at the end of her non-invasive fat reduction treatment.
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Now a pair of machines that promises to tackle love handles without surgery can be added to this parade of wonders. The Zeltiq device is affixed to the offending jiggle and then cools a patch of midsection during an hour long session at the doctor’s office. Zerona — a four-armed laser — zaps your belly, flanks and hips with red beams during six 40-minute treatments.

Doctors and patients alike are excited by the prospect of having new technologies that can attack fat without surgery. It is too early, however, for consumers to know how effectively either device works. That hasn’t stopped men and women unhappy with back fat and muffin tops from paying thousands for treatment in recent months.

“It’s so freaky, this can’t work,” Kate Killgore, 37, of Los Angeles, recalled thinking about the Zerona laser. But after 12 treatments in a month last summer, costing $3,400, she lost 11 inches from her waist, thighs and hips. She has maintained her new figure since then, she said. " ~ Source: NYTimes.com

If you are in need of a breast augmentation, contact Matthews Plastic Surgery today!

A Tax on Nips and Tucks Angers Patients, Surgeons

Last week, a 41-year-old woman who had recently had her first child walked into the office of Dr. Steven Teitelbaum in Santa Monica, Calif., for an operation that tens of thousands of women like her have undergone this year: a breast lift.

“I didn’t like the way they looked,” said the woman, Jennifer, who asked that her full name not be used because she wanted to keep her medical procedures private. “And it’s the best money I ever spent.”

But the bill for the kind of operation Jennifer had — and other procedures to combat crow’s feet, beer bellies and sags of other sorts — could also soon be higher under a 5 percent tax included in the health care bill being debated in the Senate.

The tax, which would be paid by the customer but collected by doctors, would be levied on any cosmetic surgery that is not necessary to address deformities arising from congenital abnormalities, personal injuries resulting from an accident or trauma, or disfiguring diseases, a definition taken directly from current tax code covering deductible medical expenses.

The proposal — called the Bo-Tax, in a play on the name of Botox, the popular wrinkle-eliminating treatment — has outraged plastic surgeons, who say they are being singled out because of an outdated perception that people who have cosmetic procedures are well-to-do.
The 7,000-member American Society of Plastic Surgeons said its internal surveys showed that 60 percent of members’ patients earn less than $90,000 a year.

“A lot of people think of this as a tax on rich Republican housewives; rich, nonworking Republican housewives,” said Dr. Phil Haeck, the group’s president-elect. “And that’s not the case.”

Whatever their pay grade, Americans seem to have a growing appetite for nips and tucks. According to the society, there were more than 12 million cosmetic procedures in 2008, up 3 percent from the year before, though the recession was blamed for double-digit declines in liposuction and tummy-tuck procedures. (Belt tightening, it seems, is not good for belt tightening.) ~ Source: NYTimes.com

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