Face Transplant

The French Woman with the Face Transplant...Is this a face only a mother would love? While the media plays this as such a huge step for plastic surgery, I believe that it's more the morbid Hollywood fascination about this which attracts most people. Hollywood and the public are fascinated with looking like someone else. That's why the movie Face/Off with John Travolta did so well, and people are fascinated with the "lion woman" who has had WAY too much cosmetic surgery done.
During my plastic surgery residency, some surgeons I worked with performed a full face skin graft to a burn patient. Basically, they harvested a "face of skin" from her back and grafted it to her face. The darn thing unfortunately died off, leaving a scarred mess. Hopefully the Face Transplant woman will stop her smoking, as this can cause her face to literally turn black and die, leaving her with a mess similar to the burn patient I've described. Then maybe her mother may not even find her easy to look at...

Thread Lifts and Dr. 90210

Do the thread-based brow lifts work? Yesterday I watched a TiVo'd Dr. 90210 episode from 2 weeks back where Dr. Jason Diamond performed a browlift on a woman using threads. In the television show, the facial cosmetic surgeon described how these sutures work to lift the brow to a nicer position and are the newest, best thing going today. These threads can perform a brow lift without REAL surgery! Sounds too good to be true, right?
Unfortunately, it is. He subsequently wrote an article in this month's Plastic Surgery Products magazine describing how these thread-based lifts do not work. He's performed over a dozen of them, virtually all with zero visible results. He concluded his article by stating that these suture brow lifts do not work. In addition, he included the photos of the very same patient on Dr. 90210 whom he recently used to show the entire viewing public how great this procedure is! Now I suppose that this must show truth in advertising, as ONE of the two claims must be true. Either it is the best new procedure going today, or a complete sham. I would bet on the latter. It just shows that while you can't necessarily believe everything you see on TV, you CAN necessarily believe everything you read...

Debbie Gibson

Out of the Blue... Debbie Gibson returns to the entertainment world with "Skating with Celebrities." I was disappointed last night to find that the former teen pop star had been booted from the show a week ago. She has undergone quite a change in the past 15 years, and some have attributed it to some well-done plastic surgery. In my opinion, many of her changes can be due to plain getting older. She is no longer wearing the goofy hats, and has gotten a thinner face. The face will often thin as a person gets older, usually by the time he or she hits their mid-thirties. This 3-D aging process is described on my practice website. She also doesn't display as much of a gummy smile as before, and may have had some liposuction under her chin. In addition, her nose looks a bit more sculpted, likely from a rhinoplasty. All of these changes can be natural, but I would make the assumption that a bit of liposuction, a rhinoplasty, and a gummy smile repair may play a part.

Patricia Heaton

Patricia Heaton from "Everybody Loves Raymond" is a good example of plastic surgery done well. The above photos are an after and a before. She has admitted to having several procedures done, including a tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) and breast lift. Patricia had several children and breast fed them, causing her body to change dramatically (as happens with more women than men may think). Unfortunately, the tummy tuck and breast lift are not perfect surgeries because they create significant scars. In Patricia's case, they have worked very well to give her a very nice, red carpet-ready figure. The surgeries take about 3 hours each, and have a downtime for most people of about 2 weeks. Now, everybody loves Patricia's new body!

To view a video of a mommy makeover I performed on Fox News, click here.

To read a post I did on Patricia Heaton's belly button (or lack thereof), click here.

Lisa Rinna

What has happened to Lisa Rinna's lips? The above photos are an after and a before. Many of you may have seen her on "Dancing with the Stars" recently. Although I think she has a great figure and dances well (Stacy Kiebler does leave her in the dust), I cannot get over how bad her lips look. It appears to me that she has had gortex implants placed into her lips, with one large piece on either side of her cupid's bow (the middle bow-part of the upper lip). Gortex can make the lips look unnatural by creating a stiffness which is obvious when she speaks. The other problem is that her upper and lower lips are out of proportion. The easiest way to spot a pair of unnatural lips is to compare the upper and lower lip sizes. The lower lip should be about 1.5 times the size of the upper lip. In Lisa's case it is 1:1.

Share |

Johnny Depp

There are rumors circulating that Johnny Depp has had a threadlift procedure. This is a type of mini-facelift using small permanent sutures which pull up the neckline and cheeks. The best results I have seen last only about a year, however the sutures are permanent. I haven't been able to see anything different about him lately, but it is not surprising even if he had that completely unreliable procedure done.

Jessica Simpson

Jessica, Jessica, Jessica...
Recent photos have surfaced which show Jessica Simpson's new lips. I was interviewed about her lips by the celebrity magazines In Touch, Life and Style Weekly, and US Weekly, as it seems that in her post-Nick Lachey life, she has spent a bit more time with her plastic surgeon. It is already pretty apparent that she has had her breasts and nose done, but now she has focused on the kisser. It appears that she has had Restylane injections to her lips, and did not think twice about going out in public soon thereafter. Restylane is one of the newest injectable fillers, and is made of hyaluronic acid, a substance naturally found in human skin. It lasts anywhere from 4-8 months, and is used to fill in wrinkles or the lips. I charge approximately $500 for a 1 cc syringe, which is usually enough to get a nice improvement in the lips or smile lines. I would estimate that she had anywhere from 1-2 cc injected. Those lips are made for talkin'!