Dr. Mulholland Shares Advice on Plastic Surgery on Newstalk 1010

Dr. Mulholland makes many media appearances throughout the year to talk about the latest trends and news on cosmetic plastic surgery. He recently was live on air with Newstalk 1010 with Barb DiGiulio to answer callers’ questions regarding plastic surgery.

The segment was nearly an hour long and was jammed with interesting information—they talked about if a person can be too young for plastic surgery, advice on how to pick the right surgeon, and provided answers to questions about different surgical and non-surgical procedures. Dr. Mulholland also shared that when he first opened SpaMedica in 1996, he only saw two men for treatments that whole year. Now men make up 20% of the clientele. “Men are extremely vein and we just don’t about it,” he says.

Below are just a few tidbits of what Dr. Mulholland, the host and callers discussed that night. You can also listen to the full show here.

Kelly, the first caller of the night, mentioned she had been researching on how to reduce the bags under her eyes. She says she’s aged prematurely because of many difficult life events that have happened over the years. Her main concern was how long recovery time would be after blepharoplasty.

Dr. Mulholland of SpaMedica in Toronto

Dr. Mulholland: Non-surgical options like soft tissue fillers and some laser treatments can help reduce the appearance of eye bags. Get these treatments done on a Friday afternoon and you can return back to work on Monday looking much more rested.

For more permanent results, consider having a lower lid blepharoplasty. It removes the fat pads under the eyes and tightens the skin around it. Bruising will occur, so having 7 days off from work to recover would be suggested.

Would I be okay to do bending or lifting at work after surgery?

Dr. Mulholland: In the first 3-4 days, there are some delicate blood vessels that are sealed. If you bend over and strain, it raises the blood pressure around your eyes which could cause some bleeding. Generally, as long as you’re not a world-class bodybuilding who deadlifts 180 pounds, you can carry office space boxes within a few days.

Source: SpaMedica. This patient had lower lid blepharoplasty to remove the fat pads under her eyes.

How much would lower lid blepharoplasty cost?

Dr. Mulholland: There’s a range in the city and in the country. In general, two lids—whether it’s two upper lids or two lower lids—is going to start at about $2,500.00 and might go as high as $6,000.00 depending on how aged that lower lid is and the practice in the city.

Let’s say you do the upper and lower lid combination, it’s called a quad bleph or four lid blepharoplasty. That’s usually in the $4,000.00 to $8,000.00 range depending on the practice in the city.

Another caller asked about scarring after surgery as a person of colour.

Are there usually any scars that are seen after any kind of plastic surgery for people of colour?

Dr. Mulholland: Dark skin individuals are prone to pigmentation disorder like brown discolouration and scars that are usually much darker than their surrounding skin. Whether it’s breast augmentation, a facelift, liposuction or a tummy tuck, things need to be hidden extremely well when you have darker skin that you know is not going to heal favourably. 

Caucasian skin is often prone to scars that are red and raised. Attention to placement is one of the tricks of plastic surgery school. One of the first steps to plastic surgery is deciding with your plastic surgeon what procedure, approach and incision is going to work best for you.

Thinking about surgery seriously? Dr. Mulholland shared advice on how to start research.

What is the process somebody goes through if they want to do a consultation with you?

Dr. Mulholland: The first step is to start your research online.

Make some searches on Google on who you should see and then pick three practices. Look on websites like RealSelf or Yelp and see what people are saying about these physicians and practices. 

Go on websites like The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and make sure there’s no complaints and the physician’s in good standing.

Interview the doctors as much as you can since you’re going to have a history and physical. You want to ask certain questions: 

• How long you been in practice?
• How many of these procedures have you done?  
• What complications have happened?  
• If a complication happens to me, how is it managed? 

Make sure there are good before and after photos.  Make sure you can talk to patients. At the end of the day, you just got to feel right.  You should have a good sense that this is the right physician and team for you.

Kylie Jenner has made headlines for months because of her notably larger lips. She’s recently admitted that she had lip injections to plump them up (after repeatedly denying it). The host asked Dr. Mulholland what he thought about teenagers and plastic surgery.

We’re seeing a lot of stuff happening with teenagers, how young is too young?

Dr. Mulholland: Every plastic surgeon would have a different answer to that, but as a father of six children, it’s tough enough to be a teenager and come to terms with your sense of self without complicating it with cosmetic surgery and without succumbing to peer pressure and paradigms of beauty. 

It can be quite unhealthy so I’m a big believer that you should be a voting adult and that you should be at least 19 before considering plastic surgery. You should have carefully thought these things out and it shouldn't be a spontaneous decision.  Now, having said that, there are always exceptions to the rule.  If you’re a young woman and you have a pathological condition like Poland Syndrome (where you don’t form a breast on one side and you do on the other) It’s really a hereditary congenital abnormality, so that might be a situation of circumstance where you might consider it.

Or maybe you’ve had trauma and you broke your nose or you were born with an extremely large bump and it is way outside the spectrum of what would be considered normal variant, you might consider those extreme circumstances. But I think as a rule, it’s a bad idea to mix teenagers and cosmetic surgery.