You don’t have to do a drastic plastic surgery procedure to improve
your looks. In fact, sometimes quick and minor plastic surgery procedures can
make a big difference in how you look. If your goal is to look younger or
refreshed, it’s all possible with these procedures below. And the beauty is
that 4 out of 5 of them are non-surgical treatments, a total plus for those who
are hesitant about going under the knife.
5 minute nose job
Ever wanted to do something about your nose but got scared
off from the thought of surgery? Well, you’re in luck. You can reshape and change your nose’s appearance, all
with the use of dermal fillers within minutes. It’s called the 5 minute nose job. The results aren’t permanent—they last for about 1 to 2 years—but you’ll get a
good sense of how your nose looks like if you ever decided to undergo surgical
rhinoplasty.
Dermal fillers
Dermal fillers and Botox may sound like they’re the same
thing, but they’re not. Dermal fillers like Juvederm and Restylane add volume
to the face and hands. Botox, on the other hand, reduces the appearance of
wrinkles by temporarily weakening the muscles that control facial animation.
You can enhance and improve your looks in a few ways with
dermal fillers. Are you bothered by sunken cheeks? Fillers can restore volume
for a fuller and softer look. Do you have gaunt hands that look like they need
to be plumped up? Again, fillers can solve the problem. The results will last
anywhere from 1-2 years.
Source: SpaMedica. Before and after photos of a patient who had lip augmentation.
Lip augmentation
Sometimes a minor tweak is all it takes to really change
your looks. (Example: Kyle Jenner’s enhanced lips that sparked a huge trend on
emulating her full lips). So how do you get it yourself? Lip augmentation is
usually performed through the use of dermal fillers and sometimes the use of a
patient’s own fat. A lip augmentation is a fairly quick procedure—it’s over in
a couple of minutes.
Fat grafting
Fat grafting allows you to have fat from one area of your
body which can be transferred to a preferred site for more volume and shape. The fat can
be transplanted to several areas like the breasts, butt or face. The major
advantage of this procedure is that it allows you to remove unwanted fat from
one area and have it in an area where you want volume.
VolumaLift
The Volumalift can give you results similar to that of a
facelift, but without the need of surgery. This procedure involves the use of various
soft tissue fillers which are injected to different areas of the face. The
Volumalift helps restore volume for patients who see loss of volume in their
face due to age, weight loss and other factors. This non-surgical procedure can
be completed in 30 minutes.
Promotion: Get a
Volumalift with up to 4 syringes of filler and up to 60 units of Botox for $1,999. The actual value is $3,500. Book your appointment online or
call us at 1-877-695-2835.
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.
Do you get told that you look tired more often than you
like? Blame it on the lack of sleep or long work days. But even if you do get a
full eight hours of sleep and you still look far from refreshed, maybe it’s
because of your eye bags.
Why do some people have
eye bags?
Eye bags are the puffy and sometimes dark pads underneath
your eyes. While eye bags can be a temporary issue that goes away after a solid
night of sleep, some people have permanent eye bags. Genetics and ageing are
the main factors of this cosmetic problem.
When you age, the bone and fat of your face lose volume
which all contributes to making you look older. Lower eyelid bags are actually fat
and they don’t shrink or enlarge when you age. When you lose those supporting
structures and tissue volume in your face, that’s when your eye bags stand out
more.
Other causes of eye bags
Stress
Allergies
A poor diet with high sodium intake
Dehydration
Lack of sleep
Some creams and anti-aging serums can benefit the skin around
your eyes—if you choose the right one and use it for a long period of time. The
skin around the eyes is the thinnest layer on our bodies, so it’s considered a
highly sensitive area that’s prone to accelerated ageing. It’s best to start
your eye skincare regime early (such as in your 20s and 30s) as a preventative measure.
Don’t have enough patience to wait around to see results? Then
consider soft tissue fillers or surgery such as blepharoplasty. Soft tissue
fillers like Restylane add volume to facial tissue to correct wrinkles and loss
of volume. Restylane plumps the area around your lower lids to banish the
appearance of eye bags. This treatment takes only 15-45 minutes to complete
depending on where the filler is injected and how much is required. Results can
last from 6 to 9 months.
Source: SpaMedica. Before and after photos of a patient who had blepharoplasty to remove her eye bags.
A permanent solution to treating eye bags is blepharoplasty,
also known as eyelid surgery. Your plastic surgeon makes incisions below your
lash line and then removes the excess fat and skin. This technique leaves you
with no visible scars. After your surgery, the sutures are removed within 4-6
days. You’ll experience some swelling but that goes down gradually and can be
covered up with makeup. You can see the final results within a few weeks.
So, you’ve got surgical and non-surgical options to treat
your eye bags. Getting rid of your eye bags won’t only make you look years
younger, you also won’t be asked if you had any sleep the night before.
Oh sweet, sweet stretch marks. They’re large and coloured in
bold shades of red, purple or white. They hang around on tummies, thighs and
hips permanently. They’re reliable little scars because they’ll always be there
on your body even when you don’t want them to.
Stretch marks are basically the best self-esteem destroyers,
especially when beach season rolls in and everyone’s half naked. Tons of people
have them and I could say without real statistical evidence that they all
despise them. I’m sad to say that stretch marks cannot be rid of permanently.
But there are ways to reduce the look of it. Before seeing how you can treat
stretch marks, learn more about stretch marks before you try to conquer this annoying
problem.
Stretch Marks Are Usually White or Silver
When stretch marks are just starting to appear on your body,
they can look red or purple. Purple or red stretch marks occur when your skin
is expanding and when there are micro tears in the skin’s collagen and elastin.
With more blood vessels in your injured skin, that’s why stretch marks appear
red or purple. These colours could last for months or years after the stretch
marks first showed up (Awesome. Not.)
If you have older or mature stretch marks, they look white
or silver. This happens after blood vessels fade and when there’s no longer an
inflammatory response. More mature stretch marks have less collagen and elastin
compared to non-affected skin.
Getting a Good Tan Removes
Stretch Marks
Tanning won’t remove your stretch marks. White and silver
stretch marks don’t tan the same way as unaffected skin. The first layer of
your skin turns darker, but your stretch marks will stay the same. The colour
doesn’t change, so white stretch marks stand out even more against tanned skin.
Plus, if you are basking in the sun, make sure you’re
wearing SPF sunscreen. Too much sun exposure can damage your skin’s collagen
and that’s’ the last thing you want if stretch marks are your concern.
Weight Loss Gets Rid
of Stretch Marks
Stretch marks are considered scars so they’ll still be there
when you drop pounds. Stretch marks usually occur due to a few things that
cause the skin to stretch: pregnancy, weight gain and weight loss.
Thin People Are Immune
to Stretch Marks
It doesn’t matter how big or small you are—people of all
sizes can have stretch marks. When people go through puberty, a stage where
hormones are rapidly changing, stretch marks can form. Even if a thin person
has an impossibly fast metabolism and never gains weight, hormonal imbalances causes
stretch marks.
Body builders who are notoriously fit and built can also
sport some stretch marks. These marks are usually seen on the upper chest or
shoulder areas.
Source: SpaMedica
Reduce Your Stretch
Marks With These Treatments
Physcians use fractional lasers and radiofrequency devices
such as Enerjet. During this treatment, the Enerjet applicator is applied on
the skin where the stretch marks are. The Enerjet propels solubilized soft tissue fillers like Restylane and Juvederm across the skin.
This product is evenly distributed within and under the
stretch mark to make them smooth and tight. There aren’t any needles used and
there’s no pain. It’s a 30-45 minute treatment depending on how much needs to
be treated.
Different methods and devices are used to reduce the looks
of stretch marks. A series of treatments need to be performed for the best
results. These programs usually take 3-6 months to finish since each treatment
is separated by a few weeks. Expect to see 30-75% improvement in your red,
purple or white stretch marks.
