I watched 10 minutes of the Doctors show today.
Right
They had a 5 year old on who was 80 lb overweight along with his very obese parents. They (the parents) agreed to accept help for their problem (the kid did not look enthused). And what did they get right? They offered to help by providing a health and fitness trainer. Good move - doctor's recognizing that there are specialists who are not doctors who are much more qualified and suited to helping with obesity.
Wrong
The plastic surgeon did an extreme makeover reveal. Oh goodness he irritates me.
First. They showed the surgery on TV - it started with them wheeling the client into the OR and he appears in his OR garb saying "Show Time!"
Then during the reveal he referred to the client as his best work. HELLO - THERE WAS A PERSON STANDING THERE.
And to add insult, granted she had felt ugly but he says how tough and challenging a job it was for him.
The result. An attractive middle aged woman who bore no resemblance to the "before"
She will have to introduce herself to people constantly. Why couldn't he have 'improved' and accentuated her good features instead of making her into an image of what he thinks she should be. How insulting.
I wonder if once the glow is gone she will have problems adjusting to the totally different image in the mirror as well as adjusting to having people ignore her because they don't recognize her.
Showing posts with label PLASTIC SURGERY STORIES. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PLASTIC SURGERY STORIES. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
PLASTIC SURGERY - TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!
As I was doing my housework with the Tv on in the background, I had to look twice when I heard an ad for a plastic surgery centre which does tummy tucks, facelifts, rhinoplasty, breast implants, liposuction.
They were advertising that if you call now and book, they will give you two procedures for the price of one.
Ok now I know where the doctor shortage is. They have all gone in to plastic surgery to capitalize on people's wish to be perfect. And obviously business is competitive to have to offer a sale. Does that mean they are overcharging in the first place. Or does it mean, that they will take short cuts?
Now because these procedures are elective and private, they obviously do not have to adhere to any kind of ethical advertising.
The fact that people, mostly women feel they have to be perfect clones of someone famous and fix everything surgically as far as I am concerned is an illness which is being ignored. I have watched enough of the plastic surgery shows to know there are people addicted to these procedures. Instead of getting psychological help, they are offered bargains for grouping their procedures.
I have always admired the exotic appearance. The perfect body and face so common in model ads, to me are boring. The model who stands out is one that has a less than perfect feature.
When I was a red headed freckled girl with a ski jump nose, I was envious of Cher with her aristocratic nose and exotic looks. I thought she was one of the most beautiful women on earth. Now she has had extreme surgery including removal of ribs to get the narrow V shape. What on earth is attractive about her now?
I exercise hard and follow a clean diet to be the best I can be as me. I don't want to be anyone else. You can exercise anything including the eyes, and the face. I will cover that later in the blog.
When I was young, looking ahead, I was positive that I would eventually have a face lift. Now there is nothing that can be of less interest to me.
I do not criticize those who have significant visual flaws for having surgery in this society and intolerance to differences, but the expectation to be perfect is just sad.
Early in my nursing career I did a short stint on a plastic surgery floor. I saw some bizzare sights when I flicked my flashlight around on night rounds. Since then I have seen too many people with artificial results and often they no longer even closely resemble their former selves. I am over it. The outrageous advertising sure helps put it in perspective.
p.s. My brother-in-law wondered what two beautiful plasticized parents tell their offspring when the child asks "Mom, you and dad are so good looking, where did I get this nose?"
Maybe eventually they will genetically engineer the egg and sperm or select the egg and sperm of beautiful people?
They were advertising that if you call now and book, they will give you two procedures for the price of one.
Ok now I know where the doctor shortage is. They have all gone in to plastic surgery to capitalize on people's wish to be perfect. And obviously business is competitive to have to offer a sale. Does that mean they are overcharging in the first place. Or does it mean, that they will take short cuts?
Now because these procedures are elective and private, they obviously do not have to adhere to any kind of ethical advertising.
The fact that people, mostly women feel they have to be perfect clones of someone famous and fix everything surgically as far as I am concerned is an illness which is being ignored. I have watched enough of the plastic surgery shows to know there are people addicted to these procedures. Instead of getting psychological help, they are offered bargains for grouping their procedures.
I have always admired the exotic appearance. The perfect body and face so common in model ads, to me are boring. The model who stands out is one that has a less than perfect feature.
When I was a red headed freckled girl with a ski jump nose, I was envious of Cher with her aristocratic nose and exotic looks. I thought she was one of the most beautiful women on earth. Now she has had extreme surgery including removal of ribs to get the narrow V shape. What on earth is attractive about her now?
I exercise hard and follow a clean diet to be the best I can be as me. I don't want to be anyone else. You can exercise anything including the eyes, and the face. I will cover that later in the blog.
When I was young, looking ahead, I was positive that I would eventually have a face lift. Now there is nothing that can be of less interest to me.
I do not criticize those who have significant visual flaws for having surgery in this society and intolerance to differences, but the expectation to be perfect is just sad.
Early in my nursing career I did a short stint on a plastic surgery floor. I saw some bizzare sights when I flicked my flashlight around on night rounds. Since then I have seen too many people with artificial results and often they no longer even closely resemble their former selves. I am over it. The outrageous advertising sure helps put it in perspective.
p.s. My brother-in-law wondered what two beautiful plasticized parents tell their offspring when the child asks "Mom, you and dad are so good looking, where did I get this nose?"
Maybe eventually they will genetically engineer the egg and sperm or select the egg and sperm of beautiful people?
Saturday, March 28, 2009
PLASTIC SURGERY AT ITS WORST
On March 22nd 2009 on Discovery “Health” Channel I watched an episode of ‘Plastic Surgery Before and After’ which truly nauseated me and upset me as a health care professional.
First of all simply presenting the surgery in isolation without detailed background including any prior attempts at non surgical weight loss etc could lead the viewer to believe that this is an acceptable or recommended form of weight loss. If they were showing it for shock value - it kind of did the trick for me. I was shocked.
I realize that many plastic surgeons do charity work in foreign countries for conditions like cleft palate and disfigurement. But.. if they get the money to do that from their elective esthetic plastic surgery practice, particularly from outrageous procedures performed on obese people, then their ethics should be called into question.
Sure the patient has to be provided with ‘informed consent’ but.. does the patient truly know the harm they are causing and the huge risk they are undertaking as well as all the healthier options?
The case in question?
A woman noticed after seeing her son’s graduation videos that she was very obese. She admitted to being 335 lb but to me looked much heavier. She had a gastric bypass to lose weight.
Patients undergoing severe weight loss surgery are supposed to have proven attempts at medically supervised weight loss. There are supposed to be criteria prior to any consideration of the surgery. I understand that in the U.S. failure of medically supervised weight loss is indicated at 6 months if there has not been a 5% to 10% weight loss. Good grief if you are 200 lb overweight that is hardly a very good attempt – and sorry but I would doubt that the person is following the plan if they have not lost at least 5-10% of their weight even in 6 months. It is a very very weak guideline. From what I have seen, and read, I doubt very much that the criteria is rigidly enforced.
Mistake # 1
OK gastric bypass a treatment in bariatrics is not 'plastic surgery' but after gastric bypass the rapid and unhealthy loss likely make her proceed to mistake # 2.
Look at some of the complications involved in gastric bypass:
The functional size of the stomach is reduced and complications are not few. Some studies report that the 30 day mortality (death rate) is 7% for the laparascopic procedure and can be as much as 14.5 % for the incisional procedure.
The obese generally have poor wound healing. Fat doesn’t heal well and is prone to infection. Incisions are at risk of dehiscence – splitting open. I have actually seen several abdomens split open and the bowel come out in my surgical nursing career. It is not a very nice experience - (and I mean for the patient) gently holding the bowel in place with saline dressings until the surgeon arrives and hoping they don’t develop massive infection from the exposure of the bowel to the atmosphere. And hopefully they do not go into shock.
Other potential complications of the surgical weight loss procedures: infection, hemorrhage, blood clots, leakage of the anastomosis (joined part) from the bowel into the sterile abdominal cavity causing infection possible peritonitis; abcess; hernia; would infection, ulcers, stricture (blockage) dumping syndrome – when the client eats a sugary food it bypasses rapidly to the bowel causing symptoms of rapid heart beat, cold sweats and diarrhea; nutritional deficiencies such as hyperparathyroidism, iron deficiency, Vitamin B12 deficiency, malabsorption syndrome, anemia, protein malabsorption, as well as pulmonary embolism and respiratory failure; nausea and vomiting, gallstones, malnutrition. I haven’t even started on the anesthetic risks.
Histological and liver function tests are generally abnormal in the morbidly obese including fatty changes in the liver. There is no clear understanding regarding these changes and the ability to metabolize anesthetic agents which are mostly detoxified in the liver. The obese used to be at risk of “halothane hepatitis” but I believe they do not use that agent anymore. Even if the metabolism of anesthetics is not a risk there are dozens of others that the anesthesiologist has to worry about and which I won’t go into detail here.
I knew that often they have to use two operating tables to accommodate the patient but I was blown away at an anesthetic journal article that reported how common it is that these people can flip off the table during positional changes thus making it advisable to strap them down well. Due to their body habitus (size) they are also at great risk of pressure sores and neural (nerve) injuries during surgery.
Sound good so far?
On Oprah recently she featured some morbidly obese people. One was a woman 29-years-old and 900 lb - she decided on a gastric bypass. It took 8 firemen and a great deal of embarrassment for her to be transported to hospital. 12 different hospitals had turned her down for the surgery. She made a video plea for someone to help her. A hospital and physician stepped up to the plate. Tragically she died 12 days after surgery from a massive heart attack.
The other key person in the story was a 20-year-old 800 lb male who also underwent gastric bypass. He so far has lived and is down to around 500 lb.
The really horrible thing is, in the first case the woman was bed ridden and could not properly feed herself - so someone had to enable her eating habits - similarly the boy's mother had to bring him all his meals - he could get up to the bathroom but it was too painfull to do anything else for himself.
This procedure does nothing to change the eating pattern and lifestyle habits of the individual and bodes poorly for long term health.
The weight loss is very rapid along with ongoing lack of exericse it does nothing to allow your body, particularly your tissues and skin time to adjust and adapt leaving huge hanging folds of skin making it very difficult to maintain hygiene. I don't know how it affects the metabolism but I would doubt it would be a positive effect.
Perhaps the extreme weight of the 900 and 800 lb persons were considered a medical emergency - but who really knows if the woman would have fared better by some intense medically supervised hospital controlled non surgical weight loss plan.
The woman in the program I mentioned earlier (who was 335 lb) lost 100 lb and looked dreadful to me – she was smaller but still very fat with huge bulky bumps of cellulite. She was pleased with her weight loss.
She had the goal of wearing a bathing suit and hated that her legs rubbed together so what did she do next?
Mistake # 2 excessive plastic surgery.
Now remember - she is still at least 225 lb.
She underwent plastic surgery. The surgeon made a two foot incision at the back of her thighs across her buttocks trying to hide the gigantic incision in the butt crease. He cut enormous amounts of skin and removed fat and lipo-sucked out more fat. Then he made a one foot incision on the inside of each leg trying to tighten the legs and sucked out and removed more fat again. Cripes, it might as well have been a butcher shop.
The result? Very slightly smaller ugly legs now with huge ugly scars.
Yep. She wore a bathing suit bless her heart.
The woman is still obese. Although she ‘feels healthier’ probably because she is lighter overall but I do not see how two extreme surgeries would make her healthier. She still has the body, and organs and likely the habits of a morbidly obese individual. Organ fat and the health of the blood vessels are not altered with lipo suction procedures.
I could say she took the easy way out but I can't say that because it is so severe that she must have suffered terribly with both surgeries.
With a nutrition and exercise plan, she may not have ended up looking like Gwyneth Paltrow (thankfully perhaps) but she would have stood a chance of having a scar free pleasing appearance and she certainly would have greater health if she had proper support for nutritional counseling and exercise.
No surgeon should touch a patient until the patient has lost a significant amount of weight with proper nutrition and exercise. This is just wrong. They need better controls to protect patients from themselves but most of all from surgeons who perform surgery just because they can and just because someone asks for it. Look at Micheal Jackson. Need I say more. Even the rich are not immune from plastic surgery nightmares.
Which brings me to the point that we need more non invasive obesity support centers. There is paucity of bariatric centres. Given the obesity in well fed countries, and the risks of increased mortality and morbidity, this is unbelievable.
We need more health care money spent on prevention and helping the morbidly obese to downsize in a healthy non-surgical way. Too bad the woman had not spent the $20,000+ for the plastic surgery on healthy alternatives.
First of all simply presenting the surgery in isolation without detailed background including any prior attempts at non surgical weight loss etc could lead the viewer to believe that this is an acceptable or recommended form of weight loss. If they were showing it for shock value - it kind of did the trick for me. I was shocked.
I realize that many plastic surgeons do charity work in foreign countries for conditions like cleft palate and disfigurement. But.. if they get the money to do that from their elective esthetic plastic surgery practice, particularly from outrageous procedures performed on obese people, then their ethics should be called into question.
Sure the patient has to be provided with ‘informed consent’ but.. does the patient truly know the harm they are causing and the huge risk they are undertaking as well as all the healthier options?
The case in question?
A woman noticed after seeing her son’s graduation videos that she was very obese. She admitted to being 335 lb but to me looked much heavier. She had a gastric bypass to lose weight.
Patients undergoing severe weight loss surgery are supposed to have proven attempts at medically supervised weight loss. There are supposed to be criteria prior to any consideration of the surgery. I understand that in the U.S. failure of medically supervised weight loss is indicated at 6 months if there has not been a 5% to 10% weight loss. Good grief if you are 200 lb overweight that is hardly a very good attempt – and sorry but I would doubt that the person is following the plan if they have not lost at least 5-10% of their weight even in 6 months. It is a very very weak guideline. From what I have seen, and read, I doubt very much that the criteria is rigidly enforced.
Mistake # 1
OK gastric bypass a treatment in bariatrics is not 'plastic surgery' but after gastric bypass the rapid and unhealthy loss likely make her proceed to mistake # 2.
Look at some of the complications involved in gastric bypass:
The functional size of the stomach is reduced and complications are not few. Some studies report that the 30 day mortality (death rate) is 7% for the laparascopic procedure and can be as much as 14.5 % for the incisional procedure.
The obese generally have poor wound healing. Fat doesn’t heal well and is prone to infection. Incisions are at risk of dehiscence – splitting open. I have actually seen several abdomens split open and the bowel come out in my surgical nursing career. It is not a very nice experience - (and I mean for the patient) gently holding the bowel in place with saline dressings until the surgeon arrives and hoping they don’t develop massive infection from the exposure of the bowel to the atmosphere. And hopefully they do not go into shock.
Other potential complications of the surgical weight loss procedures: infection, hemorrhage, blood clots, leakage of the anastomosis (joined part) from the bowel into the sterile abdominal cavity causing infection possible peritonitis; abcess; hernia; would infection, ulcers, stricture (blockage) dumping syndrome – when the client eats a sugary food it bypasses rapidly to the bowel causing symptoms of rapid heart beat, cold sweats and diarrhea; nutritional deficiencies such as hyperparathyroidism, iron deficiency, Vitamin B12 deficiency, malabsorption syndrome, anemia, protein malabsorption, as well as pulmonary embolism and respiratory failure; nausea and vomiting, gallstones, malnutrition. I haven’t even started on the anesthetic risks.
Histological and liver function tests are generally abnormal in the morbidly obese including fatty changes in the liver. There is no clear understanding regarding these changes and the ability to metabolize anesthetic agents which are mostly detoxified in the liver. The obese used to be at risk of “halothane hepatitis” but I believe they do not use that agent anymore. Even if the metabolism of anesthetics is not a risk there are dozens of others that the anesthesiologist has to worry about and which I won’t go into detail here.
I knew that often they have to use two operating tables to accommodate the patient but I was blown away at an anesthetic journal article that reported how common it is that these people can flip off the table during positional changes thus making it advisable to strap them down well. Due to their body habitus (size) they are also at great risk of pressure sores and neural (nerve) injuries during surgery.
Sound good so far?
On Oprah recently she featured some morbidly obese people. One was a woman 29-years-old and 900 lb - she decided on a gastric bypass. It took 8 firemen and a great deal of embarrassment for her to be transported to hospital. 12 different hospitals had turned her down for the surgery. She made a video plea for someone to help her. A hospital and physician stepped up to the plate. Tragically she died 12 days after surgery from a massive heart attack.
The other key person in the story was a 20-year-old 800 lb male who also underwent gastric bypass. He so far has lived and is down to around 500 lb.
The really horrible thing is, in the first case the woman was bed ridden and could not properly feed herself - so someone had to enable her eating habits - similarly the boy's mother had to bring him all his meals - he could get up to the bathroom but it was too painfull to do anything else for himself.
This procedure does nothing to change the eating pattern and lifestyle habits of the individual and bodes poorly for long term health.
The weight loss is very rapid along with ongoing lack of exericse it does nothing to allow your body, particularly your tissues and skin time to adjust and adapt leaving huge hanging folds of skin making it very difficult to maintain hygiene. I don't know how it affects the metabolism but I would doubt it would be a positive effect.
Perhaps the extreme weight of the 900 and 800 lb persons were considered a medical emergency - but who really knows if the woman would have fared better by some intense medically supervised hospital controlled non surgical weight loss plan.
The woman in the program I mentioned earlier (who was 335 lb) lost 100 lb and looked dreadful to me – she was smaller but still very fat with huge bulky bumps of cellulite. She was pleased with her weight loss.
She had the goal of wearing a bathing suit and hated that her legs rubbed together so what did she do next?
Mistake # 2 excessive plastic surgery.
Now remember - she is still at least 225 lb.
She underwent plastic surgery. The surgeon made a two foot incision at the back of her thighs across her buttocks trying to hide the gigantic incision in the butt crease. He cut enormous amounts of skin and removed fat and lipo-sucked out more fat. Then he made a one foot incision on the inside of each leg trying to tighten the legs and sucked out and removed more fat again. Cripes, it might as well have been a butcher shop.
The result? Very slightly smaller ugly legs now with huge ugly scars.
Yep. She wore a bathing suit bless her heart.
The woman is still obese. Although she ‘feels healthier’ probably because she is lighter overall but I do not see how two extreme surgeries would make her healthier. She still has the body, and organs and likely the habits of a morbidly obese individual. Organ fat and the health of the blood vessels are not altered with lipo suction procedures.
I could say she took the easy way out but I can't say that because it is so severe that she must have suffered terribly with both surgeries.
With a nutrition and exercise plan, she may not have ended up looking like Gwyneth Paltrow (thankfully perhaps) but she would have stood a chance of having a scar free pleasing appearance and she certainly would have greater health if she had proper support for nutritional counseling and exercise.
No surgeon should touch a patient until the patient has lost a significant amount of weight with proper nutrition and exercise. This is just wrong. They need better controls to protect patients from themselves but most of all from surgeons who perform surgery just because they can and just because someone asks for it. Look at Micheal Jackson. Need I say more. Even the rich are not immune from plastic surgery nightmares.
Which brings me to the point that we need more non invasive obesity support centers. There is paucity of bariatric centres. Given the obesity in well fed countries, and the risks of increased mortality and morbidity, this is unbelievable.
We need more health care money spent on prevention and helping the morbidly obese to downsize in a healthy non-surgical way. Too bad the woman had not spent the $20,000+ for the plastic surgery on healthy alternatives.
EYEBROW TRANSPLANT - THE CRAZY WORLD OF COSMETIC SURGERY
A very wacky procedure costing $6000.
I have begun intermittently watching plastic surgery shows. Mainly because my former personal trainer is so anti plastic surgery and his rants have brought some of the issues to my attention.
I don't watch a great deal of TV but sometimes have the "boob tube" on for noise or diversion while doing housework.
Okay, so viola there was a program - get this - about eyebrow transplants!
They came up with the procedure originally to help those with no eyebrows due to burns or skin disease or chemotherapy and also supposedly to cover up permanent makeup tatoos. But of course now they are offering it for those who want perfectly enhanced eyebrows. The hook is that the eyebrows are a frame for the face and are actually quite important to appearance.
So just like people wanting Angelina Jolie lips - they could now get Brook Shields eyebrows albeit for about $6000.
How do they do it? - they cut a strip from the scalp (2-3 inches long - so you can't have really short hair or the scar might show)and hair by hair transplant them to the eyebrows a bit of a bloody sore, procedure just like hair transplants. I believe they implant about 300-400 hairs for each eyebrow - not all of the grafts take so it may have to be repeated.
Alright, now to why this is the most ridiculous procedure ever? Well guess what - the hair grows like the hair on the head - you know - the place it is transplanted from.
CAN YOU IMAGINE HAVING TO GO TO THE HAIRDRESSER FOR EYEBROW TRIMS ON A REGULAR BASIS? Why not just let em grow and wear them in a pony tail? And you have to use gel to train the hair as well.
Geez Louise. You'd think even if they are going to help those with no eyebrows, they could find an area of the body to transplant from which has a similar growth pattern.
There are other ways of doing it. A really good permanent makeup esthetician can 'tattoo' eyebrows which has got to be better than having to have a hair cut on your brows on a regular basis. And the cost is around $400 and it lasts for about 5 years - I will get more info on that and post at a later date. But of course the plastic surgeon's article almost pre-empted the topic by giving permanent makeup as one reason for needing the surgery (e.g. to cover the tatoo with hair so it is not visible). It has probably been 5 years why not just have them re-tatooed - how could it be more unnatural than having to shampoo condition gel and cut your eyebrows on a regular basis?
I have begun intermittently watching plastic surgery shows. Mainly because my former personal trainer is so anti plastic surgery and his rants have brought some of the issues to my attention.
I don't watch a great deal of TV but sometimes have the "boob tube" on for noise or diversion while doing housework.
Okay, so viola there was a program - get this - about eyebrow transplants!
They came up with the procedure originally to help those with no eyebrows due to burns or skin disease or chemotherapy and also supposedly to cover up permanent makeup tatoos. But of course now they are offering it for those who want perfectly enhanced eyebrows. The hook is that the eyebrows are a frame for the face and are actually quite important to appearance.
So just like people wanting Angelina Jolie lips - they could now get Brook Shields eyebrows albeit for about $6000.
How do they do it? - they cut a strip from the scalp (2-3 inches long - so you can't have really short hair or the scar might show)and hair by hair transplant them to the eyebrows a bit of a bloody sore, procedure just like hair transplants. I believe they implant about 300-400 hairs for each eyebrow - not all of the grafts take so it may have to be repeated.
Alright, now to why this is the most ridiculous procedure ever? Well guess what - the hair grows like the hair on the head - you know - the place it is transplanted from.
CAN YOU IMAGINE HAVING TO GO TO THE HAIRDRESSER FOR EYEBROW TRIMS ON A REGULAR BASIS? Why not just let em grow and wear them in a pony tail? And you have to use gel to train the hair as well.
Geez Louise. You'd think even if they are going to help those with no eyebrows, they could find an area of the body to transplant from which has a similar growth pattern.
There are other ways of doing it. A really good permanent makeup esthetician can 'tattoo' eyebrows which has got to be better than having to have a hair cut on your brows on a regular basis. And the cost is around $400 and it lasts for about 5 years - I will get more info on that and post at a later date. But of course the plastic surgeon's article almost pre-empted the topic by giving permanent makeup as one reason for needing the surgery (e.g. to cover the tatoo with hair so it is not visible). It has probably been 5 years why not just have them re-tatooed - how could it be more unnatural than having to shampoo condition gel and cut your eyebrows on a regular basis?
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