PARIS' FEATURED DOCTOR BLOG

Lunchtime Lipo - a new kind of midday melt.

For most, having lots of fat really sucks.  What sucks even more is having the fat sucked out of you.  In an effort to avoid the suck, but still overachieve and over-look-fabulous, men and women are not only picking up the dry cleaning and buying stamps on their lunch break, they're also throwing in a stop at the beauty spa to receive a cosmetic procedure called lipolysis - an injectable treatment that supposedly melts fat with no surgery or downtime involved.

That's right.  This non-FDA-approved procedure offers you the ability to scarf down a cheeseburger, fries and malt and then head over to a spa and have an aesthetician 'melt away the fat' with a PCDC injection derived from soybean chemicals and cattle bile.

If this doesn't sound  too good to be true, you just may be skimming this blog too fast, and should probably slow down for this next paragraph:

LA Times:

"The doctors doing this are driving ahead of their headlights," said Los Angeles plastic surgeon Brian Kinney, immediate past president of the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation of the United States and clinical assistant professor of plastic surgery at USC. "They are practicing way outside the bounds of science, which is why some of us are uncomfortable. There's a lot we don't know about these chemicals, including how they affect nerves, tissue and blood vessels. We don't know what happens to the fat once it's dissolved, whether it enters the bloodstream or the lymphatic system."

Experts say a non-surgical alternative to fat removal may very well be possible in the next few years.  If being injected with cattle bile is not the biggest selling point for you, perhaps it's worth the wait. 

Dr. Brian M. Kinney is a reputable and skilled board certified plastic surgeon.  Dr. Kinney has appeared on major national news networks like ABC’s “Nightline” and CNN. However, television is not the only medium Dr. Kinney has worked in. He has been featured on radio and in numerous newspapers including the Los Angeles Times. Dr. Kinney has also been featured in television, radio and print in Europe and Central America. During the Bosnian war, Dr. Kinney led surgical relief missions.  Dr. Kinney has authored countless articles for journals, magazines and textbooks, and his work in the fields of plastic surgery and technology has garnered him many awards and distinguished him as one of the world’s top plastic surgeons.  He practices in Los Angeles, California.

Why masked avengers do not make good plastic surgeons.

One of the many ways to avoid the pitfalls and risks that may arise from plastic surgery is to pick the right plastic surgeon.  And according to Dr. Darrick E. Antell, New York plastic surgeon, right does not equal might.  Right equals another word that does not rhyme nicely with 'right' at all whatsoever.  That word is - ACCREDITATION.

Dr. Antell tells Forbes, that you should always choose only a board certified plastic surgeon for your procedure, not just any M.D.  Also, a legit plastic surgeon should also have hospital privileges.  Ask your plastic surgeon for their papers of accreditation from a hospital's 'credential committee.'  If you're afraid that this may cast you as an uppity hoity-toity, remind yourself that you will need this kind of high-fallutin' attitude once you are beautiful.

Furthermore, not only does your surgeon have to be accredited, so does the facility and everybody else in it.  That means, be sure that your surgeon's office is accredited with the Joint Commission on Accreditation for Healthcare Organizations, or the American Association for Accreditation of Ambulatory Surgery Facilities.   And hey, a legitimate procedure shouldn't be loitered with a bunch of random candy stripers.  Make sure all nurses and anesthesiologists have all their appropriate credentials as well.

To sum up, make sure you know who you're dealing with.  Plastic surgery is not an area that should be shrouded in mystery, or performed by individuals who brood around in bat caves and conceal their true identities.  Or chances are, you'll be wearing a mask yourself, and avenging your messed up face.  Kind of like this guy:

   

 

Dr. Antell has extensive experience in cosmetic treatments and injections as well as many facial and body plastic surgery procedures. He also has expertise in treating skin abnormalities ranging from scarring to skin cancer. Among the non-surgical cosmetic procedures Dr. Antell performs are Botox, Restylane, Juvederm, chemical peels, dermabrasion, fat & collagen injections and laser resurfacing.  He practices in New York City, New York.

Re-minting the hymen

Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, and Google News are among the many sources reporting on the controversy over 'vaginal rejuvenation.'  Cosmetic Genital Surgeries include procedures such as changing the shape or size of the labia, "restoring" the hymen, and tightening the vagina.

For women who take medical advice from television shows such as Dr. 90210 on the E! network where these procedures have been featured, Dr. Thomas Stovall  has some advice:  “To do this for cosmetic reasons, and to say it will improve sexual fulfillment is totally absurd.”

Dr. Stovall is past president of the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons and a clinical professor at the University of Tennessee at Memphis.

If E! is your information bible and you'd like more information on this...er...uh...treatment(?), please contact Los Angeles gynecologist, Dr. David L. Matlock.  Matlock, who claims to have over ten years of experience in performing designer vaginoplasty, states, “Many surgeons come to me to receive training on how I perform these procedures. Since I have developed a good amount of expertise over the past 12 years, I feel my techniques are the gold standard of care.”

To fill or not artfully fill your wrinkled, Beverly Hills face...

World renowned Beverly Hills dermatologist, Dr. Arnold W. Klein, has taken a public stance against the FDA approved wrinkle-smoothing injection, ArteFill.  While the FDA sees nothing wrong with a face filler made of calf collagen and microscopic plastic beads, Dr. Klein states, “I refuse to see the field of soft-tissue augmentation destroyed.”   He feels that the filler should be regarded as a drug, not a medical device, and studied to see whether it can cause biological reactions under the skin.