Although skin care counters normally do have licensed Aestheticians selling their products not everyone is fully aware of adverse reactions and contraindications of certain cosmeceutical ingredients. They are trained to sell the “MAGIC” of the product versus actually educating you on how to properly use them. Today, everyone is extra concerned with sun spots, fine lines and wrinkles. This is putting pressure on over the counter manufacturers to compete against more aggressive prescriptive product lines.
My top two tips to all uneducated consumers:
· Retinol is a miracle anti-aging product when used correctly and at the proper dosage. Prescriptive strengths of retinol are much more effective on aged skin and using for corrective purposes. You must wear proper sun protection everyday when using retinol to avoid developing hyperpigmentation (brow spots) due to retinol making your skin photo sensitive.
· Another product that is out on the market and can be sold over the counter under a certain percentage is Hydroquinone. Hydroquinone is considered a “bleaching” cream that actually works to inhibit the production of melanin. It is extremely rare that when purchasing a product that contains this ingredient, that the non-professional will be fully aware of the proper use of Hydroquinone as well as adverse reactions. Hydroquinone is best to be used twice a day and for NO LONGER than 6 months at a time. The product actually plateaus around this point and could possible start to cause darkening if over used. Also, you must wear sun protection everyday with this product as it can cause your skin to become photo sensitive.
ALWAYS SEEK A SKIN CARE PROFESSIONAL AT A DOCTOR’S OFFICE TO RECEIVE PROPER INFORMATION AND EFFECTIVE SKIN CARE PRODUCTS.
Once reserved for only the rich and famous, plastic surgery today has become extremely popular and accessible to most of mainstream America. There is a wide range of procedures and price points to suit everyone’s budget. A large percentage of patients take advantage of numerous, reliable cosmetic surgery finance companies, like www.CareCredit.com, to go forward with their desired surgery procedures. Also, many plastic surgeons offer “lay-a way” plans that allow the patient to make small monthly installment payments until their surgery is paid in full.
I suggest you schedule an appointment with a board-certified plastic surgeon to discuss your needs and to develop an individualized plan to suit your specific budget. It is possible to obtain very dramatic improvements with minimally invasive procedures that are inexpensive and require minimal downtime and recovery.
Dr. Tachmes
There are various options you could consider starting with the least invasive and progressing to more traditional forms of facial rejuvenation procedures like facelifts, eyelid and forehead lifts. The easiest way to “dip your toe in the water” would involve developing a physician grade skin care program tailored to your type of facial skin and its specific needs. You would meet with a skin care specialist who would select a regimen of high quality products that would involve: 1) exfoliating dead skin 2) replenishing missing ingredients for healthy skin 3)moisturizingyour skin 4) stimulating new healthy skin growth and 5) protecting your skin from the sun’s harmful rays. This program would be combined with a series of facial peels and ultrasound massages to help with the rejuvenation process, without needles and scalpels. After a short time, you would see a significant improvement in the appearance and texture of your skin. It is important to do this with the supervision of a plastic surgeon or dermatologist who works with physician grade skin care products to really obtain an effective result.
The next level of skin rejuvenation involves laser skin resurfacing methods to penetrate the skin’s outer layer and stimulate new, healthy skin care growth from within, while resurfacing and removing older skin cells from the surface. There are various lasers available on the market that accomplish this with minimal down time and discomfort. The most popular of these lasers is the FRAXEL, which usually requires a series of monthly treatments spread out over four months. After the procedure your skin becomes red like a mild sunburn, and then slowly improves over the next week. At the completion of these treatments, your skin will appear tighter, fuller, with less wrinkles and irregular skin discolorations.
Many patients combine the above treatments with a more targeted approach to fine lines and wrinkles with the use of Botox and facial fillers. Botox treatments soften the fine lines around your eyes and forehead, while the facial fillers like Juvaderm and Radiesse diminish the lines around your mouth while adding facial volume to areas depleted from the aging process. These techniques are simple to do, affordable, long-lasting and relatively painless procedures that do require the use of tiny needles. Most patients feel almost no discomfort or pain during these sessions with the prior application of anesthetic creams to the areas to be treated.
I believe you will see a dramatic improvement in your facial appearance that will make you look younger and more refreshed at the completion of these treatments without significant downtime and discomfort.
Dr. Tachmes simplifies the liposuction world of confusion:
TUMESCENT liposuction refers to the process of injecting a combination of saline water and a local anesthetic into the body area that is going to be treated prior to liposuction. This allows the surgeon to remove more fat with less blood loss, bruising and swelling. The method was introduced approximately twenty years ago and it revolutionized liposuction procedures. Today, it is the standard to include the tumescent method prior to performing all forms of liposuction.
VASER liposuction refers to a method of using ultrasound heat energy to emulsify or melt the fat before suctioning the fat out of the body area. This technique was introduced almost ten years ago, and over the last three years the technology has become advanced enough to be able to produce excellent and consistent results. The advantages of this technique over traditional liposuction methods, is that the ultrasound energy targets fat without injuring surrounding tissues like nerves and blood vessels. This produces better, smoother results with less skin injury, bruising and post-operative pain. The procedure can be done under local anesthesia for small areas of the body as well. A more advanced type of VASER liposuction just recently introduced is High-Def liposuction. This technique is useful for producing muscle definition over the abdomen, chest wall and waist in patients that exercise frequently, are close to their ideal body weight and have low body fat content. This is a new process that is now starting to gain popularity in the United States, and should only be performed by surgeons with significant experience using the VASER ultrasound liposuction technology.
SMARTLipo is a method that utilizes laser energy to also melt fat prior to suctioning. It was introduced about three years ago in the United States and has gained in popularity. The advantages of this method, is that the laser probe used to melt the fat is very small in diameter and can thus be introduced into the skin through a very small opening and performed under local anesthesia, as well. The disadvantage is that because the laser probe is so small, it requires longer operative times to do large sections of the body.
The Brazilian Butt Lift procedure has become one of my most popular surgical procedures that i perform. I receive over 100 visits to my website each day from patients in the USA and abroad. The technique has evolved through the years as plastic surgeons have become more skilled in this procedure and the technology and equipment more sophisticated. Results vary from patient to patient and are based on the patient’s skin tone and elasticity, buttock shape and amount of fat available for transfer.
Each patient presents with a unique body shape and fatty distribution that requires individualization of the procedure. This is where the “Art of Plastic Surgery” comes into play and patients are wise to search out a very qualified board certified plastic surgeon with significant experience in this surgery. Artistic sensibility and judgement are crucial aspects necessary in order to achieve consistent, aesthetically pleasing results.
How much fat to remove? From what areas of the body should the fat be taken? How deep or superficial should the cannula be inserted into? When is enough suctioning enough? How much and at what level should the fat be injected into the buttocks? Is the surgeon able to effectively sculpt the buttock to produce maximum results? How does a female buttock differ from a male buttock? These questions must be addressed by the surgeon instinctively during each procedure.
I focus on several key aspects of this procedure in order to insure optimum results and patient safety:
- i employ M.D. anesthesiologists to monitor patient vital signs and maintain proper hydration during the procedure.
- i begin with the patient in the supine position for the tumescent liposuction portion of the procedure. After completion of the fat harvesting, I then rotate the patient into the complete prone position for the fat transfer.
- i am careful to maintain the suction pressure near 18mmHg and never handle the fatty tissue prior to injection. I use wide bore toomey syringes and cannulas to inject the fat to minimize trauma and damage to the fat cells. I also use the “Red Head” fat cannister that has a wide Toomey syringe adapter instead of the traditional luer lock syringe system which has a much narrower diameter and produces much more pressure and injury to the fat cells during transfer.
- i rarely perform combination procedures with the Brazilian Butt Lift surgery, as this adds to the chance of complications due to prolonged operative time, more blood loss and changes in fluid volumes that can become a problem during the immediate post operative period.
- i see all patients on the following day after the procedure and emphasize immediate ambulation to minimize the chances of a blood clot complication.
- patients wear a body compression garment for at least one month to help with swelling and shaping.
Finally, I am beginning to experiment with adult stem cell “supercharging” of the fat transfered tissue as an additional adjunct to this procedure. During the fat harvesting portion of the case, approximately 50cc of fat is sent to a cryopreservation lab to separate adult stem cells from the fat. Two weeks after the surgery, the stem cells are shipped back to me and i inject them into the patient’s buttock area to increase survival of the transfered fat cells.
