Cosmetic Surgery Center, Dallas | Dr. Rai

Phuket is a small island off the coast of Thailand, where the country extends down in a narrow isthmus to the Malay Peninsula. It is a province of Thailand and a beautiful holiday spot.

Today, about 300 cosmetic surgeons are gathered there to discuss nose surgery – rhinoplasty. They are at the Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort and Spa in Karon. There are physicians and other medical personnel from the US, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, and Brazil. They are discussing facial analysis, best ways to plan nose surgery, how to do modifications after a surgery, and how best to avoid complications.

This is an annual event and originally Phuket was chosen for the 2005 conference. However, that massive tsunami happened and the conference was moved to Chiang Mai. Now Phuket is in the spotlight of the cosmetic surgery world.

In recent years, Phuket has been growing as a center of medical tourism. Since prices are lower there than in western countries, people can afford to stay there for a holiday while they recover from surgery, at least for the initial recovery of a few days.

Prompapa Wongtem is the secretary of the Thai Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. She promotes medical tourism in Phuket, saying:

• “Phuket is an international destination with a growing reputation for cosmetic surgery and recovery in a pleasant environment. ‘You can change your sex, have corrective surgery of all kinds and visit a dentist here with confidence.

Apparently, about 2,000 people go each year for some type of cosmetic surgery or dentistry and they boost the local economy with their spending. There are lots of activities to entertain you, beaches for surfing and swimming, fine restaurants, and hundreds of fascinating shops.

However . . .

If you have just had nose surgery, would you be happy dining out with splints in your nose and your face bandaged? If you just had liposuction, would you feel like surfing? If you just had breast enlargement, would you want to stroll along the white sand at sunset wearing your swimsuit over the special bra bandages?

There is also the question of any later complication arising. What if it turned out that one of your implants leaked and needed replacing? Or that you developed an infection on the way home or your nose started bleeding?

Follow-up care and monitoring are crucial for good surgical results. Surely you would do better to have your plastic surgery done at home, recover fully in good hands, and then have your vacation to celebrate?

To learn more about the many ways Dr. Rai can rejuvenate and enhance your appearance, please contact our Dallas, Texas office for a free consultation.

In our youth-obsessed culture, the word “wrinkle” is a BAD word. Nobody wants wrinkles. They must be hidden, smoothed out, eliminated with daily routines, special products, and cosmetic procedures. But everybody gets wrinkles. There is no way to stop aging, and the best thing to do is to try and age gracefully.

If it helps you to age gracefully, why not minimize the appearance of wrinkles on your face? You don’t have to deceive yourself into believing that you are actually 21. Surely a well-groomed and gracious 40 is just as appealing, if not more so.

The face develops several kinds of wrinkles and Dr. Rai at The Cosmetic Surgical Center offers non-invasive treatments to deal with all of them.

Crow’s Feet

Crow’s feet are often the first wrinkles to appear, perhaps even in a person’s twenties. They are fine radial lines that run between the eyelids and the temples and become more visible when you smile or laugh. They form more quickly if you are in the sun a lot and squinting against bright light. Good quality sunglasses and sunblock help to prevent them, or at least postpone their appearance.

• Crow’s feet can be smoothed out with BOTOX® Cosmetic injected into the muscles on each side of the upper face. Alternatively, you could have a facial filler such as Restylane®. There are many facial fillers that use different methods to plump up the skin and Dr. Rai also offers Sculptra®, Radiesse®, and others. The effects of both BOTOX® Cosmetic and facial fillers last for several months to perhaps a year and these are non-invasive treatments that can be repeated for more long-term results.

Laugh Lines

Laugh lines are also called nasolabial folds. They run downwards between the nose and corners of the mouth. Like all facial wrinkles, they are partly caused by repeated facial expressions, in this case, laughing. But the pull of gravity helps too, in making the cheeks sag.

• Laugh lines can be quite deep and can look more like facial folds than fine lines, but they can be smoothed out by facial fillers much as crow’s feet can. Radiesse or other facial fillers may not entirely smooth them out, but they will certainly make them more shallow, and this helps to counteract the downward contours of an aging face.

Smoker’s Lines

Smoker’s Lines are fine vertical lines that develop around the lips. They are called Smoker’s Lines because if you smoke, you are repeatedly pursing your lips, which encourages these little lines to form. However, anybody can get smoker’s lines, and most people do, especially women.

• Smoker’s lines can be treated with BOTOX® Cosmetic and with lip fillers such as Captique, Hylaform, and Cosmoderm.

There are other ways of smoothing out facial wrinkles also, such as autogenous fat grafts, where your own fatty tissue is taken from another part of the body and injected into facial areas. There are also facial implants, such as chin implants and cheek implants, which give long-term results. These are cosmetic surgeries rather than non-invasive procedures.

Each face is different and Dr. Rai can examine you to determine what your best facial rejuvenation choices would be. If you would like to set up a free consultation with him, please contact our Dallas, Texas office today.

As China has become more capitalist and prosperous, there is now a second generation of wealthy families whose young members are going for cosmetic surgery. In a recent interview, a Chinese cosmetic surgeon answers some interesting questions. He is Ding Xiaobang, Director of the outpatient department of a plastic surgery hospital.

Do You See Any New Trends Emerging?

Yes, he said. Contrary to the myth that cosmetic surgery attracts older women who want to look younger and prettier, about 60 percent of his patients are young. They are good-looking members of the “rich second generation” and would turn heads on any street. But they want to look perfect.

They “use surgery like morning makeup,” he said. “Sometimes they even invite me to cafes or restaurants to discuss their surgery plans. Their makeup artists and private photographers are also there to let me know which part of the face is not yet perfect.”

Do Many of Your Clients Behave Mysteriously or Secretly?

Yes, said Ding. Actors and actresses who do not want to be recognized want to keep a low profile. They come to his clinic at dusk because not many people are around then. One in particular always sent her driver into the clinic to make sure nobody was there before she entered.

But it is not only celebrities who act strangely. He described a patient who arrived with her huofo, her “living Buddha”. She was planning to marry a billionaire in southern China whose family believed that a wife’s facial appearance could affect her husband’s fortune. “Peach blossom cheeks” in a wife were thought to be promising for a husband’s career so she wanted her cheeks improved. Her living Buddha’s job was to make sure no other parts of her face were changed, as that might break some taboos.

Becoming a Plastic Surgeon

Ding does not have the Chinese equivalent of board certification in plastic surgery. He learned on the job from his mentor, Zhang, who was very experienced in all types of surgery. In particular he recalled a nine-year-old girl whose heart was malformed. It was positioned above the ribs, beating just beneath the skin and Zhang positioned it more normally with bone protection. He was 81 at that time. Ding realized how dramatically plastic surgery could change a person’s life and decided to make it his career.

His first surgery was eyelid surgery for a young girl who was miserable at school because classmates mocked her. Her eyelid muscles were too weak to fully open her eyes. Ding was so nervous that his hands were trembling, but he successfully took a strip of muscle fiber from her forehead and used it for her upper eyelids. Her happiness after recovery confirmed him in his career choice.

Plastic surgery can indeed change your life. Would you like to know more about how Ultrasonic Liposuction can restore you youthful shape? Or how gynecomastia can streamline a male chest?

If you would like to schedule a free consultation with Dr. Rai, please call or email our office in Dallas, Texas, and we will be happy to set that up for you.

In Irish news this week, poll results report that 55 percent of the women polled would like to alter the shape or size of their breasts. The survey was a small one, done to celebrate a new chat show in Irish Information TV called MyFaceMyBody. It also reported that 42 percent of women polled would like to have liposuction to remove abdominal fat.

Poll participants included men also, of whom 40 percent said they were not bothered by the idea of breast implants and 23 percent said they preferred breasts that were augmented with implants to smaller natural breasts. That leaves 77 percent of men who would prefer natural breasts and 60 percent who are indeed bothered by the idea of breast implants.

About a third of the women thought that their partner would be glad to pay for a breast enlargement procedure for them, but two thirds were anxious that if they were to go ahead with such a procedure, the results would look fake.

In the early days of cosmetic surgery, when it was done privately for celebrities only, it was overdone in some cases, and it seems the public has not forgotten those images of windblown faces and out-of-proportion breasts. The idea of having cosmetic surgery appeals only if a prospective patient can be confident of looking natural afterwards.

Contribute to Your Own Surgical Outcome

Your plastic surgery outcome is largely in your own hands. There are two important steps that you can and should take to optimize your surgery results and they are:

• Choose an experienced and fully-qualified plastic surgeon
• Follow his or her pre- and post-op directions to the letter

We see stories repeatedly in the media of people who had cosmetic surgery done by non-board-certified doctors, by doctors ill-trained in other countries, and by cosmetic surgeons who run a factory instead of a quality medical facility. It is not surprising that surgical results have been unsatisfactory, even harmful, or that the doctors have been prosecuted.

Choose Your Plastic Surgeon Carefully

Dr. Rai has extensive qualifications and you can see the details of this on his Training and Credentials page. Not only is the initial training important, but so is the Continuing Education. That keeps a surgeon up to date with new ideas and technology, which increases your safety and satisfaction.

Look also to see what professional organizations your plastic surgeon belongs to. Those memberships keep him or her in touch with peers, which in turn can reassure you that the surgeon is competent and qualified. Many surgeons also have local affiliations that you can check into. Dr. Rai has contributed a great deal of leadership to the Medical City Dallas Hospital, serving as Chief of Section for Plastic Surgery and sitting on several committees.

When you choose a top-of-the-line surgeon, your post-surgery results will look natural and attractive. Your surgeon will have planned the procedure in partnership with you, informing you at each step what is done and why, and your satisfaction will be the greater for having a good working relationship with your plastic surgeon.

If you would like to meet with Dr. Rai and get some questions answered, please contact our Dallas, Texas office today and we will schedule a free consultation for you.

As the U.S. presence in Iraq seems to be successfully creating peace and social order, Iraqi doctors are trickling back to their country and resuming their medical practices. Many of them are doing double duty, doing reconstructive surgery in government hospitals for war-wounded people and cosmetic surgery in private hospitals for those who are sufficiently healthy and affluent.

Interest in cosmetic surgery apparently cuts across all religious groups. Some people have consulted Iraq’s most respected Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Evidently, his website gives some answers and guidance:

• Hair implants are approved, since wigs can fall off when the person is praying
• Liposuction is approved
• Breast implants and breast reduction are approved as long as the woman has it done by a female cosmetic surgeon

But according to news reports, few people raise any religious questions or worry about the gender of their surgeon.

Since the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the end of economic sanctions, Iraqis have enjoyed more contact with the outside world. Many women bring photos of pop stars to show their surgeon how they would like to look. The most popular are apparently Nancy Ajram and Elissa, two Lebanese stars.

In an interview to a reporter, one woman who gave as her reason for wanting cosmetic surgery the fact that her mother-in-law-to-be disliked her nose.

• "I am getting older and time is running out,” she said. “One should take care of oneself to look more beautiful." She is thirty years old.

Remaining Obstacles Being Overcome

There are still just about six cosmetic surgeons in practice throughout Iraq. Many doctors are still afraid of being kidnapped, as many doctors were kidnapped by insurgents a few years ago and many others went into exile voluntarily. They are gradually returning to Iraq but do not necessarily advertise their clinic address or work hours.

Also, Iraq does not have all the supplies needed for cosmetic surgery procedures. A woman who wants breast enlargement must import the implants herself and bring them to the surgeon. Patients must also buy their own BOTOX® Cosmetic, though this is easier, as it is sold in Iraqi pharmacies.

• "Day after day, the number of clients is increasing," said Falah Abdul Hussein al-Shimmari, an Iraqi doctor who runs a Baghdad outpatient clinic. "Iraqis were deprived before of such cosmetic services because they were unable to travel. But after the war, there has been some openness to the outside world. People are becoming interested in having such plastic surgeries."

Are you interested in having a cosmetic surgery procedure? In this subdued economy, non-invasive procedures like facial fillers are still very popular and even more major procedures are still popular, such as breast augmentation, which never seems to go out of style.

To learn more about Dr. Rai and the services we offer, please contact our Dallas, Texas office for a free consultation.

When we gain weight, our fat cells are increasing in size to hold the extra fat. For the most part, we do not grow any new fat cells once we are adult. A new cosmetic surgery treatment is based on this fact. If there is increased fat cell size in the subcutaneous fat layer (just beneath the skin), it can be reduced with a laser.

This is therefore a non-invasive treatment with no pain, no incisions, and no recovery time required. It is called Zerona® and is offered by Erchonia Medical, Inc., a Texas-based company that makes lasers and other medical devices.

Zerona® is a body contouring procedure done in a series of treatments. The special low-level laser breaks up the subcutaneous fat cells (emulsifies them by breaking the cell walls). Rather than being suctioned out as is done in liposuction procedures, the emulsified fat moves into the little spaces between cells, joining the interstitial fluid that is already there. It then flows into the lymph system and is excreted by the body.

Zerona® Treatments

Each treatment lasts for 40 minutes. For best results, you would have three a week for two weeks. The laser is directed to whatever area you would like slimmer and more attractively contoured, such as the waist, hips, or thighs. Each treatment consists of 20 minutes of laser work on the front and 20 minutes on the back.

By the end of two weeks, your subcutaneous fat cells have shrunk down closer to their original size and you have lost at least three or four inches of circumference. Zerona® has been FDA-approved for reducing fat cells after being tested on the lower body only. But physicians are still testing Zerona® for its effectiveness on cellulite, and on upper body areas such as the upper arms and upper back.

At The Cosmetic Surgical Center, Dr. Rai offers both Tumescent Liposuction and Ultrasonic Assisted Liposuction (UAL), tailoring each procedure to the individual’s desires and needs. UAL is excellent for more detailed contouring results. It uses ultrasound to emulsify fat cells and then removes them by suction. It needs only very small incisions, since the ultrasound cannula and the vacuum tube are very narrow.

In fact, Dr. Rai has a whole separate website on Liposuction where you can read more detail about the ways it can be done.

If you would like to talk with Dr. Rai about the best way to improve your body contours, please contact our Dallas, Texas office today for a free consultation.

The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery has released its 2009 statistics which give the numbers of how many times each procedure was performed, whether it was for a male or a female, percentages for each ethnic group, type of medical facility used, and what the total 2009 numbers are for each procedure. They do this every year and have been since 1997.

Since 1997, the total number of cosmetic surgery procedures has increased 147 percent. In 2009 it dropped, but only by two percent compared to 2008.

Most Popular 2009 Plastic Surgery Procedures

• Breast augmentation – with 311,957 procedures done, compared to 355,671 procedures in 2008;
• Liposuction -- with 283,735 procedures, compared to 341,144 in 2008;
• Eyelid surgery -- with 149,943 procedures, down from the 195,104 procedures done in 2008;
• Abdominoplasty – with 127,923 procedures, and in 2008 there were 152,434 with abdominoplasty being the fifth most popular procedure;
• Facelifts – with 94,247 procedures, and in 2008, facelifts were not in the top five procedures. Rhinoplasty is the procedure that has dropped from the 2009 top five to make way for facelifts.

Most Popular 2009 Non-Invasive Procedures

• As always, BOTOX® Cosmetic is the favorite non-invasive procedure, with 2,557,068 procedures done in 2009. This is more than the 2,464,123 done in 2008;
• Facial fillers based on hyaluronic acid, such as Restylane -- 1,313,038 procedures compared to 1,262,848 in 2008, when it was third most popular;
• Laser hair removal, which was not in the top five for 2008;
• Microdermabrasion, which also was not in the top five for 2008;
• Chemical peels, at 529,285 procedures, down from 591,808 in 2008 when it was in fourth position.

It is interesting to see how the annual numbers for major surgeries have declined while those for non-invasive procedures have increased. This may be because of the recession squeezing people’s budgets.

If you would like to learn more about any cosmetic procedure offered by Dr. Rai, please contact our Dallas, Texas office today for a free consultation with him.

There are those who think we live in a makeover culture these days. We no longer just get our nails “done” and our hair “done” – we get our face done, our breasts done, our lips done, and anything else that we think needs to be “done”. We get smile makeovers and race to try each new skin product.

One of the latest offerings is nicknamed Botox in a Bottle. It is a cream that freezes muscles temporarily, smoothing out wrinkles for the day. The real name is Glamoxy Snake Serum, based on its ingredient Syn-Ake that mimics the effects of the South-East Asian Temple Viper, whose bite causes paralysis. It is offered by the British company Rodial, Ltd. In the U.K., women are submitting massive numbers of advance orders for Glamoxy Snake Serum.

Look Better to Get a Job

In the present financial crisis it puzzles many that people are still willing to spend money on cosmetic procedures and products. However, part of the motivation in many countries is competition for jobs. As more and more companies retrench and lay off workers, more and more applicants show up for each remaining job opening.

• The Los Angeles Times passes on a report of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery that more people are asking for cosmetic surgery to help them get ahead in the work world;
• Canada’s Globe and Mail reports that more men are having BOTOX® Cosmetic and various laser treatments to look younger and fresher in their competitive work areas;
• The U.K. Daily Mail reports that men now make up one in every five cosmetic surgery patients (used to be one in ten), and that many of them are big city bankers;
• The Australian Sydney Morning Herald opines that cosmetic surgery will soon be as standard as teeth whitening and dyeing your hair;
• In China, women are having eyelid surgery and leg-lengthening surgery to be more competitive in job interviews.

From teens to grandmothers, everyone feels their appearance needs improving and they are willing to act on that feeling. If you have some of that feeling yourself, it is wise to stop for a moment and look at it before rushing to act. Do you wish you looked like someone else? That is not a good reason to have plastic surgery because you are certain to be disappointed.

The only person you can convincingly look like is You. If you feel you need to look younger in order to land a job, that is very understandable, as ageism is certainly rampant. At The Cosmetic Surgical Center, we offer many ways to rejuvenate the face and body. Some are more invasive, such as breast implants, and others are non-invasive and simpler, such as facial fillers.

If you are in the Dallas and Fort Worth area of Texas, the first step is to contact our office for a complimentary consultation with Dr. Rai. You can ask your questions and learn a lot about your best options, so that when you do decide to have cosmetic surgery done, your expectations will be realistic and you will be happy with your outcome.

Everyone loves a dimpled smile. For some mysterious reason, it looks cute and appealing and a dimple is regarded as a kind of beauty spot. Actually, a dimple is an inborn muscle defect, a small area where the cheek muscles did not fully develop and therefore create that little depression in the cheek contour when you smile.

In various countries, cosmetic surgeons have started to offer a dimple procedure to enhance a person’s smile. Men seem to be just as interested as women, and India seems to be something of a leader in this procedure.

How Are Dimples Created?

The procedure is short, taking 30 to 60 minutes and is done with local anesthesia on an outpatient basis. The plastic surgeon makes a small incision on the inside of the cheek and using a biopsy device, removes some of the fat in the proposed dimple location. More tissue is removed for a larger dimple and less for a smaller one. He then attaches part of the muscle to the skin. The incision is closed with absorbable stitches. Not every surgeon offers dimples on both cheeks, as it is difficult to make them symmetrical.

Recovery is short. There is a little swelling for a few days and you are prescribed an antibiotic to guard against infection. You would use a betadine mouth rinse also and would want to be on a liquid diet to avoid having to chew for a day or two.

At first, the dimple is there even if you are scowling, but as the cheek heals, it becomes visible only when you smile. The muscle is now pulling the skin inwards because of the closer muscle/skin attachment created by your dimple-plasty. Because the incision was inside the mouth, there is no visible scar.

You can return to your normal activities the same day if you wish and the results are permanent. Some cosmetic surgeons are also offering chin dimples.

Other Ways to Enhance Your Face

At The Cosmetic Surgical Center, Dr. Rai considers your safety a top priority and does not necessarily rush to offer the latest plastic surgery procedure just because it is new. Once a procedure is proven to be safe and effective he will offer it.

There are many ways to enhance your facial appearance. On our site, you can read about facial fillers as a way to enhance the cheeks and lip areas, cheek implants and chin implants as ways to change your facial contours, and lip enlargement or reduction to change your smile.

To learn more, please contact us today for a free consultation with Dr. Rai.

Through our genetics, we all have a basic body shape. As the years go by and we develop our lifestyle, we may change our appearance by adding bulk but we always keep the basic shape. It will re-emerge when we lose weight.

There are thought by some to be six types of female body shape. Since fashions come and go, each type is in fashion sooner or later and then drops out of fashion. If your body type is currently out of fashion, you may be feeling unattractive and may even be trying to change your basic shape with diet, exercise, and/or cosmetic surgery.

Six Female Body Types

1. The “A” Frame or Pear Shape -- this type has extra weight in the lower body and a small waist, bust, and shoulders.
2. The “V” Frame or Cone Shape – this type is the opposite of the A Frame – it has thin legs and narrow hips with a large bust and wide shoulders.
3. The “H” Frame -- this type looks square-shaped with a large waist and shoulders
4. The “Ruler” Frame – This is a type is thin with equal-sized shoulders, waist, and hips and does not gain weight easily
5. The “8” Frame or Hourglass – this type has equal-sized bust and hips with a significantly smaller waist, and weight gain or loss is evenly distributed over the body
6. The “Oval” Frame or Apple – this shape has thin legs, a short height, and a large bust, with extra weight going to the waistline

The Hourglass type is the perennial female ideal, but regardless of which body type you have, you can look attractive if you feel that you are attractive and if you dress and move well. Exercise programs can be devised for each type, focusing weight training on the thinner areas to build up muscle for a better balance. Lessons in dance or martial arts can increase your balance, grace, posture, and general muscle tone.

Cosmetic Surgery Can Help

If extra weight is obscuring your natural body type, liposuction and/or a tummy tuck can help a great deal. Sometimes we have unwanted fat in smaller, specific areas and there are procedures to help with that too, such as an arm lift or neck liposuction. Of course, there is always the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure of all among women – breast implants – to balance weight on the lower body.

Keep in mind that one’s bones contribute a great deal to your natural body shape, and no cosmetic surgery can change that (except for rhinoplasty, which can change nasal shape). Well, actually, in China, there is a procedure to lengthen the legs. The leg bones are cut and steel extensions inserted which can add about four inches to a woman’s height. But according to news reports, the leg bones are then susceptible to breaking for the rest of your life. Perhaps it is well that this procedure is not legal in the U.S.

When choosing to have plastic surgery for a more attractive or balanced body shape, it is important to be realistic about the results and to have a goal of being more YOU rather than more like someone else.

Please contact our Dallas and Fort Worth office today if you would like to schedule a free consultation with plastic surgeon Dr. Rai.