Cosmetic Surgery Center, Dallas | Dr. Rai

On April 14, this space looked at the choices associated with breast augmentation. One of the choices is between saline or silicone gel implants. How do these implant types differ? What are their advantages and disadvantages? In this post, we will look at the advantages of saline implants. Please watch this site for more information.

Advantages of Saline Implants

1. Saline implants have a very simple substance inside them – saline solution. It is just salty water made to the same strength of saltiness found in the body. All body fluids have salt and when an injured hospital patient needs extra fluids for any reason, saline solution is administered through an intravenous line directly to the bloodstream. Since it matches the body’s saltiness, it can be used however the body needs it.

Saline solution is therefore a very safe element in breast augmentation, even if the implant leaks. The body will absorb the saline solution and be none the worse for it. Keep in mind that leaks are rare in any case.

2. If you were to be that rare case where a leak does occur and you had saline implants, the leak would be very obvious because the implant would reduce its size and you would see that change. Your breasts would look asymmetrical. You would not feel any pain or discomfort however. Dr. Rai could correct the situation by replacing that one implant.

3. When you are considering incision locations for your breast augmentation, you can add one more to the list if you also choose saline implants. That would be the TUBA (TransUmbilical Breast Augmentation) incision in the navel. Since saline implants come empty and are filled after placement, they can be positioned from the navel incision through use of an endoscope.

Dr. Rai would use a narrow flexible tube with two canals inside it: one for a fiberoptic light and the other for surgical instruments. He can see his work on the computer monitor and can move the folded implant to its proper position without creating any scars on the upper body.

4. After your breast augmentation, if you decide that you would like the implants to be a slightly different size, that can be done if you had saline implants. Since they are inserted empty and filled after placement, they can also be filled more or slightly emptied through the same little incision used for inserting and filling them.

Deciding to have breast augmentation is a major decision, since it is major surgery. It is advisable to think about all the pros and cons of each breast augmentation choice. Next post we will look at the advantages of silicone gel implants.

If you would like to schedule a free consultation with Dr. Rai and learn more about how breast augmentation could best be done for you, please contact our Dallas, Texas office today.

If we rely on news reports, we might assume that Iranian women stay covered up and live in a self-effacing way. But a recent study done by an Iranian think tank and published in a monthly Iranian marketing magazine found that Iranian women are among the world’s top consumers of cosmetics and increasingly enthusiastic consumers of cosmetic surgery.

There is an Iranian tradition called “hijab” that requires that women cover themselves entirely with loose-fitting clothes and keep their hair covered. Also, it is forbidden to wear makeup in Iranian government offices.

But according to one Eldad Pardo, a professor at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Iranian culture has always had a strong appreciation of beauty.

• "I'm not at all surprised there is this interest in cosmetics in Iran," he said in an interview. "Iranian culture and particularly Persian culture has always been exceptional in their emphasis of beauty, aesthetics, art, fashion, design and poetry, much more than anywhere else in the Middle East.”

Despite attempts by religious police to enforce hijab, women and girls between about 15 and 45 years of age, along with many Iranian men, are making Iran the second-largest market for cosmetics in the Middle East. Urban centers are filled with women and girls sporting elaborate makeup. Products like anti-wrinkle creams and face masks, as well as good quality shaving creams are apparently easy to bring into the country and are widely used.

Iranians are also leading in rhinoplasty, and this has been in news reports since at least early 2005. In a 2006 report, a university student named only Hussein was scheduled for nose surgery and told a reporter:

• "Now it's really normal but of course 10 years ago if you were a boy and had a nose job everyone would laugh at you and make fun of you. But now it's not like that -- lots of people are doing it.”

Women are thought to have led the way in rhinoplasty popularity, since when following the strict dress requirements, only their nose was visible. Now many men have cosmetic surgery and in Tehran there are over 3,000 plastic surgeons operating thriving businesses.

At The Cosmetic Surgical Center, Dr. Rai offers nose surgery for both males and females, as well as blepharoplasty, of course, BOTOX® Cosmetic, and many other choices.

To learn more, please contact our Dallas, Texas office today for a free consultation with Dr. Rai.

Are you planning some fun events for Spring? You could use non-invasive cosmetic surgery treatments to rejuvenate your skin and give your face a younger and smoother appearance. Do you have acne scars? Some sun damage? Any mild or moderate discoloration?

There are different ways to rejuvenate the skin. One is to remove the top surface and let it regrow with tighter cells that give a smoother and younger appearance. This can be done with a chemical peel or laser skin resurfacing, both of which procedures stimulate the skin to produce more collagen. Collagen is a fibrous protein found throughout the body and in the skin’s middle layer, it forms a matrix with elastin to support the skin surface and keep it smooth.

Another way to rejuvenate the skin is to use a facial filler. There are many to choose from and each works in a somewhat different way. Some are based on hyaluronic acid, a substance also found throughout the body. It attracts water and bonds to it. When a filler using hyaluronic acid is injected beneath the skin surface, it has the effect of plumping up the area because of the extra water attracted and held there. Restylane® is a popular example of a facial filler based on hyaluronic acid.

Radiesse® is a filler that works a different way. It consists of a gel filled with tiny spheres of calcium hydroxyapatite. The gel gives immediate support to the skin, creating smoothness, but the body soon absorbs it. Then the microspheres take over, contributing to the collagen matrix under the skin surface, and filling any age-related gaps in it from decreased production of collagen.

Of course, there is also BOTOX® Cosmetic, which works yet another way, by temporarily paralyzing the muscle where it is injected. For three or four months, that muscle will be unable to receive messages from the brain telling it to contract. BOTOX® Cosmetic works well for frown lines and horizontal forehead lines. In some cases it is also good for crows’ feet and laugh lines, and also the fine lines that develop around the lips.

At The Cosmetic Surgical Center, we offer all the above procedures for facial rejuvenation and we invite you to contact us for a free consultation with Dr. Rai.

The American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery (AACS) has released statistics for cosmetic surgeries done in 2009. They show that, despite the current recession, baby boomers are worried enough about the years marching on that they are having more facelifts and eyelid surgery.

The number of facelifts performed in 2009 by AACS members went up 44 percent and the number of eyelid surgeries (blepharoplasty) went up 42 percent. Most of these procedures were done for people in their 50s.

• "The baby boomers are getting older but they still feel young and they want to look that way too," said Mark Berman, AACS president. "I think this might come as a surprise to the public when they see just how many baby boomers are trying to slow down the aging process."

Numbers also went up for non-invasive procedures too, as BOTOX® Cosmetic procedures increased by 157 percent and facial fillers increased by 245 percent. These non-invasive procedures were done for people in their 50s but also for many in their 40s, so it was not only anxious Boomers but also some of the GenX people aging right behind them.

The most popular plastic surgery procedure of all was liposuction, a perennial favorite for many years. The AACS always groups the top five procedures separately, and in the 2009 top five, besides facelifts, eyelid surgery, and liposuction, the other two were forehead lifts and abdominoplasty (tummy tucks).

In comparing men and women, the AACS found that about 15 million women had cosmetic surgery in 2009 as against about 2.5 million men. Breast enlargement is usually in the top five procedures but was not in 2009.

Dr. Rai at The Cosmetic Surgical Center offers all the procedures in the AACS top five, and many more besides. We offer all the non-invasive procedures as well.

If you are in Dallas, Texas, and would like to learn more about any plastic surgery procedure that interests you, please contact us to schedule a free consultation with Dr. Rai.

According to the most recent statistics from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, breast augmentation is still at the top of the list and over 300,000 were done in 2009. Many women having breast implants are baby boomers hoping to keep their young 1960s bloom.

However, you do not have to be worrying about your aging looks to benefit from breast enlargement. As long as you are over 18 (for saline implants) or 22 (for silicone gel implants), have good general health, and a reasonable desire to have larger breasts, you could be a good candidate.

Dr. Rai would be the one to determine your candidacy after he examines you and studies your health history. However, you would have a great deal of input into how your procedure was planned. There are some important breast surgery decisions to be made before any procedure is scheduled.

1. What size implant do you want? Bigger is not necessarily better. Implants are not sized like bras, with 34-A or 36-C and so on. They are sized by how many cubic centimeters of fluid or gel they contain. Dr. Rai would help you translate cc’s into the right size implant to augment what you already have and end up with the shape you want.
2. What shape implant? They come in round or teardrop shapes and each has advantages and disadvantages.
3. Silicone gel or saline implants? Saline is the name for salt water that has the same saltiness (salinity) that our body fluids have. Saline solution is used in many medical procedures and is a standard substance. Silicone gel is specially made for breast implants and these implants come already filled, whereas saline implants are empty when inserted. Therefore incisions must be a little longer for silicone implants.
4. Where to place the incisions? You have four choices of incision location, all of which will give you a discreetly hidden scar. The transaxillary location is in the armpits; the periareolar location is around the outside of the areola; the breast crease location is below the breasts; and the TUBA location is in the navel.
5. Where to place the implants? There are two choices here. Either they can be below the breast tissue but above the pectoral muscle; or they can be below both. Each has its advantages and disadvantages and your lifestyle would be a factor in this decision. Again, Dr. Rai will help.

There are good reasons why the best cosmetic surgeons prefer well-informed patients. The better you understand your procedure, the more likely you are to comply with your pre- and post-surgical instructions and the more gratifying your surgical outcome is likely to be. Dr. Rai is always willing to answer questions and explain how a procedure works or why one would be better for you than another.

To learn more about breast enlargement, please contact our Dallas, Texas office for a free consultation with Dr. Rai.

The FDA has begun a crack-down on a procedure offered by some plastic surgeons called Lipodissolve. It is a non-surgical alternative to liposuction. A chemical is injected to dissolve fatty tissue in relatively small areas, usually in the arms, legs or abdomen – love handles, saddle bags and muffin tops, for example. These injections are also made in facial areas to reduce fat pads beneath the eyes or chin.

They use two chemicals called PC (phosphatidylcholine) and DC (sodium dioxycholate), which are found naturally in the body. These chemicals work as part of the person’s metabolism, breaking down fat.

Lipodissolve is also called mesotherapy, lipolysis, and lipostabil. Typically, each cosmetic surgery clinic or spa has been mixing its own chemicals – compounding the injection formulation. Since each spa or clinic makes its own compound, the ingredients vary and may include multivitamins, enzymes, plant extracts, antibiotics, hormones, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications.

Reports of Skin Problems

The FDA has been receiving reports of these injections causing scars and hard lumps on the skin, and of skin deformities after the procedure.

Rather than being delivered by a qualified cosmetic surgeon, they are often being done by beauty care specialists who may or may not have any medical training. Neither the chemicals in the compound nor the compounds themselves have been approved by the FDA and in a letter to a MedSpa in Madison, IN, the FDA said,

• “The claims made for your lipodissolve products are false and misleading in that they are not supported by substantial evidence or substantial clinical experience."

The FDA has sent warning letters to about six other spas that offer these fat-melting injections and plans to send more. They cite the spas for making unsubstantiated claims about lipodissolve therapy. Some of the claims are that these injections can increase the skin’s production of collagen and that they can improve skin tone and elasticity.

Studies Not Done

Fat-melting injections do break down fat cells, but one question is where that fat goes. No studies have been done to show where it goes, and it could potentially cause serious harm if it goes into the liver or blood vessels. There are also no studies on where the injected medication goes and how it affects the body’s organs.

Nor are there any studies on the side effects, the best combination of ingredients, or best dosages. According the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS), infection, inflammation, disfigurement, and tissue death have all been reported after lipodissolve, especially when the treatment was done by a beauty specialist rather than a physician.

This is a big case of:

Caveat emptor!

Buyer beware. Dr. Rai regards new cosmetic treatments and surgical techniques as potentially beneficial, but not until they are proven so does he begin to offer them here in The Cosmetic Surgical Center. If you would like to know more about liposuction and whether it would be a good option for you, please contact our office for a free consultation with Dr. Rai.

All the surveys done each year about who has had what cosmetic surgery procedure and how many procedures of each type were done annually all repeat one fact: that more men are having cosmetic surgery each year. At The Cosmetic Surgical Center, we offer many procedures for men – males can have facial work and body work done using the same general procedures as are done for women, but done a little differently for men.

Standards of beauty for a male body of course differ to some extent from female standards of beauty, and liposuction can be tailored accordingly. In itself, liposuction is a neutral process – unwanted fat cells are broken up using various techniques, and then removed from that area, leaving the skin to shrink naturally over the new contour.

Men develop abdominal fat and extra fat on the upper back and neck just as women do, and these areas can be treated in similar ways. Men also value a muscular-looking chest. Liposuction can done in a way that works on smaller areas of fat within the chest, picking out the contours. This can be done on the abdomen also, creating that “washboard” effect.

Gynecomastia is the term for enlarged male breasts and this can be addressed by liposuction also. The unwanted tissue is not all fat, however; there is a usually an amount of actual breast tissue contributing to the enlargement. Dr. Rai can remove it using different techniques combined with liposuction.

We also offer male eyelid surgery to remove excess fat or skin that are causing drooping eyelids and an older or sleepy look. If you would like a stronger jawline, we offer chin implants to give more definition and balance to the lower face.

As always, BOTOX® Cosmetic is a good option for smoothing out frown lines or horizontal forehead lines. In the slumping economy, non-invasive procedures have become a lot more popular than major surgeries.