imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Monday, August 15, 2005
I'D BUY SOME JIMMY CHOOS INSTEAD
Dr. DiSaia, a board certified plastic surgeon in San Clemente, Ca., has a blog called Truth In Cosmetic Surgery. He posted before and after close-ups of one of his patients who had lip filler injections.
Hyaluronic acid (HA) gels last anywhere from 2-3 months. They resorb slowly. I no longer offer collagen (so I don't know what this costs), but these HA gels are sold by the syringe which costs $500. The lady pictured had one syringe. Fat injections swell much more and resorb similarly. There is also the issue of the donor site when using fat transfer and the cost is more (about twice the $$$$).
I honestly could not see any significant difference. The good doc disagrees ... natch. So I placed the photos side by side, and cropped out all but the lips (and labeled them), for a better comparison. I tried to adjust the brightness and contrast to diminish those differences. I think whatever a person does (legally) to enhance their looks and/or their self esteem is fine. In this particular case, I think this must be a placebo effect. Personally, I think she might have gotten as much out of a pair of Jimmy Choos for the money she spent. This procedure was the patient's choice, and my opinion is not meant as a slight in any way to Dr. DiSaia.
Lip Fillers - Hylaform - A Modest Enlargement
While we have all seen the freakish outcomes in celebrities, I thought I'd present a case of a modest enlargement. In this case I used Hylaform. This patient was injected twice two weeks apart with about half a single unit each time to get the results you see a week after the second injection (after image is at bottom right). She had no bruising and was out and about the evening after each injection. There is swelling that resolves, but in modest enlargements, the freakish celebrity results are nowhere to be found.
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