Cosmetic Possibilities

In Our 20s: Think Skin

It is important to make sure you protect and maintain your skin. I recommend wearing daily sunscreen and using good facial products.

The most common procedures tend to be those that are made necessary by family genetics: breast reduction, breast augmentation, and liposuction.

In Our 30s: Think Skin, Breast, and Body

This is a time to optimize non-surgical ways to keep your skin looking young. The skin ages as a result of sun, use, and loss of elasticity. During this time skin care is paramount: you can reverse some of the damage with good skin care products or skin resurfacing (TCA peel, laser.) This is also a time to “prevent” wrinkles from happening. BOTOX® injections can prevent or reverse wrinkles of the forehead, crow’s feet, or between the eyebrows.

Common surgical procedures are breast augmentation, breast lift, breast reduction, eyelid lift, brow lift, abdominoplasty, or liposuction.

PREGNANCY and WEIGHT LOSS affect many areas of the body. Plastic surgery can help return a woman’s body to back to “normal.” Frequent procedures are breast augmentations or breast lifts to return fullness, volume, and lift to the breast. If you are a liposuction candidate, it is good to do liposuction while your skin tone is still good, so the skin retracts tightly after fat removal. Also a tummy tuck or abdominoplasty is particularly good to tighten underlying abdominal musculature and remove skin laxity, fat, and stretch marks caused by pregnancy or weight loss.

In Our 40s: Think Eyes and Brow

Unfortunately, aging continues. This is still a good time for skin care (products /peels /soft tissue fillers /BOTOX® Cosmetic) and common plastic surgical procedures (breast surgery, liposuction, tummy tuck).

People in their 40s start to notice they look “older” or tired. This is usually predominantly due to aging around the eyes. The procedure needed is either a brow lift, an upper eyelid lift / lower eyelid lift, or a combination of these. Sometimes, lower facial aging becomes noticeable. If your jowls or neck are becoming noticeable, this may be a good time to consult a cosmetic surgeon about a facelift or facial liposuction.

This is also a time to start doing a skin survey, looking at moles and other skin lesions, as skin cancers become more common as we age. If you have not had a mammogram, get a baseline, and make sure you do self exams. To speak with a Palo Alto cosmetic surgeon about maintaining your health and appearance, contact my practice today.

50 & beyond: Face, Breast, & BodySkin Tightening & Lifting

By our 50s, most people start to notice everything has changed. Menopause causes more rapid skin aging everywhere- your face, breasts, and abdomen. The fix? Tightening.

  • Facelift.  The skin of the face is looser in a way you cannot fix with nonsurgical treatments like Botox and Filler. If you did your eyelid surgery and fat grafting in your 40s, you extended the timeline for when you want to address your face and neck with a facelift. What does it fix? The deeper line from the mouth to the nose, droopy mouth, jowling at the jaw line, and the loose skin in the neck. You still need fat grafting to replace the volume lost, particularly around the mouth.
  • Breast lift (or breast reduction if you gained weight or want to be smaller). Having smaller, lifted, tighter breasts is not just aesthetic- it also helps significantly with back and neck pain, shoulder strain, and ease of activity.
  • Abdominoplasty. Even though you may be 20 years out from your pregnancies, menopause loosens belly skin. Tummy tucks tighten the abdominal skin and helps lift thigh skin. The muscle tightening helps improve urinary incontinence (no getting up in the middle of the night to pee?), bowel habits, and lower back pain.

MENOPAUSE throws our bodies into a tailspin. Consider HOW do you want this next stage of this life to be? How active? How do you want to look?