Cosmetic Surgery Abroad Blog

Vaginal Rejuvenation on the Increase

2008-01-07T10:47:10+01:00

It’s gotta be a joke. That’s what Shay Gibson thought. Her husband called from the road one night last spring, saying he’d heard a comedian on the radio talking about a plastic surgery that tightens vaginal walls. “I thought there’s no way the procedure can be real,” Gibson says. But, with her interest piqued, she turned to the Internet. That’s where she learned it wasn’t a joke—and that this wasn’t the only operation, either.

Gibson, a 28-year-old mother of three who lives in Dallas, could also have her labia trimmed or even her hymen reattached. Doctors across the country regularly perform the surgeries. And the more web sites she visited, the more FAQ pages and testimonials she read, the more, actually, Gibson thought an operation could be right for her.

Truth was, sex for her had become less enjoyable after the kids were born. She couldn’t feel her husband as much. “I thought, ‘Why not do it?’” Gibson says. Her husband agreed.

She flew to San Antonio last July, Hailparn is one of two doctors in Texas performing the surgeries—the other’s in Pharr—and the only woman using the laser for these procedures anywhere in the country. Gibson had her vaginal walls tightened and, for appearance’s sake, her labia trimmed. The procedure took a little over an hour. She flew home the next day.

The healing process took two months, but it was worth it. Gibson won’t soon forget the first night back with her husband.

He screamed, “This was so worth the $10,000!”

CALL IT, AS ONE PLASTIC SURGEON DOES, THE SEARCH FOR “designer vaginas.” Call it, as many people do, vanity run amok. The truth is, there’s a growing number of women who want to look like a porn star or feel like a virgin, or who want their sex lives restored or childbirth-induced incontinence cured. There are about a dozen doctors across the nation who perform these laser vaginal rejuvenations. And, no surprise, some of their clients come from Dallas. The laser vaginal rejuvenation, some doctors say, is the new Botox. Heck, the new boob job.

But there are no nationwide statistics kept on the number of such surgeries. The LVRs are too new for that. Dr. V. Leroy Young, head of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons Emerging Trends Task Force, first heard about the surgeries three years ago. He thought then they were a fad. He doesn’t now. He’s noticed the proliferation of ads in magazines and on billboards, and the web sites that have popped up, even the discussion of laser vaginal rejuvenation on Dr. 90210, a reality show on E!. Young says that he hopes to have relevant stats by the end of the year.

It’s about time, Hailparn says. The labia surgeries she performs at her clinic have tripled from two years ago, and the vaginal tightenings have doubled. “I’ve done hundreds of these in the past two and a half years,” she says.

Naturally, not everyone’s pleased business is booming. Some feminist bloggers and authors say LVR is female objectification; at worst, they liken it to genital mutilation. More locally, Charles Curran, a professor of human values at SMU’s Perkins School of Theology, calls the surgeries “just as rank” as anything else society faces today. And the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, while withholding a formal opinion of the surgeries, aired several “concerns” about them in a 2004 letter, namely how the surgeries are marketed to the public, labeled within the medical community, and taught to other surgeons.

Indeed, business booms for people like Hailparn because so few doctors are willing to perform the surgeries. The controversy surrounding them is too great. “I think it’s seen as kind of a vain thing,” Young says. Too vain for plastic surgeons? “The sexual aspect of it is what makes it a little more taboo.”

And we still have yet to talk about what’s most taboo, the hymen repair. Yes, you, too, can have your hymen reattached (well, if you’re a woman). Shay Gibson opted out of that procedure. But Jeannette Yarborough didn’t. She’s a medical assistant from San Antonio and she went to Hailparn to have her vaginal walls tightened and her “virginity restored” as a gift to her husband on their 17th anniversary. “It was the ultimate gift that I could give him,” Yarborough says.

Though Hailparn doesn’t do too many hymen repairs, Dr. Marco Pelosi does. He’s a gynecologist in New Jersey who’s performed hymenoplasties for 30 years. Until recently, the women requesting them came from Middle Eastern cultures in which punishment for an impure bride was, in some cases, stoning. Today, though, most women requesting the surgery are upper-middle class, largely white, coming from all over the world (and, yes, Dallas, too, Pelosi says, though D could not reach any former clients), and they are having the procedure for reasons similar to Yarborough’s. Pelosi now does 10 hymen repairs a month, up from two a decade ago.

“I say it will be a one-night deal,” Pelosi says. “But the women say, ‘I don’t mind.’”

Thomas G. Stovall thinks it’s all bunk. A past president of the Society of Gynecologic Surgeons, he told the Wall Street Journal surgeries to improve one’s sex life rarely work and “hymen repair is a totally bogus procedure.” Jeannette Yarborough disagrees. She says Stovall should ask her husband if he thought the hymen repair was bogus. And as far as the sex goes, both she and Gibson say it is “incredible” now.

In any case, none of this comes cheaply. A hymen repair costs about $5,000, roughly the same price as a vaginal tightening and a labia trim. To have two surgeries performed, as both Gibson and Yarborough did, can cost as much as $12,000. Financing in some cases is provided through the clinic. But, still, $5,000 for a surgery that will be undone by morning? Twelve thousand dollars for surgeries that insurance won’t cover?

“This can be a relationship saver,” Hailparn says. She says the surgeries are borne, more times than not, out of marital unrest. After childbirth, “no one is talking to women about the sexual intercourse,” she says. “Ninety-nine percent of my patients say their OB-GYN isn’t asking about it.” Women have been taught to accept a frustrated sex life, Hailparn says. Or a mid-life filled with pain (because some pants chafe too much) or embarrassment (because some pants reveal too much). “It doesn’t have to be that way,” Hailparn says.

Shay Gibson agrees. “I think every woman should have it,” she says.

Dr. David Matlock, the pioneer of vaginal rejuvenations, who now does 500 a year in Los Angeles and teaches other surgeons how to perform them, offered the procedures 10 years ago “as a result of listening to women,” he says. And he’s kept listening. If a woman is pressured into a surgery, he won’t do it. (Hailparn and Pelosi say they won’t, either.) But now women want more than the perfect vagina, Matlock says. So he’s had to work harder. He’s already patented one idea, even tested it on eager women who enjoyed the results in their yoga and spin classes, or driving over cobblestone streets. Matlock says the product will hit the market this summer.

It is a collagen-based g-spot enhancement.

Fast Load Dental Implants "Huge Success"

2008-01-07T10:40:00+01:00

Huge Success With Directly Loaded Implants In The Mouth

In the near future toothless patients will no longer have to wait several months for ordinary titanium implants to heal. Nearly every one of 450 patients who had bridges anchored in their implants had immediate success. This is reported in a dissertation from the Sahlgrenska Academy in Sweden.

Most patients who have titanium implants in their mouth have to wait between four and seven months before the implant is considered stable enough for crowns or bridges to be secured in the screw.

"Many people feel physically and psychologically handicapped by their toothlessness, and it would mean a great deal to patients if they didn't have to wait so long for the treatment to be completed," says Pär-Olov Ostman, the dentist who authored the dissertation.

The studies used the same type of dental implants that normally need to heal properly before they can be loaded. A total of 457 patients had bridges anchored in their implants within 24 hours of receiving the implant. When the patients were followed up more than a year after treatment, 98 percent of all direct-loaded implants in the lower jaw were successful. In upper jaws that were previously completely toothless, 99 percent of the treatments succeeded.

"To attain such results the dentist has to do a good job, and there are several factors to take into consideration before choosing to immediately load the implant. I would say that several more years of research is needed before directly loaded implants can be the normal treatment for toothlessness," says Par-Olov Ostman.

All types of dental implants are not suitable for direct loading, however. For patients who received Nobel Direct implants, many of the treatments failed.

There are patients who cannot take a direct-load implant. The dissertation shows that these patients can be given an extra temporary implant that is smaller and narrower than the permanent one and can be used to secure prostheses while the permanent implant heals. Pär-Olov Ostman also developed a rapid method for dentists to create temporary bridges on implants in the mouth.

"It takes only a half hour for the dentist to create a temporary bridge. It's fast, and it's a lot cheaper for the patient than the robust bridges that dental laboratories produce, but they don't hold up quite as well," says Pär-Olov Ostman.

For more information please visit our cosmetic dentistry website.

Breast Enlargements Without Implants?

2008-01-07T10:32:08+01:00

Stem cell technique helps women grow their own implants

The delectable Miss Anderson is famous for her synthetic look.

Women have grown their own breast implants through pioneering stem cell treatment, it emerged yesterday.

Scientists harvested the stem cells from the women's own fat and encouraged them to form breast tissue.

They say the result gives a more natural look than many of the synthetic implants used by showbusiness stars like Pamela Anderson.

The Japanese teams have carried out trials on dozens of women and say they have had no problems.

They say the treatment will be routinely available from plastic surgeons within five years.

British surgeons said yesterday they were convinced by the technique and found it "appealing".

Stem cells can turn into different tissues in the body and this technique involves taking them from fat.

Dr Kotaro Yoshimura of the University of Tokyo and his team then mix these with general fat cells and inject them back into patients' breasts.

The hope is the stem cells will lead to the formation of new fat cells and coax blood vessels to grow into new breast tissue and nurture it.

The technique was first used in 2004 and since another 38 women have been treated without any major side effects.

The long-term effectiveness has not yet been demonstrated fully, however, and further tests are needed.

To date the technique can boost breast size by only half as much as existing synthetic implants, and slender patients may not have enough fat to spare.

However Dr Yoshimura believes the effect is more natural-looking and should avoid any problems such as the leaking which occurred with older silicone implants.

Doctors can already use fat to create "natural implants", but they can shrink over time because of a lack of blood supply.

The new technique aims to overcome this problem.

Dr Yoshimura said: "I believe that within five years my procedure will be available as plastic surgery and that it will prove very popular."

Similar work is being carried out in the U.S. Dr Jeremy Mao told the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington in 2005 that using stem cells could eliminate the need for extra surgery and produce long-lasting and more shapely implants.

In his tests, scientists at the University of Illinois turned stem cells into fatproducing, or adipose, cells which were put into plastic moulds to create different shapes and sizes of implants.

These were grown in the laboratory and then placed under the skin of laboratory mice.

They were removed four weeks later and found to be still the same shape and size.

Some British plastic surgeons have expressed an interest in using the new technique.

Venkat Ramakrishnan, a specialist in plastic and reconstructive surgery at Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust said: "I'm newly convinced.

"A lot more people have to use it and prove it, but it does seem to have something to it."

Eva Weller-Mithoff, a consultant at Canniesburn Hospital in Glasgow, said the technique could be particularly beneficial to cancer patients who have a mastectomy.

"The most distressing effect of radiotherapy is that the blood vessels shrivel up," she said. "Stem cells can differentiate into new blood vessels which could mean that more fat cells will survive."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=435575&in_page_id=1965

What First Impression Do You Create?

2007-12-22T13:24:48+01:00

Here is something interesting I just found. It's called First Looks and I think it's a novel concept.

The whole idea is that you join and upload a photo of yourself. You also give a few details about the kind of person you are. This profile is then sent to complete strangers who give an appraisal about the first impression you give to them.

This is perhaps not for the fainthearted, but since we are in the looks business, I thought it would be interesting to some.

Here is the link to get started:
http://apps.facebook.com/firstlookz

Good luck, and I hope the news is positive!

Looks Like We Are Getting Heavier!

2007-10-10T14:52:11+02:00

Obese people have generally got bigger in the last decade but thin people have stayed the same, a report has concluded.

The Cancer Research UK study said men's waist circumference increased by 3.48cm and women's by 4.35cms.

It also discovered that the proportion of men and women under 45 who were morbidly obese had doubled over the 10-year period - as did the proportion of women with a Body Mass Index of more than 40.

Professor Jane Wardle, director of Cancer Research UK's health behaviour unit and study leader, said: "We found that weight gain in the population has been unequally distributed.

"Slimmer adults today are almost as slim as their counterparts 10 years ago, but the heaviest people in the population are much heavier than they were 10 years ago."

Prof Wardle said snacks and takeaway foods, combined with sedentary lifestyles had contributed to the results.

Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: "This research adds to the evidence that the UK is in the grip of an obesity epidemic.

"We know that high body weight increases the risk of a number of cancers and it is important we get this message out to as many people as possible."

For the report, experts studied the weight and waist measurements of almost 12,000 men and women in 1993-4.

They then compared these statistics with weight and waist measurements for a similar group of people taken from the Health Survey for England 10 years later.