Sunday, November 25, 2012

Breast Augmentation and Lift to Restore Your Pre-Baby Body

Pregnancy and nursing can have a big impact on women’s bodies. Our San Diego breast augmentation patients who have had children often choose to combine their procedure with a breast lift. The combination procedure can help restore your body back to its pre-baby look, or even better!

Breast Changes during Pregnancy

During pregnancy, the breasts often get larger. This rapid growth during such a short period causes the skin and tissue to stretch dramatically. Even if larger breasts aren’t experienced during the pregnancy itself, the nursing process will cause milk to fill the breasts. During nursing, the breasts fluctuate in size according to the milk levels within.

Restoring Your Breasts

For many moms in San Diego, breast augmentation combined with a breast lift is the perfect combination to restore lift and volume to breasts following pregnancy and nursing. While breasts may be fuller during that time period, they often lose resilience once the baby is weaned. The appearance of the breasts may be flatter, and the placement may fall as well.

A breast lift can restore your figure back to a youthful placement. Often, women may think augmentation is the answer after pregnancy, when in reality all the needed volume is there... it’s just in the wrong place. Other women may decide that it’s time to give a boost to their pre-pregnancy breast size with augmentation. Combining procedures is very common, and the perfect way to treat yourself to a full-profile makeover.
Raising kids is hard work, and you deserve to reward yourself, and your body, with procedures that will help you feel and look your very best.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Tummy Tucks in San Diego: Understanding the Risks

As with any surgical procedure, a tummy tuck procedure carries some risks of complications. And, since abdominoplasty is one of the more complex cosmetic procedures, it carries different risks than a less invasive surgery. Although we follow rigorous protocols to make tummy tucks at our San Diego practice as safe as possible, it’s still a good idea to familiarize yourself with the possible complications.
Possible Complications
• There is always the chance of an adverse reaction to anesthesia.
• The level of pain experienced following a tummy tuck for our San Diego patients varies depending on many factors, including the extent of surgery and an individual's pain tolerance. If muscles were re-tightened, pain can be significant for the first day or two.
• The surgical site may develop numbness, nerve damage or other changes in skin sensation.
• Unfavorable side effects, such as bleeding, infection and fluid accumulation, may occur.
• Internal blood clots may form after surgery.
• Results may be less than optimal, such as unattractive scarring, asymmetry, skin looseness or other suboptimal aesthetics. In this case, revisionary surgery may be necessary to correct these issues.
A Safer Surgery
It’s important to keep in mind that severe complications are relatively rare following abdominoplasty. Additionally, many of these potential risks are mitigated by following the pre- and post-surgical instructions of your surgeon, and taking any medical advice to heart. Although every surgery has the potential for complications, it’s important to weigh the risks against the desired outcome of your procedure to decide whether a tummy tuck is right for you.

Monday, November 19, 2012

Top Questions to Ask at Your San Diego Liposuction Consult

Before your San Diego Liposuction procedure, you should have a consultation with the surgeon to discuss your concerns and ideal outcome. Before this pre-op appointment, it’s a good idea to have several questions ready to ask your surgeon.

What type of board certifications do you hold?
Knowing your surgeon’s qualifications is a key element in determining training, experience and ability. Even more straightforward procedures such as liposuction will turn out better from a practitioner with more experience and a thorough background in plastic surgery.

How often do you perform this type of liposuction?
You definitely want a surgeon who has a lot of experience performing your specific procedure. It takes an experienced eye to know exactly how to sculpt the body in order to deliver the results you want.

Do you have any special instructions for me?
Our San Diego liposuction patients receive detailed pre- and post-operative instructions so they know how to prepare beforehand and what to expect after surgery. Be sure to ask ahead of time to get these resources from your surgeon.

What’s the bottom line, financially?
Ask up front what the total cost of your liposuction procedure will be. You should have an idea of the average cost in your area before asking this question in order to gauge whether the estimate is too low or too high.

Although these questions are among the most common and should help you get started, be sure to take some time to write down any more concerns you would like addressed prior to your procedure. Above all, you should feel comfortable and confident moving forward with your choice of surgeon and have a good idea of what to expect.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

How Smoking Can Affect the Results of Your Plastic Surgery in San Diego

We all know that smoking is bad for our general health, but did you know it can have a negative impact on the results of your plastic surgery as well? San Diego residents who smoke put themselves and their bodies at greater risk of infection following surgery, and the recovery time after a procedure is extended.

Impact of Smoking

When you smoke, the amount of oxygen in the blood is impaired. Since healing tissue requires proper oxygenation, smoking causes a slower healing response. The reduced oxygen levels can cause a slower immune system response to any potential infection as well. This combination of factors may lead to very poor wound healing.

Additionally, the nicotine that enters the body when smoking causes blood vessels to constrict. Constricted blood vessels mean less blood is getting to the wound following surgery. Adequate blood flow is essential to keeping skin alive, and this is especially important in the case of lifted skin. Without enough blood to keep the area viable, the skin will die and slough off, often causing permanent scars in the process. Since this is caused by nicotine, even quitting aids such as nicotine gum or patches should be avoided.

For Optimum Surgery

For the best possible surgery results, smokers should quit any nicotine intake at least four weeks prior to their plastic surgery in San Diego. Studies indicate that smokers who have not smoked in four weeks have the equivalent circulatory function and blood oxygen levels as nonsmokers. Quit not just as a favor for yourself and those around you, but to ensure the optimum outcome for your cosmetic procedure.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Combining La Jolla Breast Augmentation and Liposuction

Combining Breast Augmentation and Liposuction

All across La Jolla, breast augmentation patients are opting to get liposuction at the same time as their breast enhancement procedure. These two procedures are very complementary, and having both done at the same time can lead to improved results overall.

Working Together

Breast augmentation by itself can lead to a dramatic change in appearance, even when the implant size is relatively modest. The shape and size of the breasts by themselves are improved of course, but the really noticeable difference comes in the confidence level of patients following the procedure. They say that self-confidence is the single most attractive quality anyone can have, and those words really hold true in this case.

Breast Augmentation is a procedure which lends itself well to being performed in combination with additional procedures, and one of the most common to include is liposuction. Although they may not seem related, liposuction and breast augmentation can complement each other well.br> Liposuction helps to sculpt the body in targeted areas and slim them down. This can help to showcase a breast augmentation result. For example, if abdominal lipo is performed along with breast augmentation, the result will be a trim waist offset by firmer, fuller breasts. The size of the breasts will make the waist look smaller by comparison, and a compact waist will provide an appealing framework for full breasts.

At Alexander Cosmetic Surgery in San Diego, breast augmentation and liposuction are a winning combination for many of our patients.