Posts Tagged bad plastic surgery
Why Tara Reid had a Ripply Stomach
Posted by admin in Dr D's Truth on April 1, 2013
Tara Reid’s ripply stomach was an internet phenomenon for years. She had obviously had liposuction. What went wrong?
More likely than not, overzealous liposuction left those marks. This is really irregularity in the fatty layer beneath the skin. In order to maintain a smooth contour to the skin, there needs to be fat between the skin and muscular layer. Preferably, this layer should be even.
Here is an image of a woman that came to the office requesting that I repair her abdomen after a well-known plastic surgeon had performed liposuction:
Her smoking history made surgery ill-advised, therefore I was unable to help her.
The bottom line is that it is best to be conservative in liposuction cases. We don’t want to take all the fat. You need just a bit and this is why.
Best Regards,
John Di Saia MD
Originally posted 2005-05-14 08:47:00.
Fixing Implanted Breasts in the OC
Posted by admin in Dr D's Patients on February 27, 2013
Breast implant surgery does not always go as planned. The reasons vary from patients seeking poor surgical talent at their local $3000 chop shop, smoking too many cigarettes or just plain having bad luck.
Much of this can be fixed or at least improved with additional surgery.
This young lady found me after having had four operations with her prior surgeon at which point he uttered those unforgettable words: “This is as good as it is going to get.”
She had poor scarring partially due to her genetics, but the poor shape and firmness was correctable. She found her way to my practice after a friend with whom I had worked in the past referred her to me. We performed a modified breast lift and implant exchange with capsule removal in a local Orange County surgical center and she achieved a nice improvement.
Fixing Bad Plastic Surgery:
** Get into the best hands you can afford and check into your surgeon’s qualifications before you let him operate upon you. Understand that redos are harder and less predictable than first time surgery.
Best Regards,
John Di Saia MD
Related:
Cosmetic Breast Surgery at Dr D’s Practice Site
Originally posted 2010-10-12 07:30:51.
Reader Laura on “New Advertised Liposuction”
Posted by admin in liposuction pre-op tutorial, Reader Question on February 16, 2012
Reader Laura’s Comment:
The ladies in this story have had a “new” form of lipo instead of a tummy tuck. Their stomachs do look thinner but their skin in wrinkly. Would they have been better served by having a tummy tuck and then lipo? Is it just their age that has their skin looking that way?
Source: dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1215196/
New-5-000-treatment-claims-melt-away-muffin-top.html
VASER liposuction has been around for a while. I have used it and it is effective. The main question with newer lipo technologies is: “Are they worth the added expense and can they increase problems?”
Many of them (VASER included) make it even easier to take out more and more fat. As we have discussed here before of course more fat removal is not always desirable.
The concept of “oversuctioning” has been around far longer than these newer tweaked lipo technologies. It can happen with liposuction in any of its forms as each technique requires a judgment call. When a surgeon over suctions an area it can lead to an increased tendency for the skin sag unattractively making some of these people almost look like prunes. In the UK they are calling it “Turkey Tummy.” The age of the patient and any previous surgery are part of the story making the judgment call harder at times. Of course some patients will not agree to a tummy tuck even if it offers real skin tightening and this might also be part of the problem. I can do the “right” operation but only if the patient allows it.
Best Regards,
John Di Saia MD
Related:
Reader Laura on a UK Plastic Surgery Complications Story
Originally posted 2009-12-30 07:30:54.
Houston and her Plastic Surgery Adventure
Posted by admin in celebrity plastic surgery, celebrity plastic surgery club on September 29, 2011

I “borrowed” this image of before and after from another blog. It shows the adult entertainer who calls herself Houston reportedly before and after facial plastic surgery. It is a sad state of affairs when a woman looks better before plastic surgery than after. We all like to avoid this occurrence.
From the looks of things, she probably had a forehead lift (the brows are raised) with or without upper eyelid surgery. Her hairline may have been raised which some forms of the operation can do. She appears to have had a large amount of lip filler (probably collagen or a hyaluronic acid formulation).
I am unsure at what point she started. She may have had cosmetic surgery prior to the “before” image, but it seems that she may have had too much.
Yes. You can have too much cosmetic surgery. There is a “happy medium” at which improvement has been obtained. Pushing things beyond this point can lead to problems usually in the way of a more unusual or foreign appearance that I call the “over-operated” look.
Many non-adult celebrities get a bit carried away as well with cosmetic surgery and injection therapy. Fortunately, the majority of soft tissue fillers and Botulinum toxin injections have temporary effects.
Best Regards,
John Di Saia MD
Originally posted 2005-05-22 11:16:00.
Most Common Breast Implant Myths
Posted by admin in breast implant pre-op tutorial, Dr D's Truth on July 21, 2011
Breast implant surgery is a hot topic online. Online discussions taint the dialogue however with some myths that distort the truth like a situational comedy. They also scare potential patients. Here are some common ones:
(1) Mold commonly grows in saline-filed breast implants. It doesn’t or I would have seen it. Either that or it is really really uncommon.
(2) The solution to any “bad boobjob” is to make the implants bigger and/or switch to silicone gel implants. This has produced many a client who came to my office to be fixed usually years afterward.
(3) Breast implants can lift a breast making breast lift surgery unnecessary. Talk to Bethenny Frankel about this one. It didn’t work for her and will likely not work for you either.
(4) Breast implant surgery can be entirely “scar free.” This one is just silly. Good plastic surgeons can make scars less apparent, but surgery involves incisions and incisions heal with at least some scar formation.
Breast implant surgery can be a good thing, but you have to do your research and get your expectations in a good place first.
Best Regards,
John Di Saia MD
Cheap Plastic Surgery Leaves Woman With Rock Hard Breasts
Posted by admin in plastic surgery news on December 6, 2010
People undergo cosmetic surgery for a variety of reasons, but they all do it to look better. However, some patients get the opposite result, KPRC Local 2 reported Wednesday. As a professional makeup artist and spa owner, Gina Hern knows firsthand the high cost of beauty. “People come here wanting to be the best that they can be,” Hern said. So, when she decided to get breast implants, she went comparison-shopping only to find the average price was $6,000 to $8,000. “I went online and did some research to find a less expensive way to get what I wanted,” Hern said. She found the best bargain over the border at a clinic in Mexico. Hern got her implants at the rock-bottom price of $2,000. But when she returned home to Houston, the implants turned rock hard.
Source: click2houston.com/health/6842979/detail.html
When you make a run for the border for plastic surgery you are taking a risk. There is a price at times for that which is cheap. And fixing that cheap surgery may be very expensive if it is even possible.
Preventing Bad Plastic Surgery:
** Know what you are seeking – a qualified and skilled surgeon – this might cost you some money, but the “cheapie version” might leave you deformed or worse
Be careful.
Best Regards,
John Di Saia MD
Originally posted 2006-02-17 11:40:00.
Caution with Threadlifts
Posted by admin in Dr D Says No on November 19, 2010
OK. Call me an old “stick in the mud,” but I am not so sure about these “Thread Lifts.” Those that offer the technique will say I am protecting my interests.
Sorry, but I just don’t like taking chances with your face.
The concept is to provide face lift type improvement without the surgery. The method is the placement of a number of funky barbed sutures that hold the face up internally. This is done under local anesthesia in the office.
I will be interested to see how these patients do over the long term. As far as I know there are no patients ten to twenty years out yet. A newly-operated patient was found frightening a mammography tech at my local hospital. It seems that one of the local internists is offering the technique to supplement his income. There may be good outcomes here. The real question is how are the statistics and how difficult might it be to fix one that goes bad?
If board-certified plastic surgeons thought this procedure would be so wonderful, we would offer it as well. A quick perusal of the internet finds the majority of practitioners offering this procedure are not plastic surgeons. We must just want to work too hard I guess.
Perhaps we will just have to wait ten years to see how the patients do long term. I would look at this procedure as an experiment folks.
Best Regards,
John Di Saia MD
Originally posted 2005-07-06 14:58:00.
Former French TV Heart-throbs look Freaky after Plastic Surgery
Posted by admin in celebrity plastic surgery on May 20, 2010
Thirty years ago they were the heart-throbs of French television with their own prime time series on science fiction.
Now Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff look more like the alien life forms they used to report on.
The twin brothers have had so much plastic surgery they are barely recognizable.
Source: dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1279525/Igor–Grichka-Bogdanoff-French-twins-unrecognisable-plastic-surgery.html
These two gents seem to have fallen into the trend of soft tissue fillers and implants as opposed to traditional rejuvenating procedures and look pretty freaky now. They are overfilled faces. It is likely that here we have poor results stemming from too much work using the a poor combination of procedures.
When I see outcomes like these I wonder who did the work and what they were thinking.
Best Regards,
John Di Saia MD
Botched Tummy Tuck? – How to Avoid One.
Posted by admin in tummy tuck pre-op tutorial on November 18, 2009
People contact me occasionally to ask whether they might be the victims of a “bad tummy tuck.” Here is a pre-op and a several week post-op image. I very much doubt that a real plastic surgeon did this:
- Before Surgery
- 3 Weeks Later
When you go to a doctor for a consultation and he comes back with a quotation that is half of the others you are getting, consider that you may be in the presence of a novice. If a non-plastic surgeon says he will fix your hernia only, you aren’t having a tummy tuck, so don’t expect it to look like one.
If you have the wrong surgery or only part of the right surgery, the result might not be entirely fixable later. This lady probably needs an extended tummy tuck and with that maybe she can get to look somewhat normal again. In her first operation, the tissue planes were likely not separated adequately to allow redistribution the skin after repairing the problem on the muscular layer. This looks like much less than a tummy tuck to me.
Preventing Bad Plastic Surgery:
** Know what you are seeking – a qualified and skilled plastic surgeon – when a non-plastic surgeon does the job don’t expect it to look like a good plastic surgeon’s result.
Best Regards,
John Di Saia MD
Reader Laura on a Fake Botox Scam
Posted by admin in bad plastic surgery on September 11, 2009
Reader Question:
Source: newsday.com/ny-plastic-surgery-group-fakes-
it-with-bogus-botox-1.1363307Five doctors, a nurse and an administrator pleaded guilty in court to injecting a non FDA approved Botox like substance (Botulinum Toxin Topic A) without telling their patients. They told the patients that it was the FDA approved Botox and charged the full amount for Botox even though the other substance was cheaper. Is there any way for patients to see warning signs for something like this? With the economy being so bad do you predict that this may be happening more than we are told in the news?
This is a good story showing that practice integrity does not necessarily follow from training qualifications or a nice looking office. Apparently the medical staff of this practice told patients they were receiving Botox Cosmetic when they were not. They were dishonest.
I routinely use Myobloc (Botulinum Toxin B) in my practice, but I never tell patients it is Botox Cosmetic (Botulinum Toxin A.) Myobloc is FDA approved (much as Botox TM was originally) for cervical dystonia and has worked well in my patients. It has been particularly useful for patients who have developed resistance to Botox Cosmetic giving many results when Botox Cosmetic did not.
Best Regards,
John Di Saia MD








