I know these insider secrets for one of the following reasons:
- I was married to a plastic surgeon for over ten years
- A lot of my clients are plastic surgeons
- I have had quite a lot of “work” done on myself
- All of the above
- None of the above
So here are those dirty little secrets, in no particular order
And please note, I’m not saying they apply to all plastic surgeons, of course — how could I? PFFT! Like I know ALL of them (lol)!
1. If you’re getting liposuction, the surgeon (and OR techs) will make fun of how fat you are and call you names when you are safely sedated. If, by chance, you are only partially under and hear a bit of this, well, what are you going to do? They’ve got the cannula, not you.
2. There will be top hits or Pandora Radio (or whatever music the Doc—aka the God—prefers) playing in the OR suite because, hey, who wants gloom and doom when a human being is unconscious and laid out on the table, ready to be carved up? Lighten up already. Sheesh.
3. If you get a nose job (rhinoplasty), it will often be obvious you had it done since it will not look truly natural nor “go with” the rest of your God-given face. Not everybody looks good with a nose like Gidget’s. And if you are old enough to remember Gidget and loved the movies and sitcom series, you are already too old for plastic surgery. Go ahead and kick yourself for thinking about it too long.
4. Most surgeons who work on patients for aesthetic (as opposed to life-saving or curative reasons) chitchat and gossip through much of the surgical procedure. Unless, of course, something goes seriously wrong with the procedure (AKA “an unfavourable result”), in which case, it’s a five-alarm fire with all hands on deck!
5. If you are a woman who gets breast implants, they will always feel hideously heavy, and men you “date” will be transfixed by them and want to fondle and play with them. I can’t speak to a man’s experience with pec implants (which I assume are possible) since I am not a man and do not know any such men.
6. You will constantly worry that your breast implants will explode, implode, disintegrate, or leak, or that they might one day be discovered to cause cancer. The ones (someone I know) had implanted were recalled for this reason. But by then, this person had already had them removed because she was sick and tired of men wanting to ogle, fondle or play with them. “Hello…my eyes are up here!”
7. Eventually, you will get sick and tired of trying to find nice (or any) bras in a Double or Triple D size (even in LA, if you can believe it) and will have to spend more money for surgical breast ex-plants.
8. If you want a facelift, start thinking about it; say, in your mid-to-late forties, don’t wait until your sixties or beyond. You will look like a bobblehead doll because your tight, plump, and shiny head will not align with your scrawny slightly-stooped, and wrinkled body. It will be obvious you had a facelift and that you waited too long to get it done. Many people are saying (I love parroting Trump, don’t you?) that the early to mid-fifties is the optimal time to get it done.
9. Stop with Botox and other injectables already! They will hold you for a few years, but not as long as you hope. Plus, Botox is made from a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. In large amounts, this can cause botulism that attacks the body’s nerves and causes difficulty breathing, muscle paralysis, and even death. Also, alarmingly, it seems that practically anyone can shoot you up these days, from ENT (ear, nose, and throat) docs, ophthalmologists, dentists, and other people with no medical training at all. So don’t let just anyone shoot your face up with toxins. At least work with a professional.
10. If you get a full facelift or better, a face and neck lift (the “works”), your head will hurt like hell, and you won’t be able to go outside without carrying a parasol and looking like Michael Jackson only weirder. Count on a good three weeks holed up inside. Unless you live in LA, since walking around and about with a shiny, red, bruised, and swollen face and a baseball cap pulled over your eyes is TOTALLY NORMAL.
11. There are no refunds if you end up with what is known in the profession as “an unfavourable result.” Still, no doc who plans to stay in business wants all the bad press from messed-up people telling the world about the lousy doc who “did this” to them and charged a fortune for it. The surgeon won’t be happy, of course, but will work on you to improve your “results” for some reduced fee or possibly for nothing if they messed up badly enough.
12. The bottom line (and this NOT ONLY applies to people who get butt lifts or butt implants, since that would be a terrible word-play, ugh!) is the only line that all plastic surgeons are thrilled to have you go around saying:
“It is totally worth it, so go for it!”
