Plastic Surgery’s Believe-It-or-Not Offerings

Bad Plastic Surgery, Plastic Surgery Comments (1)

When you read a lot of plastic surgery news, you sometimes see items that stagger the imagination.

One recent example, believe it or not, is a “plastic surgery” tape that purports to lift sagging eyelids.

Despite hundreds, if not thousands of plastic surgeons, surgically lifting about 241,000 eyelids in 2007, the ad says all you really have to do is tape up your drooping flesh before bedtime and – presto! No sagging! Or so they would have you believe. (Read more about eyelid surgery tape. But keep your tongue in cheek!)

Same alleged treatment for face lifts.

The ad says why go through all that surgery, when you can buy plastic surgery tape and just tape your face up every night until you have a younger  look?  Hint: Don’t hold your breath! (If we were writing the ad, we would include some great deals on some nice swamp land in Florida and  maybe a famous bridge in Brooklyn that’s for sale – real cheap!)

How about drinkable collagen? As you probably know, collagen is the body’s natural protein that keeps skin looking younger and more refreshed. But a new product allows you to skip surgery and drink your collagen instead. True? Yes. Workable? You decide.

Next up: With Smartphone, doctors reinvent the house call. No, that’s not a headline from a supermarket tabloid. The Seattle Times reported how some patients held a cell phone camera up to an injured patient to show a distant doctor what treatment was needed. (More about iPhone medicine.)

Note: it may be many, many years – if ever — before a plastic surgeon can tell you about a facelift or rhinoplasty without first seeing the real you in person.

Like Botox? Are you also low income and want to see Brazil? We don’t know if food stamps are available there for the poor, but the Brazilian Society of Esthetic Medicine offers free Botox injections, along with some laser hair and acne removal, chemical skin peels and varicose vein treatments. (More about plastic surgery for the disadvantaged in the land of Ipanema.)

We sure wish we had known about the next item before seeing a doctor for wart removal. The University of Minnesota studied an old, non-medical cure for wart removal: using duct tape. Alas, it only worked 21 percent of the time. But another study, printed in the American Family Physician, using clear duct tape without rubber, found it worked in 85% of child and adult cases.

Believe it or not?

admin @ April 10, 2009