How long does this procedure typically take? Well one somebody who’s never had anything done to their nose before I would say it could say it could take maybe as short as an hour and a half to maybe two and a half if there’s lots of cartilage additions I need to do. If it’s somebody who’s had 1, 2, 3 Rhinoplasty procedures elsewhere and they’re coming because they would like things that they’re not happy with corrected that can take 2 and a half to 3 hours. It makes it a much more difficult procedure. Can it affect your breathing? Well certainly. I mean the nose has two functions I guess. The most important being breathing. However that’s the one we tend to overlook when we discuss Rhinoplasty surgery because everyone’s concerned with the appearance. And I think it’s key. It’s absolutely key to improve form and function together.
Many times when I do a Rhinoplasty I’ll straighten out a septum or correct some out pouchings inside the nose called turbinates that typically humidify air as they go inside into your lungs. However they can become overexuberant and get really large and obstruct air flow, particularly in an area like Washington D.C. with lots of pollen and lots of allergens.
Please begin by telling us what kind of problems people with large breasts experience? Rocko it’s amazing. Women with large breasts experience pain in their back, their shoulders. Their bra straps will actually groove in and you can get an indentation.
And as far as who’s a typically candidate, who would you say? Rocko I would say that any woman whose large breasts are causing her symptoms of back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, is a candidate for breast reduction, provided they’re in good health. What about men as well? Actually it’s funny that you say that. Male breast reduction is actually the 5th most common cosmetic procedure for men. However the procedure is very different for men than women. For men most of the time it’s just liposuction and removal of the extra fat and glandular tissue and allowing their skin to shrink back so the chest is flat. For women as we’ll see it’s a much more involved procedure.
Is there any discomfort involved in this procedure? Remarkably you’d think it would be painful and in fact I heard one of the female technicians saying oh that looks like it must be painful. In fact it’s not. There is very little pain and discomfort with this after the first 48 hours. Maybe they’ll take some narcotic pain pills initially, but within 48 hours almost all my patients are just taking Tylenol. The breast tissue itself doesn’t have much nerves, and the skin is healed, it’s sealed, it’s sewn together so there’s no real exposed nerve endings. It just is not that painful.
A Tummy Tuck is a common name for improving the shape of your abdomen and torso. Entails removing some skin and fat usually from the abdomen. Sometimes the muscles are tightened. Sometimes liposuction is done of the waist and in the area above the buttocks to really give that nice hour glass type figure. So it basically corrects problems that one has within the abdominal area but not just limited to the frontal side but basically all within that area. All the way around. You want an integrated look. It really depends on what the patient needs, what the patient wants, and what their body allows me to do.
Please tell us what are some of the most common problems that many of us experience with our eyelids. Rocko I think the eyelids break down to three common problems. One there can excess skin hanging on the upper eyelids. Two there can bagginess and puffiness and loose skin of the lower eyelids and three you can get hollows underneath the lower eyelids that make you look even more tired than having just bags alone. And what are the newest advances that can affectively correct those problems? I can’t tell that there are new advances, in other words, there is not a brand new technique that’s different however our way of looking at these problems has changed a lot over the last five to ten years. And the way we approach these problems, I think, is radically different from most plastic surgeons hands.
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