May 16th, 2012
By Corina Knoll, Los Angeles Times May 15, 2012
Adali Gutierrez rarely mentioned his scarred and disfigured chin. He kept quiet about the mangled lower lip that twisted when he talked.
A 21-year-old raising four orphaned siblings had bigger worries.
Today, however, he speaks without hesitation. A plastic surgeon has fashioned him a new lip and smoothed over the divots in his skin. Faded are the lesions that reminded him constantly of the night his parents were gunned down in Mexico.
It was January 2010. Maria and Guillermo Sr. had arrived at a police station to bail out Adali, who had been stopped for drunk driving. The same night, a drug cartel attacked the station with bullets and grenades. Shrapnel tore through Adali’s face and lung. His parents were buried before he fully regained consciousness.
Wanting to keep his brothers and sisters together, he moved them into a two-bedroom El Monte apartment and took a job that paid $8 an hour.
After their story was published last November in The Times, the Gutierrez family found itself thrust into the spotlight. Phone calls, emails and letters poured in to the newspaper by the hundreds, all from people wanting to help. “It isn’t much, but it’s all I have,” wrote one woman who sent $5.
Adali; Guillermo, 19; Yasmin, 18; Adrian, 16; and Roxanna, 5, were offered gift cards, toys, furniture, rent payments, laptops, trips to the nail salon, grief counseling sessions — and words of encouragement.
“What strength it must take to know you are now mom and dad to your brothers and sisters,” wrote a Palmdale woman who wanted to donate money. “Let this not be a story that grows old and tired and forgotten about.”
A man from Hacienda Heights asked to “adopt” the family for the holidays. “I have lost $2 million in net worth the last three years and I thought my life was in a shambles,” he wrote. “After reading your story I realized that my wife and I have our health, family and friends, a home, new jobs, and a good future ahead of us.”
People dropped by the San Gabriel Valley Conservation Corps, the nonprofit where Adali worked, and asked to meet the young man from the story. The corps set up a fund for the family and it quickly grew to more than $9,000.
In late December, a loading truck laden with wrapped gifts pulled up to the Gutierrezes’ apartment.
“Which ones are for them?” a family friend asked. “All of them,” the driver said.
Roxanna giggled on Christmas morning as she tore off paper and ribbons to find dolls, stuffed animals, dresses and books. The boys received a Nintendo Wii and clothing. A woman who found out Adrian is a Raiders fan sent a genuine NFL jacket with the logo of the Oakland team.
Yasmin accumulated toiletries, nail polish, hair straighteners and makeup. She appreciated the gifts, but the attention made her uncomfortable. Her classmates and teachers had not known her history but now inquired about it. She liked it better when mothers and grandmothers sent heartfelt letters of support.
Adali was overwhelmed by the riches. He wasn’t used to handouts. But he found that people were friendly and well-meaning. And he reveled in watching Roxanna play with her giant stack of toys.
The big brother admits he indulges the kindergartner, who commands the TV remote at all times. He recently took her to Disneyland, where he was surprised to find that churros cost $3.50. He bought her one anyway.
“I spoil her because I feel bad,” he said. “Because I think I’m the one who did it.”
The night his parents were shot, Adali had been in Lazaro Cardenas, a small port city in the Mexican state of Michoacan, celebrating his 19th birthday.
May 9th, 2012
April 24th, 2012
April 23rd, 2012
Teresa Giudice’s cookbook catastrophe was nearly upstaged by another cast member’s dramatic new look on the season four premiere of Real Housewives of New Jersey Sunday night.
Jacqueline Laurita’s daughter Ashlee (she changed the spelling of her name from Ashley last year) Holmes was almost unrecognizable thanks to a major hair color change and enhanced facial features.
In addition to going from brunette to light blonde and sporting super tanned skin, the 20-year-old, who got a nose job in 2010, significantly plumped up her lips.
While most viewers were seeing Holmes’ altered appearance for the first time Sunday night, she actually debuted her makeover on Watch What Happen Live back in May 2011 while RHONJ was taping.
“Out of curiosity, are your lips bigger?” Andy Cohen asked before Holmes covered her mouth with her hand. “Um, I got a little bit of Juvederm in them,” she replied, referencing the popular injectable filler. “People would always say that when I smile, my top lip would disappear, so I tried it but I’m not a fan to be honest.”
Ever the diplomat, Cohen complimented her larger pout. “You actually look a little Angelina-esque,”
Holmes moved to Los Angeles to work on her clothing line last August. “I can’t believe I’m moving tomorrow…….. I have 85412554326 different feelings right now lol #lalaland here i come,” she announced via Twitter at the time, later adding “been here for a total of 10minutes and i already LOVE my new home! #LA !!!!”
This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com
April 10th, 2012
Debra Haining lay in a hospital bed at Massachusetts General Hospital, awaiting surgery. Both eyelids were colored purple, and blue dots were drawn on her forehead, including one on each temple, and one above her left eye.The dots indicated the location where she feels the migraine, the trigger points, where the pain strikes. She is 57 years old and says that she never had a headache until five years ago, when she woke up feeling as if she’d been shot through the head.
She was forced to spend nearly every day in bed with the curtains drawn. She could not tolerate light, smell, or sound. Typically she rose only to see her 12-year-old son off to school in the morning and in the afternoon when he returned. Until recently, she had an ice pack to her head and could not drive a car.
A half-dozen medications, four different pain clinics, a variety of headache cocktails and injections, and numerous neurologists didn’t provide relief. Haining, who lives in Pawtucket, R.I., searched the Internet until she found Dr. W.G. (Jay) Austen Jr., of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital.
He operated on her last month to relieve the pressure on the nerves believed to cause the pain in what is still a relatively new procedure.
An estimated 36 million people, or 10 percent of the US population, suffer from migraine, according to Cathy Glaser of the Migraine Research Foundation, a New York-based national organization that raises money for research and provides informational resources to sufferers. Three times as many women as men are afflicted.
Migraine is not merely a headache, but a constellation of neurological symptoms that may include nausea and visual disturbances.
The nerve decompression procedure is one of at least five new migraine surgeries, ranging from closing a hole in the heart to implanting electrodes to stimulate the nerves, Glaser says. These surgeries are only for “the very worst cases,” she says, the people who have already tried pharmaceutical and behavioral therapies. “The truly desperate.”
Haining says she was tired of doctors who suggested that she learn to accept a lifetime of pain, pills, and shots, and was relieved to find a doctor who offered to treat the cause of the migraine and not just the symptoms. “When you are debilitated and life comes to a halt, you are willing to try what’s out there.’’
In the operating room at Mass. General, Austen began surgery on Haining by making an incision in one of her eyelids in what would appear to be a routine blepharoplasty, a cosmetic surgery known as an “eyelid lift.”
Haining would benefit cosmetically by removal of this globular flat that settles into each eyelid with age. But the point, Austen says, is that this particular procedure provides “easy access” to the critical sensory nerves around her eyes that he believes were causing migraine pain. Continued…
April 3rd, 2012
NEWPORT BEACH, CA, Apr 03, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Recently featured in several articles for OC Weekly and Your Beauty Industry, Orange County plastic surgeon Dr. Semira Bayati says ear surgery and earlobe repair has become a popular procedure at her practice. As a result of heavy earrings and natural aging, Dr. Bayati says more and more patients are coming to her in hopes of restoring the vibrancy and elasticity of their ears.
Ear surgery is a cosmetic enhancement procedure designed to reduce wrinkles and sagging in a patient’s earlobes that has become particularly popular in the field of aesthetic surgery. Receiving attention from a detailed presentation during a recent conference for the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (BAAPS), a growing number of patients are requesting procedures to tighten their earlobes and rejuvenate the skin on their ears, according to Dr. Bayati. At her center for plastic surgery in Newport Beach, Dr. Bayati says the procedure has become so popular, many have begun to nickname the treatment a “lobe job,” after the shorthand slang for breast augmentations known as a “boob job.” As people age, she says their ears begin to droop and sag naturally, an occurrence which is only compounded by the wear and tear of heavy earrings or gauged earlobes.
Much in the way a Newport Beach breast lift can enhance the fullness and perkiness of a patient’s breasts, Dr. Bayati says earlobe surgery tightens and gives a more youthful appearance to one’s ears. She says her practice offers several traditional treatments for repairing earlobes that have been torn or stretched due to natural aging or accidental tearing of one’s ears. Using injectable fillers, Dr. Bayati says surgeons can rejuvenate a deflated earlobe and smooth out wrinkles and excessive skin. She says ear surgery in Orange County can also be performed by closing the wound or gap surgically, redistributing tissue, and reshaping skin to match natural ear contours.
Whether patients are looking to enhance the appearance of their ears and reduce signs of aging or correct a torn earlobe from accidental damage, Dr. Bayati says she strongly urges patients to seek the expertise and consultation of a board-certified plastic surgeon. She says patients who take the time to research their surgeon extensively will benefit from the skilled hands and experience in restoring youth to their appearance.
Read more
March 22nd, 2012
Just Announced: Dr. Admire Wins Phoenix Magazine’s Top Doc 2012 Award 4 Out of the Last 5 Years! The top physicians were voted on by a peer-review survey, 5,000 to be exact and ranked accordingly. Congrats again to our favorite doctor!
March 15th, 2012
“Boob Jobs. Same Day Surgery. Get More, Pay Less!”
Ads like this one, displayed at bus stops in London in late 2011, will be banned in the UK if a new campaign spearheaded by women’s rights advocates there succeeds. This week UK Feminista, a nonprofit dedicated to gaining equality for women, and a group of prominent plastic surgeons issued a petition calling on the government to make cosmetic surgery ads illegal. Feminista founder Kat Banyard posted an Op-Ed in The Independent,, and the groups jointly published an open letter in The Guardian that made three main arguments: The ads present a public health risk because they “recklessly trivialize invasive surgical procedures;” they undermine body confidence and their prevalence makes them impossible to avoid. While the risks of certain elective procedures have been well-documented (see the public outcry over the death of Kanye West’s mother following cosmetic surgery) and the aesthetic they promote called into question (who can forget a then-23-year-old Heidi Montag’s ten procedures in a single day?), whether or not the government should intervene in advertising for plastic surgery is up for debate.
The letter published in The Guardian suggests that making plastic surgery ads illegal would be equivalent to existing legislation that prohibits advertising prescription drugs to the public in the UK. 
A less extreme option might involve allowing the ads but requiring a government agency’s oversight and forcing advertisers to include a warning about the risks. In the United States, one of only two countries in the world where advertising prescription drugs directly to the public is legal, the FDA polices ads for accuracy and requires that the most significant potential side effects (though not all) be named.
But Feminsta argues that it’s not just the content of the ads that’s problematic; the real damage may be in the ad placement. According to The Guardian, a 2011 survey by UK Feminista of four women’s magazines — publications filled with articles supposedly encouraging positive body image and self confidence — found that between January and June, Cosmopolitan featured 32 ads for plastic surgery, Marie Claire featured 16, Elle 12, and Vogue 10.
Feminista and the surgeons allied with them also claim that the ads are ubiquitous — their letter argues “people have no choice but to be exposed to the aggressive marketing tactics of some cosmetic clinics, whether they be in public spaces, in magazines, on the internet or on TV. So these adverts affect everyone, not just individuals already considering surgery.”
But Dr. Robert Lefever, a physician in the UK, argues that this attack on private businesses advertising their services unfairly robs patients of the agency to make their own decisions. He wrote in The Daily Mail: “patients, claiming the right to choose what they want, also have a responsibility to choose wisely. These patients should consult their own doctors first of all.” Taking a stance that seemed to embrace FDA-style regulation of cosmetic surgery ads, he wrote:
My personal belief is that all doctors and clinics should be free to continue to advertise their services. But this belief comes with two major caveats. They should only be allowed to do so provided that they stay within the code of practice of the Advertising Standards Authority and they should be made to pay for the consequences of unreliability.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/15/plastic-surgery-should-ad_n_1348998.html
February 22nd, 2012
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Wondering how young you’ll look after that face lift? Now there’s a study to help you out.
Researchers reported this week that plastic surgery procedures took an average of seven years off patients’ appearance, with more extensive facial surgeries turning the clock back farther.
They said that while the goal of surgery is to restore a more youthful yet natural appearance, doctors haven’t had the data to provide a good estimate to their patients of just how much younger they’ll look after face lifts, forehead lifts and eyelid work.
Still, “it’s not the numbers that are important so much as the trend,” said Dr. Nitin Chauhan from the University of Toronto, who worked on the study.
“Everybody has different objectives in mind (for surgery), and everybody has a different pre-operative state,” he told Reuters Health.
The results follow another recent study, from some of the same researchers, which found that nose jobs come with a side benefit of taking a year or two off patients’ perceived age (see Reuters Health story of January 19, 2012).
For the current report, Chauhan and his colleagues recruited 40 medical students to evaluate the “before” and “after” photos of 60 people they’d operated on with face lifts, neck lifts and additional procedures.
Those patients, mostly women, were between 45 and 72 years old when they got cosmetic surgery.
Before their procedures, the raters — who evaluated different sets of photos and looked at them in random order — estimated that patients were a year or two younger than their actual age. In the after shots, however, they pegged them at nine years younger than they really were.
The perceived age benefit was larger the more procedures patients had done, Chauhan’s team reported in the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery.
Getting only a face and neck lift turned the clock back 5.7 years, on average, based on the photo assessments. That compared to 7.5 years for patients who had eyelid work in addition to neck and face lifts, and 8.4 years for those who got forehead lifts on top of the other procedures.
Combined, patients looked an average of 7.2 years younger post-surgery.
Dr. Anthony Sclafani, a facial plastic surgeon at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, said that patients shouldn’t necessarily choose to get extra procedures done based on the new findings.
“The group that got the most benefit was the group that had more done. That’s somewhat intuitive,” he told Reuters Health. “But the underlying argument and realization should be, you did more because these people needed more. They looked more tired, they looked older.”
COSTS, COMPLICATIONS
According to The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, facelifts typically run for close to $7,000 and eyelid work and forehead lifts for about $3,000 each.
Possible complications include bleeding, infection and the typical risks associated with going under anesthesia — as well as the chance of not liking the way your face turns out. But serious complications are rare, researchers said.
One of the study’s authors is a consultant for Allergan, the pharmaceutical company that makes Botox.
Researchers said that as well as looking younger, the goal of facial plastic surgery is also to make people look generally healthier, happier and more refreshed. And often, that’s more important than perceived age itself.
“I would never tell somebody who’s 60 years old, ‘Go back and look at a picture of you from when you’re 52,’” said Sclafani, who wasn’t involved in the new study.
“You’re going to look better; you’re going to be more rested. The exact number, I wouldn’t get too hung up about.”
Chauhan said that surgery isn’t the answer for everyone, and he also recommends eating a healthy diet, getting enough exercise and avoiding sun exposure to people seeking a more youthful appearance.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/zEjqMd Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, online February 20, 2012.
February 18th, 2012
Whitney Houston was refused plastic surgery when she failed a routine medical examination — just two weeks before her death, RadarOnline reported.
The plastic surgeon, Dr. Marc Mani, declined to perform a facelift on the “I Will Always Love You” singer when she failed a medical check for her heart, lung and liver, a source told the gossip site.
“She was concerned about her appearance and wanted a facelift,” the source said.
Houston was found dead in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton hotel last Saturday.
The surgeon refused to comment on the claims citing federal medical privacy laws.
The cause of death is yet to be determined pending toxicology tests but preliminary results revealed sedatives were found in the star’s system. Houston’s funeral takes place Saturday.
Prescription pill bottles of Xanax, Lorazepam, Valium and others were also said to be found by detectives.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2012/02/17/plastic-surgeon-refused-to-treat-whitney-houston-weeks-before-her-death-report/#ixzz1ml3opNdH
By Corina Knoll, Los Angeles Times May 15, 2012
