Plastic Surgery-The Male Factor

Man running
Exercise is hard work

For the last eight years or so, I, as one of the foremost cosmetic injection experts in Beverly Hills, have noticed an increasing number of men seeking aesthetic improvement outside of diet and exercise. However, I see this growth as less a trend and more of a real shift in the industry.

This growth is spurred on by society’s reliance on visual rather than written communication and its unabashed obsession with youth and beauty over old-fashioned wisdom and experience. The eruption of social media, including Instagram and the like, has only heightened the problem. It has awakened our once dormant  narcissism into the self-perpetuating collective contagion that it is today. 

Consequently, there is less social stigma for men to seek out ways to better their appearance in this highly competitive world. In 2018, more aesthetic technologies are finally delivering on their promises to reduce wrinkles, firm faces, reverse atrophy and sculpt bodies without hair. The armamentarium used includes Botox, Jeuveau( or #Newtox), Juvederm, Vollure, Restylane, Radiesse,Voluma, Bellafill, IP, laser hair removal and other lasers to treat brown discoloration, and red patches. Men are not only seeking out ways to keep themselves looking young and competitive but also non-surgical ways to actually enhance their features; these include filler/liquid nosejobs (rhinoplasties), cheek and chin augmentations and jawline defining and even laser induced fat burning with SculpSure..

All done with the expert hands of a board certified plastic surgeon or his personally trained expert nurse injectors (such as Katherine Braun, R.N. helming The Haworth Institute’s own medispa, Self-Centered Aesthetics™), results which are both significant and, most importantly, natural.  This is ideal for men wanting their appearance to be on point in order to compliment their skill set at work.

No cutting, no stitches, less recovery, less expense- what’s there not to like for those men who simply want to look good with minimal expense and time? 

Delta Goodrem may have had a nose job…

The Born To Try singer, Delta Goodrem, may have invested in some cosmetic tweaks over the years. Dr. Haworth told Daily Mail Australia on Monday he has a ‘strong hunch’ that Delta may have undergone a rhinoplasty, and may have also had filler injected into her cheeks and lips. The Beverly Hills plastic surgeon believes the tip of her nose is likely evidence that she has had cosmetic surgery.

Delta GoodremDr. Haworth claimed: ‘Certain angles maybe more revealing than others, but I have a strong hunch she had undergone a rhinoplasty or nose job in the past because the shape of her tip is more demarcated from the rest of her nose while her bridge is noticeably narrowed.’ He also believes she may have indulged in some other non-surgical cosmetic procedures. ‘I find it apparent that both her cheekbones and her lips have been enhanced with a temporary filler, most likely of a hyaluronic acid variety such as Juvéderm or Restylane’ he told Daily Mail Australia.

Original Article

The Subtle Beauty of Elle Macpherson

Elle Macpherson, has been an advocate of natural beauty, crediting an active lifestyle and a plant-based diet as the secrets behind her age-defying appearance. Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr Randal Haworth, believes that Elle may have also undergone a few cosmetic procedures to maintain her effortless beauty over the years. Dr Haworth stated: ‘The plan is simple when maintaining the beauty of an already beautiful woman. Elle’s genetic blueprint is flawless, therefore a plastic surgeon would have to follow the plan to a “T”, never veering away from her natural features.’

Dr Haworth believes that Elle may have had a subtle rhinoplasty in her thirties, resulting in ‘a squared nasal tip flanked by vertical grooves extending down to her nostril rims’. Dr Haworth also claims that she may have gone under the needle to enhance her already-striking visage. ‘Her lips are fuller in a subtle way, indicating she may have had them plumped with an off-the-shelf filler such as Juvéderm,’ he claimed. ‘These are some of the type of subtle “tweaks” that may have helped help Elle Macpherson radiate her natural beauty in a casual yet confident manner,’ he surmised.

Elle has made no secret of her laissez-faire approach to beauty and aging, telling This Morning in June that she is proud of her natural look. In 2016, Elle admitted PEOPLE magazine that she had played around with cosmetic procedures to fight wrinkles.

Original Article

Rebecca Judd’s Beauty Secrets Revealed by Dr. Haworth

Rebecca Judd, is known for her glamorous and striking appearance. The Melbourne socialite has always denied plastic surgery rumors, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon claims her flawless visage is far from natural. Dr. Randal Haworth said before and after photos suggest the Postcards presenter may have had ‘cosmetic fillers’ or a ‘fat transfer’ at some point.

Rebecca Judd Facelift

‘Earlier, her eyes were deep set because they were surrounded by noticeable hollowing,’ Dr. Haworth said referring to photos of Bec from more than 10 years ago. ‘My most age-defying patients who make looking beautiful as effortless as breathing are the ones who work at it the hardest.’ Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Bec for comment. In 2013, the mother-of-four acknowledged that she invests ‘a lot of time, effort and cash’ into her appearance and said she gets ‘shocking eye bags.’ She previously credited Melbourne skin clinic Liberty Belle for her glowing skin and gets everything from exfoliation to laser treatments. In 2008, Bec, who is the wife of former AFL star Chris, denied plastic surgery rumours.

Original Article

Do Non-surgical Treatments Help Maintain Megan Gale’s Youthful Complexion?

Megan GaleMegan Gale, has long been an advocate for aging gracefully, speaking openly about her views on plastic surgery and why she has chosen not to go under the knife. Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Dr. Randal Haworth has weighed in on Megan’s age-defying appearance. ‘I understand Megan has denied “going under the knife” and, based solely on her photographs, I tend to believe her,’ Dr. Haworth told Daily Mail Australia this week.

Dr. Haworth, who has not treated Megan himself, described several small, non-surgical procedures she may have undergone to maintain her supermodel look. Haworth also believes that Megan may have had some Botox ‘here and there’ to subtly smooth out her crow’s feet. Megan has spoken candidly about her attitudes toward cosmetic work in the past. In 2016 she told New Idea in 2016 that she would never consider surgery as her former AFL star partner Shaun Hampson, 30, would ‘kill her’.

Megan, who previously dated radio personality Andy Lee, is one of Australia’s most successful fashion exports. Throughout her career, she has graced the covers of countless magazines, including Marie Claire, InStyle, and GQ Australia.

Original Article

Self-Centered Aesthetics™

Embracing Artistry

By Inga Hansen

Photography by Cory Sorensen

Plastic surgeon Randal Haworth, MD, is taking the next step in his career with the launch of a stylish, comprehensive aesthetic care facility.

Randal Haworth, MD, made a name for himself in aesthetics in the early 2000s when he joined Fox television’s reality show, “The Swan.” On the program, he was part of a team of plastic surgeons, stylists and makeup artists who dramatically transformed participants’ appearances, Earlier this year, he transformed his own Beverly Hills, California-based practice when he moved to a new, custom-designed facility that incorporates a full range of aesthetic services—from facials and nutritional services to fillers, lasers and surgical procedures.

Dr. Haworth’s design philosophy for the new Haworth Institute was nature meets high-tech.

“It’s a beautiful place, and all our services are under one roof—the surgical center, my clinic and our new noninvasive center, Self Centered Aesthetics,” says Dr. Haworth. “Patients always asked us, ‘What else can you do?’ ‘How do I maintain this?’ It just doesn’t make sense nowadays not to offer the full-range of aesthetic treatments.”

In addition to laser treatments and injectables performed by Dr. Haworth and his R.N., celebrity esthetician John Tew performs signature facials and naturopathic doctor Matea Polisoto, who goes by “Dr. Matea,” offers IV therapy and nutrition counseling. “Like John, she has a very big following in Beverly Hills and beyond,” says Dr. Haworth. “She is involved with IV therapy, which helps augment the pre- and postoperative surgical experience, and optimizes healing.

“The people working with me are just as important as the surgeon—it’s all about having a team,” he says.

The Frustrated Artist

Born in Los Angeles and educated in England, Dr. Haworth has a somewhat unusual background for a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. “My dad was English and spent World War Il in London selling bootleg whiskey during the Blitzkrieg. My mother and her family lived in Holland during the German occupation,” he says.

Following the war, both of his parents immigrated to the United States seeking opportunities, of which there were few in post-war Europe. “They met, and I was born in Los Angeles. But my dad always wanted me to be in England eventually,” says Dr. Haworth.

When he was 9 years old, he and his parents drove to Central America and boarded a cargo ship to England. During his school years in London, Dr. Haworth became enamored with the arts. “l always drew—and I was very good at a young age. In University I joined band. I was really into the arts, and that’s what I wanted to pursue,” he says. “But my parents, being war babies, wanted a doctor in the family and I was their only child.”

During a road trip prior to his final year at the university, he shared his goals with his parents. “We were in a VW bus and they said, ‘We’ll disown you if you become an artist. Make your decision’—it was really bizarre,” he says. His mind flashed back to a BBC interview of Kurt Wagner, MD, he had seen when he was 13. “l said, ‘Then I’ll be a plastic surgeon,’ having no idea what was involved in that.”

He came back to the U.S. and enrolled in medical school at the University of Southern California. Following graduation, he completed a five-year general surgery residency at Cornell Medical Center in New York. Dr. Haworth made his way back to the West coast for his plastic surgery residency at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“After my residency, I had no money so I was anxious to go into practice. I thought, well then I have to goto Beverly Hills because that’s where successful plastic surgeons go,” he says.

Another surgeon offered to rent him a space in his clinic’s kitchen, which was housed in one of the most desirable medical buildings in Beverly Hills. “He had a little pocket door in front of the kitchen so I stayed in there,” says Dr. Haworth. “During my clinic days, I would take his diplomas off the walls in the two little exam rooms and put mine up, and that’s how it started.

“l look back fondly on those days now, but it was horrible at the time. If I had two surgeries in a month, it was a great month.

Finding His Niche

During his UCLA residency, Dr. Haworth won a plastic surgery research prize for his lip surgeries, which provided a unique niche with which to build his practice, More than 20 years later, he has patients from all over the world who travel to the Haworth Institute for their lip surgeries.

“You can be the best doctor in the world, but if you don’t have marketing, no one will know about you,” he says. “So I leveraged that award and started getting known for lips, even though my favorite surgeries are noses, mid- facelifts and what I call hyperaesthetic surgeries where we change everything. The lips are what I was known for, and now I get jazzed by that because there’s really no competi- tion in the world for these surgeries.”

He offers upper, lower and corner lip lifting procedures as well fat transfer and F.A.T.M.A. (fat transfer & mucosal advancement). “l do many types of lip lifts because it is shape before volume; there are many things that fillers alone cannot do,” he says.

Embracing and Investigating New Technologies

Despite the limitations of traditional filling techniques, Dr. Haworth has embraced dermal fillers as effective tools to perfect his patients’ lips. In some cases the new, less invasive procedures are even surpassing what he can achieve in the O.R.

“Our mouths get wider as we age and our lower teeth become visible,” he says. “People will often just fill the lower lip horizontally, which won’t help with these concerns.”

In his surgical center, he performs lower lip V-Y plasty procedures to narrow the mouth, lift the bottom lip and pout out the middle third of the lower lip. But, due to the minimal improvement, he recently became interested in the idea of using vertical filler injections to lift and shape the lower lip.

“About three months ago, I started injecting vertically into the lower lip. I place my long cannula or a long needle vertically from the bottom of the prejowl sulcus all the way to where I see the needle blanching on the vermillion on the back of the lower lip on the sides. Then I inject vertically as I pull the needle out,” he says. “l am seeing such dramatic elevation of not just the lower lip but the whole corner of the mouth—the marionette folds are dramatically reduced and the labiomental sulcus opens up.”

He is calling this the Caisson technique after Caisson beams in construction. “The patients are three months out now, and the results are far better than what we see with the lower V-Y plasty in hiding the lower teeth,” he says.

Dr. Haworth is investigating new ways to augment and lift lips using dermal fillers.

“l love doing surgery, but plastic surgery is in some ways a dying field,” he continues. “The future of plastic surgery lies in the lab, not the operating room. Eventually they are going to know how to stop senescence. In the meantime, the future of aesthetics is laying more and more in lasers and newer, better fillers, and I want to stay on the forefront of that.”

His biggest challenge is determining which new technologies and procedures live up to the hype—and resisting the urge to bring in every new device about which patients inquire. “Sixty to seventy percent of all new medical cosmetic technologies overpromise and under deliver,” he says. “First it’s a big ‘Wow!’ Then results are ‘operator-dependent,’ then it’s gathering dust, so I vet all these technologies and only offer the ones I believe are proven to work.

“What I want to offer my patients with the Haworth Institute and Self Centered Aesthetics is more than one-stop aesthetics, It’s the tools and knowledge to deliver the absolute best treatments for their individual concerns and lifestyles,” continues Dr. Haworth. “We have a turbocharged armamentarium of proven noninvasive treatments to carry on the philosophy that I espouse in my surgeries, which is really detailed aesthetic work.”

Self-Centered Aesthetics

Recently, I was honored to be featured on the cover of the highly popular regarded trade magazine of the noninvasive aesthetic industry, MedEsthetics. Here is the article. We at Self-Centered Aesthetics ™are super excited to be off to such a great, auspicious start. We are aiming to deliver the best, state of the art noninvasive treatment to all patients, under one roof with my philosophy of beauty. Embracing Artistry By Inga Hansen Photography by Cory Sorensen Plastic surgeon Randal Haworth, MD, is taking the next step in his career with the launch of a stylish, comprehensive aesthetic care facility. Randal Haworth, MD, made a name for himself in aesthetics in the early 2000s when he joined Fox television’s reality show, “The Swan.” On the program, he was part of a team of plastic surgeons, stylists and makeup artists who dramatically transformed participants’ appearances, Earlier this year, he transformed his own Beverly Hills, California-based practice when he moved to a new, custom-designed facility that incorporates a full range of aesthetic services—from facials and nutritional services to fillers, lasers and surgical procedures. Dr. Haworth’s design philosophy for the new Haworth Institute was nature meets high-tech. “It’s a beautiful place, and all our services are under one roof—the surgical center, my clinic and our new noninvasive center, Self Centered Aesthetics,” says Dr. Haworth. “Patients always asked us, ‘What else can you do?’ ‘How do I maintain this?’ It just doesn’t make sense nowadays not to offer the full-range of aesthetic treatments.” In addition to laser treatments and injectables performed by Dr. Haworth and his R.N., celebrity esthetician John Tew performs signature facials and naturopathic doctor Matea Polisoto, who goes by “Dr. Matea,” offers IV therapy and nutrition counseling. “Like John, she has a very big following in Beverly Hills and beyond,” says Dr. Haworth. “She is involved with IV therapy, which helps augment the pre- and postoperative surgical experience, and optimizes healing. “The people working with me are just as important as the surgeon—it’s all about having a team,” he says. The Frustrated Artist Born in Los Angeles and educated in England, Dr. Haworth has a somewhat unusual background for a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon. “My dad was English and spent World War Il in London selling bootleg whiskey during the Blitzkrieg. My mother and her family lived in Holland during the German occupation,” he says. Following the war, both of his parents immigrated to the United States seeking opportunities, of which there were few in post-war Europe. “They met, and I was born in Los Angeles. But my dad always wanted me to be in England eventually,” says Dr. Haworth. When he was 9 years old, he and his parents drove to Central America and boarded a cargo ship to England. During his school years in London, Dr. Haworth became enamored with the arts. “l always drew—and I was very good at a young age. In University I joined band. I was really into the arts, and that’s what I wanted to pursue,” he says. “But my parents, being war babies, wanted a doctor in the family and I was their only child.” During a road trip prior to his final year at the university, he shared his goals with his parents. “We were in a VW bus and they said, ‘We’ll disown you if you become an artist. Make your decision’—it was really bizarre,” he says. His mind flashed back to a BBC interview of Kurt Wagner, MD, he had seen when he was 13. “l said, ‘Then I’ll be a plastic surgeon,’ having no idea what was involved in that.” He came back to the U.S. and enrolled in medical school at the University of Southern California. Following graduation, he completed a five-year general surgery residency at Cornell Medical Center in New York. Dr. Haworth made his way back to the West coast for his plastic surgery residency at the University of California, Los Angeles. “After my residency, I had no money so I was anxious to go into practice. I thought, well then I have to goto Beverly Hills because that’s where successful plastic surgeons go,” he says. Another surgeon offered to rent him a space in his clinic’s kitchen, which was housed in one of the most desirable medical buildings in Beverly Hills. “He had a little pocket door in front of the kitchen so I stayed in there,” says Dr. Haworth. “During my clinic days, I would take his diplomas off the walls in the two little exam rooms and put mine up, and that’s how it started. “l look back fondly on those days now, but it was horrible at the time. If I had two surgeries in a month, it was a great month,” he says. Finding His Niche During his UCLA residency, Dr. Haworth won a plastic surgery research prize for his lip surgeries, which provided a unique niche with which to build his practice, More than 20 years later, he has patients from all over the world who travel to the Haworth Institute for their lip surgeries. “You can be the best doctor in the world, but if you don’t have marketing, no one will know about you,” he says. “So I leveraged that award and started getting known for lips, even though my favorite surgeries are noses, mid- facelifts and what I call hyperaesthetic surgeries where we change everything. The lips are what I was known for, and now I get jazzed by that because there’s really no competi- tion in the world for these surgeries.” He offers upper, lower and corner lip lifting procedures as well fat transfer and F.A.T.M.A. (fat transfer & mucosal advancement). “l do many types of lip lifts because it is shape before volume; there are many things that fillers alone cannot do,” he says. Embracing and Investigating New TechnologiesDespite the limitations of traditional filling techniques, Dr. Haworth has embraced dermal fillers as effective tools to perfect his patients’ lips. In some cases the new, less invasive procedures are even surpassing what he can achieve in the O.R.”Our mouths get wider as we age and our lower teeth become visible,” he says. “People will often just fill the lower lip horizontally, which won’t help with these concerns.”In his surgical center, he performs lower lip V-Y plasty procedures to narrow the mouth, lift the bottom lip and pout out the middle third of the lower lip. But, due to the minimal improvement, he recently became interested in the idea of using vertical filler injections to lift and shape the lower lip.”About three months ago, I started injecting vertically into the lower lip. I place my long cannula or a long needle vertically from the bottom of the prejowl sulcus all the way to where I see the needle blanching on the vermillion on the back of the lower lip on the sides. Then I inject vertically as I pull the needle out,” he says. “l am seeing such dramatic elevation of not just the lower lip but the whole corner of the mouth—the marionette folds are dramatically reduced and the labiomental sulcus opens up.”He is calling this the Caisson technique after Caisson beams in construction. “The patients are three months out now, and the results are far better than what we see with the lower V-Y plasty in hiding the lower teeth,” he says.Dr. Haworth is investigating new ways to augment and lift lips using dermal fillers.”l love doing surgery, but plastic surgery is in some ways a dying field,” he continues. “The future of plastic surgery lies in the lab, not the operating room. Eventually they are going to know how to stop senescence. In the meantime, the future of aesthetics is laying more and more in lasers and newer, better fillers, and I want to stay on the forefront of that.”His biggest challenge is determining which new technologies and procedures live up to the hype—and resisting the urge to bring in every new device about which patients inquire. “Sixty to seventy percent of all new medical cosmetic technologies overpromise and under deliver,” he says. “First, it’s a big ‘Wow!’ Then results are ‘operator-dependent,’ then it’s gathering dust, so I vet all these technologies and only offer the ones I believe are proven to work.”What I want to offer my patients with the Haworth Institute and Self Centered Aesthetics is more than one-stop aesthetics, It’s the tools and knowledge to deliver the absolute best treatments for their individual concerns and lifestyles,” continues Dr. Haworth. “We have a turbocharged armamentarium of proven noninvasive treatments to carry on the philosophy that I espouse in my surgeries, which is really detailed aesthetic work.”

Know your nose job options:

Know your nose job options: knife or needle?

So you had a nose job and you don’t like the result.   Now what are you going to do?   You can always do nothing and live with the result. That’s OK. That’s your decision.   You can go back to the original surgeon or to a new one (of course, one who is board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery). This plastic surgeon may feel you’re a good candidate and give you two options: surgery (secondary or revision rhinoplasty) or non-surgery. In essence, the knife or the needle. Before your meeting with the plastic surgeon, you may think your only option at this point is a revision rhinoplasty with its attendant cost and recovery. However, this plastic surgeon rhinoplasty expert whom you chose to get a secondary opinion with, surprised you with his honesty, suggesting an altogether different approach to your nagging problem. He offered you a solution that involves less recovery, costs a good deal less and fixes your main concern…

  …and it doesn’t involve surgery.

  Your new plastic surgeon offered to inject filler into your nose to camouflage the irregularities, smooth and even out your bridge and even give you more of a chic tip. From the front view, by strategically injecting the filler to alter the light reflex and  control shadows your deviated nose can even be made to appear straight. He/she offers you a temporary or permanent filler. The temporary ones can serve as a dress rehearsal, so to speak, if you are unsure as to whether this is a good idea or not. Temporary ones such as hyaluronic acid  (e.g., Juvederm ®, Restylane ®, Voluma ®) or calcium hydroxyapatite (Radiesse ®)are good choices. Permanent ones such as Bellafill ®, Aquamid ® (not FDA approved) or fat transfer (a living transplant from your own body) are all excellent fillers in my opinion. You decide to go for it but you must be counseled to have realistic expectations. Fillers definitely cost less and involve less recovery (a few days of swelling and perhaps minor bruising at worst). However, the filler solution will: 1.  Neither help breathing problems 2.  Nor  will they treat all forms of aesthetic deformities such as this:
distorted medial crura of the alar cartilages
Significantly distorted medial crura of the alar cartilages
So the next time you’re considering altering the shape of your nose with a rhinoplasty of some sort, you may ask your plastic surgeon (hopefully,  board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery) about the filler option. Albeit,  it cannot match the power of an actual surgical rhinoplasty, the non-surgical, filler rhinoplasty can be an excellent alternative to actual scalpel- based surgery in many select circumstances. In these cases, the needle can be more powerful than the knife as one can see below:
Bellafill injectable , non-surgical rhinoplasty
This lady had a distorted nose after a previous rhinoplasty. Her cartilages were visible through her extremely thin skin and were twisted. After Bellafill ® Treatment.
Bellafill injectable , non-surgical rhinoplasty
Note the improvement of her inverted V deformity and how the nose appears straighter
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Note how her nasal rims have been dramatically lowered with the off-the-shelf filler. Of course, individual results may vary.

The Unknown Risks of Facial Dermal Fillers

In 2011, total cosmetic procedures as reported to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons have increased by 5%. While the majority of that rise has been attributed to the increasing use of noninvasive treatments which include Botox, lasers and fillers, actual surgical procedures have decreased somewhat. This may be more reflective of a rather anemic economy than an actual trend per se. Soft tissue fillers like Hyaluronic acid (Restylane®, Juvederm Ultra®, etc.), calcium hydroxyapatite (Radiesse®), and fat injections experienced some of the largest growth in the minimally-invasive market during 2011. More than 1.3 million hylauronic acid procedures were performed in 2011, up 9 percent; 286,000 calcium hydroxyapatite procedures, up 36 percent; and 68,000 fat injections, up 19 percent. However, in my practice I have noticed a shift back towards surgical procedures such as facelifts-perhaps this is because seasoned, sophisticated patients have come to realize firsthand the limitations of noninvasive treatments.

With the ever expanding embrace of fillers by the population, people are increasingly equating them to a manicure and pedicure. Doctors, Nurses and patients alike rarely think twice about their application and often times are not aware of their potentially serious risks. However, even a recent study has shown that seven out of 10 British doctors have experienced complications with the use of fillers (http://www.inquisitr.com/432110/wrinkles-dermal-fillers-can-cause-blue-skin-and-blindness-report/).

Among the fillers approved for use within the United States include many hyaluronic acids-HA (Juvéderm®, Restyane®, Perlane®, etc.), calcium hydroxyapatite (Radiesse®), PMMA (Artefill®), Sculptra® and fat. The HA’s are associated with their own unique side effects such as the Tyndall effect (a bluish gray swelling that imparts a puffy look to the lower eyes) while Radiesse®, Sculptra® and Artefill® can induce granulomas. However, all of these fillers have been associated with a few extremely rare but potentially devastating complications. Among these are skin necrosis (death of soft tissue) and vision loss. These problems result from a highly unlikely, unforeseen introduction of a minuscule amount of material into a microscopic branch of a facial blood vessel. A very small amount of filler injected into a peripheral vessel around the forehead, nose, nasolabial fold and even lip can result in these aforementioned complications. It is important to note that not only filler, but fat from a facial fat transfer and even a simple steroid injection have been implicated in both tissue and vision loss.

Once in the bloodstream, the filler in turn can travel downstream through the labyrinth of interconnecting blood vessels and if, in the highly unlikely event, it makes a wrong turn, it can end up in one of the blood vessels supplying the retina of the eye. Recently, I was devastated to discover that a patient of mine suffered one sided vision loss because of this very issue. Ironically, she showed no signs of external injury and still appears as a beautiful woman. A few ways for doctors to diminish the chances of such terrible occurrences are to use blunt tip cannulas instead of sharp-tipped needles whenever possible and to inject small amounts while withdrawing the syringe. Though I employ these two techniques routinely even under magnification, there is no absolute guarantee that these complications can be avoided. It is important that patients are made aware of these risks, albeit fleetingly small, in order that they can make an informed decision as to whether to proceed.

“We cannot estimate the incidence of these devastating complications among recipients to filler injections. It must be extremely rare, but it does happen,” Dr. Woo from Seoul National University’s Bundang Hospital told Medscape Medical News. The likelihood of such a devastating event is probably less than being struck by lightning

Odds of being struck by lightning in a given year (reported deaths + injuries)              1/1,000,000
Odds of being struck by lightning in a given year (estimated total deaths + injuries)      1/775,000
Odds of being struck in your lifetime (Est. 80 years)                                                           1/10,000
and certainly less than being injured in a car accident. Even though we are aware of the risks of driving and probably know a few people may have been seriously injured or even killed in a motor vehicle accident, few of us think twice about getting into a an automobile, turning on its ignition and driving.

A good summary of this tragic problem written from an objective standpoint can be accessed here http://www.lipostructure.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Avoidence.pdf

R.D. Haworth M.D., F.A.C.S.

Ironically, two weeks after I wrote this blog, I was involved in a motor vehicle accident  (1 week ago, today being March 12, 2013). Fortunately, no one was seriously injured.

This New Blunt-Tip Needle Screws the Bruise! Dermasculpt

What is Beverly Hills Plastic Surgeon, Dr Randal Haworth’s, latest tool to minimize bruising with injections?

Injection techniques to place filler into the face to correct lines, folds and wrinkles have became even more advanced with the use of blunt tip cannulae, such as Dermasculpt. These are similar to needles except that they are not sharp and therefore are less prone to cut the tiny diameter blood vessels in and below the skin.

20130103-020716.jpg

What does this mean for the patient?

-Markedly less bruising

-Generally significant less discomfort

-Greater safety profile

I don’t employ them to treat all areas of the face, since certain anatomical facial features require extremely precise placement of filler not afforded by blunt tip cannulae. They are ideal to inject larger areas which require generalized plumping or filling such as the temples, cheek hollows, brows and jawline.

I have injected most types of filler through them including Juvederm, Restylane, Belotero, Artefill, Aquamid and Radiesse.

Be prepared to hear some minor crackling noise, however, for the first minute or so similar to lettuce being cut!
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