Tag Archives: facial procedures

Lip Lift

4 Tips for a Successful Lip Lift and Recovery

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Lip enhancement is incredibly popular in Montreal. Full, luscious lips have never been more desirable (or attainable) than they are today. While fillers and injections can help women and men achieve their desired lip look, they are both costly and impermanent. A better investment may be a surgical lip lift.

Tips For A Successful Lip Recovery

A lip lift is an effective solution to amp-up thin lips or remedy signs of aging. There are different kinds of lip lifts, but a common one is the central lip lift procedure. It is performed under local anesthesia and involves making a small incision under the nose to remove excess skin and heighten the upper lip to create more volume.

Another type of lift is performed to correct turned down corners. It involves making small incisions on each side of the lips to alter the shape of the mouth.

Lip lifts usually take about 1 to 2 hours to perform, and the recovery time is about 10 days. Here are some tips to help ensure your lip lift procedure goes smoothly and that you gain your desired results.

1. Quit Smoking

First things first, if you’re a smoker it is time to put down the cigarettes. If you are not, then you can skip down to tip number 2. Not only are cigarettes harmful to your overall health, but they rapidly speed up the aging process. It would be counterproductive to get a lip lift and then continue to smoke. Smoking may also cause infections during the healing process and delay recovery altogether.

2. Do Your Research

Make sure you consult with a professional prior to booking your lip lift. It is important to weigh all of your options so that you can make an educated decision. Word-of-mouth recommendations from friends, family members, or coworkers are only solid if you also do the homework to back up their results.

3. Less is More

When it comes to surgery, less can often equal more. Try envisioning how your upper lip will look lifted to different heights by curling it back over a pen. Your surgeon can also help you make your decision, as they are trained to determine what look will best serve their patient. As a rule of thumb, always trust your gut reaction.

4. Doctor’s Orders

Limit the movement of your mouth. Don’t eat anything post-surgery that will stretch your mouth to bite into, like a cheeseburger. Stick to liquids and soft food cut into small pieces. You do not want to strain your augmented lips, as too much movement can alter the shape your surgeon intended for an optimum result. Also, if you can, take your medications as prescribed. They are prescribed to aid you through the healing process, ensuring that you experience as little pain as possible.

If you are interested in having a lip lift or would like further information, contact our team of experts to discuss any questions you may have.

Botox©

4 Ways to Ensure Your BOTOX COSMETIC® Results Look Natural

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A large majority of women and men who visit medi spas in and around Montreal want BOTOX COSMETIC® injections. When performed by a skilled cosmetic surgeon, Botox can be an inexpensive, noninvasive way to reduce the visible signs of the aging process.

Botox Injection

However, too much of even a good thing can be just that; too much. While a bad Botox treatment will correct itself with the passage of time, it’s best to avoid any mistakes since they’ll make you stand out for all of the wrong reasons.

Fortunately, you can easily avoid an unnatural look! The first step starts with finding a reputable, experienced injector, but below are a few additional ways you can keep your appearance looking natural.

1. Less Is More

If you want to get Botox without looking as though you’ve had Botox, the trick is to get less of the product than you believe you actually need. That way, you can visit your cosmetic professional for follow-up procedures to possibly add a few more units. So rather than possibly injecting too much by trying to do everything in one session, you can do a bit at a time to arrive at a look that you can be proud of.

2. Patience Is Key

Going in for follow-up sessions is a great idea but don’t go back too soon. It generally takes a couple weeks for Botox results to really kick in, so it would make little sense to go back to see your cosmetic dermatologist before that timeframe. Any good cosmetic dermatologist will let you know what would constitute appropriate intervals between sessions.

3. Get the Right Angle

You need to get a skilled cosmetic dermatologist to do your Botox injection, and such a professional will know that getting the right angle is critical to achieving the best results. This is especially important if you want to get Botox around the eye area. By injecting at the right angle, your cosmetic dermatologist can place the needle just barely beneath your skin, which will help you to get the face you want and help prevent bruising, as well.

4. Experience Matters

Don’t make cost the primary factor in choosing a service provider. What you should do is find a board-certified cosmetic surgeon who has expertise. After doing your research, write up a short list of candidates and make appointments to go in to speak with them. Ask questions, find out if they can show you before-and-after pictures of people they have personally worked on, and get their advice on what they would recommend for you.

Botox is definitely mainstream and here to stay, but you need to keep these factors in mind in order to get an end result that you can be proud of! For more information, contact our team today.

Jaw Surgery

Can Jaw Surgery Change the Shape of Your Face?

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As a Montreal plastic surgeon, I perform surgical procedures on the jaw for 3 reasons: medical, reconstructive, and/or cosmetic. Jaw surgery can typically be categorized as either upper, lower, or chin surgery. It’s performed for reasons ranging from difficulty chewing or swallowing food, chronic pain, over and under bites, birth defects, or an asymmetrical facial appearance from either the side or profile. Jaw surgery can be profoundly life-changing for patients and significantly change the shape of their face and improve abnormal jaw structure or repair damage.

Jaw Surgery

Jaw surgery moves and reshapes entire parts of a patient’s face. The jaw bone is cut by the surgeon and can be moulded and moved forwards or backwards, depending on a patient’s specific requirements It will be anchored in place permanently, creating an entirely new look and proportions on the lower half of a patient’s face.

Jaw surgery sometimes required bone to be added from other parts of the body. Often times during a chin surgery, bone needs to be taken from the hip, leg, or ribs and grafted onto existing jaw bone surrounding the chin and held in place with temporary wires until the existing bone adheres to the implanted bone. This procedure can dramatically alter the width and/or length of a patient’s chin, adding depth and strength to both the front and profile and give the face a more symmetrical, better proportioned appearance.

Jaw surgery to correct an over-bite is often undergone to correct a “gummy smile.” The corrective surgery for this moves the jaw backwards and significantly alters the appearance of the chin, giving it a stronger, more pronounced look on the face.

Jaw surgery to correct an overbite attempts to correct things like the appearance of a disproportionately large nose. It generally improves the strength of facial features by moving the support structure of the face forward. Your jaw is the foundation for the build of much of the rest of your face and altering that foundation has many subsequent structural effects on surrounding areas.

The change in facial features may be subtle or dramatic depending on how far backwards or forwards your jaw is moved – to the point that your look has changed entirely. The shape, contour, and placement of your chin, nose, mouth, and upper and lower jaw can be altered based on your medical and cosmetic requirements and will generally serve to improve the lines, dimensions, and placement of your facial features.

Plastic Surgery

How Long Do Plastic Surgery Results Last?

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The cosmetic industry has picked up over the last few years. People no longer accept the effects of aging and other natural life occurrences on the body as an inevitable fact of life. Plastic surgery in Montreal offers hope to achieve something that many of us want badly –  eternal youth. But is that hope justified? We see celebrities who seem to never age, and many of them have gone under the knife. But does plastic surgery last forever? The reality is, many of these celebrities have had repeat procedures in order to maintain their good looks, because contrary to what you may want to believe, plastic surgery’s effects do not necessarily last a lifetime. It is worth looking at some of those procedures:

Plastic Surgery

Breast Enhancement

Breast enhancement is ideal for women who have completed breastfeeding. The average breast implant today lasts from 12-15 years. After that period, the implant begins to harden and replacements are required.

Breast Reduction

Women with exceedingly large breasts are good candidates for breast reduction. The ideal ages are between 18-25, or over 40. However, the effects of breast reduction are not permanent in all women. Some women may have to return for a second procedure in about 7 years.

Abdominoplasty (Tummy Tuck)

In this procedure, women undergo the knife to have excess belly fat removed. Women who have given birth and are not planning on having more children are the best candidates for a tummy tuck procedure. This is one procedure where the effects are permanent, but it must be maintained with a healthy lifestyle.

Cheek Enhancement

Special gels are added to the face to give the cheeks a rounder and fuller look. The best candidates are women who, after around the age of 37, have begun to lose collagen in their cheeks. These fillers usually last between 12-18 months, after which you will need to have more procedures.

Eye enhancement

Eye enhancement procedures may reverse the aging process, but the effects are temporary. Even when excess fat and tissue are removed from the eyes, your body will develop more loose skin in time due to aging. There are some eye enhancement procedures that may actually give you more wrinkles after the initial ones have been removed. However, the results vary from patient to patient, and a patient’s hereditary background plays some role. New laser treatments are also being developed to give patients an alternative to surgery.

Patients need to be aware that most procedures may last anywhere from a few months to a number of years, but eventually, they will have to return for more sessions. Also, a healthy lifestyle is important in maintaining your results.

Face Lift

Stages of Recovering from Facelift Surgery

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Recovering from facelift surgery is a gradual process, and this process is best described in stages. It usually takes a full year to recover, but if done properly it will go smoothly and with minimal inconvenience.

Rhinoplasty

Stage One

Resting is of primary importance during the first week of recovery; however, this does not mean you should be confined to bed for the entire time. You should be able to move around within 48 hours after surgery. Common symptoms are fatigue and nausea (usually due to pain medication) as well as swelling and bruising on the face (due to surgery). You may also feel stiffness and soreness in the neck, ears, and face, but if you take your medication as prescribed by the surgeon the discomfort should be minimal. Remember that even though you can move around, activities should remain light.

Stage Two

Bruising and swelling normally occurs on one or both sides of the face and neck as well around the eyes and ears. These symptoms are not abnormal and usually recede about four days after surgery. You should not, however, expect bruising to fully fade for approximately one or two weeks after. Also, keep in mind that full recovery spans over a period of one year.

Instead of stitches, staples may be used to hold together any incisions made in the hair-bearing skin. These will be removed one week after surgery. During this time, you should still keep your activities light as you are still in the early stages of recovery. It is possible to use makeup to camouflage surgical incisions.

Stage Three

By stage three (two to four weeks after surgery) the surgical incisions will begin to heal rapidly, although it does vary from patient to patient. During this stage of the healing process, you will notice that your incisions appear pink or light red. This is normal and it will disappear on its own, but treatment is available. There may still be some swelling in isolated areas, but this will also be temporary. You should be careful not to over-expose your skin to the sun after surgery as this can cause the skin to age prematurely.

Stage Four

The immediate effects of cosmetic surgery (bruising, swelling, and skin sensations) tend to dissipate after two weeks. After three weeks any residual effect will hardly be noticeable by anyone other than you. In fact, it is unlikely anyone will notice you underwent surgery.

In every stage of the recovery process, you should exercise care and follow your surgeon’s instructions.