Archive for the ‘ Blog ’ Category

Lip Reduction:Sometimes Needles are Not Enough

A lot of attention gets paid to lip enlargement but there are a large number of patients that aren’t interested! Contemporary cosmetic surgeons and practitioners are well aware of the art and science of lip enhancement using injectable fillers.  For those of us who have been doing this longer than 10 years, we remember the […]

Fat Transfer: taking it from where you don’t want it and putting it where you do.

Fat is a natural and predictable filler that has been used for a century to increase volume, fill voids, and plump wrinkles.  Some of the main advantages of using fat include the fact that it is a natural filler, since it is harvested from the patient, there is no allergic issue, it is easy to […]

Surgical Lip lift: a great but underutilized procedure

Surgical Lip lift In today’s fast paced field of cosmetic facial surgery lip enhancement is one of the hottest and most requested options. The most common lip augmentation procedures include injectable fillers, lip implants and unknown to many patients, subcutaneous lip lift.  This procedure is also called “subnasal lip lift”. What is a “Lip Lift”? […]

Savor Every Moment: How Father’s Day is Different for Parents of Disabled Children

The following is an essay I was invited to write for the Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper. Click on the image below to view the article in PDF form

Botox Customization and the Droopy Brow

The discovery of neuromodulators to treat hyperfunctional lines was the cosmetic shot heard around the world and ushered in the most popular cosmetic procedure in the world.  When I began injecting Botox in 1996, it was a pretty much unheard of cosmetic therapy and the “pretty poison” was only used by those early adapters.  Back […]

A Touching Experience: How Doctors Connect with Their Patients

   For 30 years I have been very involved in teaching medical and dental students, residents, interns, fellows and experienced surgeons.  One of the things that younger doctors always want to know is “how do you perform a consult?”  This is a very difficult question to answer as every doctor has his or her own […]

The Changing Face of Botox: Patient Customization

Rarely do we see true paradigm shifts in cosmetic surgery.  Neurotoxins are certainly a prime example of a new technology that replaced previous treatments with increased safety and less recovery. When Botox arrived in the early 1990’s the “pretty poison” caught on like wildfire and soon became the most commonly requested cosmetic treatment internationally.  In […]

Heidi Montag Addicted to Plastic Surgery: How much is too much?

The tabloids have been ablaze about a 23 year old B list reality show star who had 10 simultaneous cosmetic surgery procedures.  How could a 23 year old have any cosmetic surgery, let alone 10 procedures on the same day?  Ms. Montag responded that she is in the entertainment business and she needs these assets […]

Online Cosmetic Surgery Consultation: what’s up with that?

I saw a very interesting article in the New York Times (1-21-2010, page E3) recently about how many cosmetic surgeons are offering virtual online consults for patients.  This article discussed how many cosmetic docs are currently offering online video consultation for patients where the surgeon and patient are connected via web cam and a telemedicine […]

Dysport Units and Dilution Versus Botox Units and Dilution: 3 to 1 will get it done.

    As neurotoxin science continues to advance and more drugs become available, patients will be offered more choices of treatments.  Currently Botox (Allergan) and Dysport (Medicis) are the only FDA approved neurotoxins (also called neuromodulators) to treat facial lines and wrinkles.  Numerous other similar drugs are currently in the pipeline for FDA approval, including […]