From 2006
When it comes to aesthetic procedures, Dallas patients want it all—and in less time: Face lifts in an hour. Implants or liposuction on Friday, so we can be back at work Monday and in a bathing suit the following week. We want great results with no tell-tale signs—little bruising and zero scars. And doctors are giving it to us.
In 2004 there was a nearly 20 percent increase in the number of cosmetic surgeries performed in the United States. New technology feeds that frenzy; groundbreaking techniques and tools that shorten both surgery and healing time appear almost daily, and there are still more in the works: a laser for collagen rejuvenation, three-dimensional volumetric fillers, even liposuction techniques combining light and radiofrequencies. So it’s clear that this trend will only continue to grow.
But do these techniques, which purport to make us younger and better looking in the time it takes to watch Nip/Tuck or Extreme Makeover, deliver? We checked in with two women who took the cosmetic-enhancement fast track.
THE ONE-HOUR BREAST ENHANCEMENT
Tori Harris
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| photography by Elizabeth Lavin |
Hip mom Tori Harris wanted to restore her pre-pregnancy pertness, particularly to her breasts. Her surgeon called it “tuberous breast deformity,” but she just called it drooping. “I didn’t want to look like Anna Nicole Smith,” says Harris. “I just wanted my breast fullness back and to take up the slack.”
But she couldn’t take a full week off from work and life with a 2-year-old at home. So she scheduled her breast augmentation on a Thursday with Dr. Bryan Pruitt, a board-certified plastic surgeon. Harris’ surgery, performed at Baylor Surgicare at Valley View, took only one hour. Dr. Pruitt orders IV sedation and a local anesthesia for his augmentation patients; he finds general anesthesia slows recovery time, increases the risk of blood clots, and causes patients more swelling, bruising, and pain.
Harris took it easy the next day, but on Sunday the hairdresser styled five heads at home. She also went shopping. The breast augmentation was surprisingly easy, she says: “I was ready to feel like I’d been hit by a Mac truck, like I’d heard from so many of my clients. But it was almost painless. I had one little stitch that I could see, and that’s it.”
Dr. Pruitt credits a combination of techniques, technologies, and medications with helping today’s augmentation patients achieve better results with less downtime: “Refined surgical techniques, local anesthetic, and precise, meticulous sculpting of the implant pocket all play a part,” he says. “We also have better medications. It’s rare today, for example, that patients become nauseated from anesthesia.”
THE LUNCH-HOUR FACE LIFT
Carol Robinson
One evening while Carol Robinson, 46, was out with her 22-year-old daughter she was carded—and the bartender wasn’t just angling for a good tip. This was only days after Robinson underwent the newest, quickest product in the face lift inventory, a thread lift, aka the feather or lunch-hour face lift. Whatever it’s called, the thread lift was Robinson’s answer to sagging facial skin and jowls—without investing $10,000 and two weeks of recovery time.
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| photography by Elizabeth Lavin |
She originally consulted with board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Ben Tittle about a brow lift, but, “I didn’t want that eyes-wide-open, surprised look,” she says. She opted for the Contour Thread lift, which was performed in Dr. Tittle’s office under local anesthesia.
The procedure, which took only an hour in this case, involves feeding fine, barbed plastic threads under the skin. When the surgeon pulls the threads taut, the barbs catch and lift subcutaneous tissue. The ends of the thread are then fused together inside the scalp, leaving no noticeable scar. (The expected lifespan of a thread lift is about half that of a full lift, but it’s also less than half the cost—$4,800 for Robinson.)
On the first day, Robinson had some swelling and bruising. On day three she went out to brunch. “I still had some bruising at the hairline, but it wasn’t enough to keep me from going anywhere,” she says. She was back at work on Tuesday, day five, as a physician assistant at Aqua Spa, where Dr. Tittle also serves as medical director.
Of recovery Robinson says, “In the beginning you feel some tightness, and you occasionally feel the barbs, if you press against your face—that’s a little uncomfortable until collagen surrounds them—but you get used to it.” Doctors tell patients to sleep on their backs for two weeks and to hold their faces when coughing or sneezing for the first few weeks.
As for Robinson, she no longer feels the threads and thinks the lift beats spending money on fillers such as Restalyne. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” she says.
