10 Signs You’re Not Ready for Cosmetic Surgery (Ep. 109)

Dr. Jason Hall:

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We live in a world where cosmetic surgery is marketed like a luxury handbag, something that you can just add to cart and finance over the next 12 months, but your body's not a product and the operating room isn't a store. For some reason, the quest for a new look can turn into medical or psychological nightmare. Before you book a consultation or put down a deposit you need to get you're actually ready to go under the knife, from Snapchat dysphoria to the dangers of rebound surgery, here are 10 signs that you are not quite ready for cosmetic surgery. Welcome to the Trillium show, where we talk about the ins and outs of the cosmetic industry and help you decipher all the junk that's out there filling the internet and your social media feed. The goal is to make you a more informed consumer and not fall for all the marketing hype that our industry is famous for. I'm your host, board certified plastic surgeon and author of the book The Art of aging. Dr Jason Hall, all right, so when we're talking about cosmetic surgery, there are a list of things that we look for during the consultation to determine whether or not somebody is really a good candidate for cosmetic surgery. And I've kind of broken this down into a list of 10 things that I look for and other surgeons look for that say, you know, maybe we need to put push the pause button, wait a little bit and regroup before we decide to head to the operating room. The first one of these things, and probably the most dangerous, is something called Body Dysmorphic Disorder, BDD. And you may or may not have ever heard of that. Body Dysmorphia is a clinical condition where a patient is obsessively focused on some perceived physical flaw that is either very minor or, in some cases, doesn't exist at all. This is something that comes out during a consultation, and it's something that we really pay close attention for because surgery for people who are suffering from Body Dysmorphia can rarely work and can often cause a lot more problems than they fix BDD or body dysmorphia is really the first on this list of things that pretty much disqualify Somebody from having elective cosmetic surgery. The second one is one that I'll call a magic wand, and this is somebody who believes that surgery will solve all of their problems, saving a marriage, saving a relationship, getting a promotion, that is really a bad reason to decide to have cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic surgery is designed to fix things or improve body parts that you don't like. It's not a solution for resolving deep seated problems in a relationship. It certainly will not help promotions at work, and these things are really dangerous, because it sets the person who is having surgery up for a lot of disappointment afterwards, when those problems aren't fixed. The third is something we'll call the unrealistic filter. Now, if you show up to my office or somebody else's office with some snapshot from Instagram that's filtered, or more likely, has ai do some little tweaks here and there. That is another thing that is really, can really be dangerous because you're trying to match a human outcome with a computer algorithm or Photoshop. It's really important that when patients are bringing in photographs of things that they like, that they're looking on plastic surgeons, before and after sites, whether it's mine or somebody else's, for actual people that have actual results, not some photoshopped AI, tweaked, filtered model on Instagram. Number four on our list is what we'll call the shopper. And now, before I get into this one, I want to say shopping around for consultations is a good idea. You know, if you're not comfortable with the first person you see, go see somebody else. That's not a in and of itself, a bad thing. The problem lies with the patient who has been told no a number of different times, but keeps searching around for somebody who will do whatever it is that they're looking to get done. Why this is a problem is because it hints at someone's expectations being sort of outside of the realm of reality that a number of surgeons have said no already. The fifth one is vague motivations. If you've listened to shows on this channel in the past, you've noticed that I talk a lot about the importance of having firm goals. Goals as to what you're trying to achieve. The I just want to look better sets everybody up for disappointment, because what I think looks better may not be what you think looks better, what your surgeon, whatever surgeon you're talking to, thinks looks better may not be what you're what you think is going to look good in the end. And so it's very important to have very concrete goals going into a consultation of what you want to accomplish, whether it's the shape and look of your breasts, your neck, your nose, jawline, all of those things can be different, surgeon to surgeon, and it's very important to have very clearly defined goals going into a consultation, so that you and your surgeon are both on the same page of what success at the end is going to look like. The next thing is somebody who's in a hurry, specifically with trying to squeeze surgery in to meet some deadline, whether that is a wedding, whether that is a class reunion, whether that is a graduation. People who are in a hurry, first of all, just Murphy's Law, are more likely to have problems afterwards, just because they're in a hurry and are trying to squeeze surgery in to meet some arbitrary deadline for an event where this can really be a problem, and where we sometimes have to push the pause button, is for patients who are in such a hurry that they don't want to follow through with pre operative clearances, with recovery timelines, because all of those things are very important in making sure that you get the absolute best result with the fewest potential problems down the road next. And I have to say it is smoking, actively smoking, or vaping, is something that we have to talk about before surgery, because for a lot of what we do, smoking and vaping can significantly cause problems in healing down the road, in plastic surgery, cosmetic surgery, we are kind of pushing the tissues of your body to the limits and the impaired blood flow from smoking and vaping can really cause big problems in terms of healing down the road. So we want to make sure you're not smoking, you're not vaping, before you come in for a consult. Number eight on our list is what I'll call the DS major life, trauma, death, divorce, losing a job. Those are things that you do not want to have surgery when you're kind of working through those life problems, those life stressors. I typically will tell patients that you it's really best to wait between six and 12 months after that event has kind of happened to be able to work through the psychological problems that accompany all of those before having surgery, we talk about the emotional roller coaster after plastic surgery, and I've done videos about that in the past, cosmetic surgery can be difficult on your psyche, because the person that you see in the mirror when you are done having surgery, isn't the person that you're used to seeing in the mirror, and that can really play with your mind, and if you're dealing with outside psychological stress, in addition to that, it can be really, really challenging to successfully overcome that and be happy with your surgical result. So death, divorce, job transitions, you really want to give yourself between six and 12 months after those events to before you consider having a cosmetic procedure. Ninth on our list is lack of a support system, and this kind of goes along with the last one. Cosmetic Surgery is still surgery. It's not going out and getting a haircut. You're going to feel terrible after surgery. You're going to need help, and it's really important that you have trusted people around you that know what's going on, that can help you through the recovery process, to help make sure that you get the outcome that you want a patient who has nobody around them to help during the first few days or few weeks, or who wants to try and hide their surgery from close friends and family is at a much higher risk for a difficult or complicated recovery than somebody who has a good, solid social support structure around them during the lead up to surgery and especially afterwards. And then the last one we'll talk about is unstable weight for body contouring procedures. Specifically, it's really important whether it's weight loss surgery, whether it's GLP ones that you've got. Down to a stable weight, and have been able to maintain that for six months or so before having surgery to make sure that we can get a good, predictable surgery result. So I hope this has been helpful. If you've got any comments or questions, please leave them down below or shoot me a DM at Dr, Jason hall.com, on Instagram. Hope you've enjoyed this, and we'll see you on the next show you.