TOPS | The Oaks Plastic Surgery

Double Chin Bothering You?

That pesky double chin fat that is naturally almost impossible to get rid of is one of the most common insecurities aesthetically! But why is that double chin fat there? Lets dig in. Although the most common misconception is that you have to be overweight to have a double chin, that is false. It can be genetics, age or maybe an underlying medical problem. Diet and exercise can help greatly diminish this submental fat under the chin. Still, it might not help completely for some and others, not at all. Lucky for all of us, there are a couple options to diminish the double chin. The following two procedures mentioned below are most reliable as far as results in our experience for double chin fat!

The first option to eliminate double chin fat is Kybella, a deoxycholic acid. Kybella injected directly into the fatty double chin area helps breakdown and absorbs dietary fat. It destroys fat cells beneath the chin. Depending on the amount of fat needed to be removed, the amount of Kybella vials required will vary. Expect swelling for a couple of days and numbness for a couple of weeks. Results are seen within a couple of weeks. The cells are no longer able to store fat so results are permanent. 1-2 treatments are recommended for optimal results.

Although we have seen great results with Kybella, there is nothing on the market that can give you 100% effective results in the way that Liposuction can! The common belief is that Liposuction is expensive and has to always be performed under general anesthesia. In reality, liposuction can be performed in office with local numbing and for equal or lesser cost than Kybella injections! Local numbing is placed on a tiny area under the chin so there is little to no pain. The procedure takes about an hour and you can expect swelling and/or bruising for a couple of days. The results are seen once swelling goes down and are also permanent.

Getting rid of your double chin can boost your confidence and define your jawline for a smoother, more youthful look. We are always happy to walk you through both procedures and help you choose the one that is more comfortable for you!

Dos & Do Nots After Breast Augmentation

Here at The Oaks Plastic Surgery, we strive to be very present in our patients recovery. Our surgeons as well as our patient coordinators are always available to talk through any questions you may have!

For your convenience, we have put together a list of helpful dos & don’ts after your Breast Augmentation.
Do:

Give yourself time to rest. Plan ahead for days you might need to take off of work and make sure you have reliable help at home.
Prepare your bed to sleep elevated. You can use pillows to help prop you up or use a recliner for the first couple of days. Sleeping in this elevated position will help your healing process while you sleep.
Take your pain medications and antibiotics as instructed.
Eat 3 full meals a day! It is super important to eat proteins and fibers to help with both healing and strength after surgery.
Keep up with breast massaging to help soften the tissue around the implant. (Starting at day 5)
Talk to your doctor immediately if you have any concerns.

Don’t:

Avoid sleeping on your stomach. At least for the first 6 week period to avoid stress on the new implants.
Absolutely no Heavy lifting. (First 2 weeks) We understand some patients have small children, so we ask that you ensure that the appropriate help is there with you.
Baths, pools, lakes, or the ocean should be avoided until clearance from your doctor. Risking bacteria from these water sources can infect your incisions or prolong healing.
Exercise should start off minimal. Walking only the first couple of days. 2 weeks after surgery, you can start very light cardio. 6 weeks out, after clearance from the doctor, you can start weight training and more intense cardio

GENERAL DON’TS AFTER SURGERY:

How Long After Breast Augmentation Can I Start Working Out?

How long should I wait to work out after my breast augmentation?

We get asked this question a lot before and after surgery! We tell all of our patients that they can do very light cardio such as walking at 2 weeks. We then typically give full clearance at about 6 weeks. Each patient is unique and so each experience will be different!

One of the topics we discuss during your consultation is implant placement and if it is best for your anatomy to have your implants placed below or above the muscle. Once you have decided what implant placement is best for you with the guidance of your doctor, it is good to note that there is a slight difference in the after care.

When choosing to go under the muscle, we highly recommend to avoid strenuous chest exercises such as push ups, pull ups, bench presses, etc. Doing these types of exercises cause your muscles to contract. If you do these chest exercises too early after surgery, there is risk of displacing your implants. Usually, with over the muscle implant placement, there is no limitation on chest exercises after the 6 week clearance.

Secondly, how physically active are you now? Implants should not impede you from having an active lifestyle but it is important to communicate to your doctor what your exercise routine is like. This will help with the decision of implant placement.

Most importantly, listen to your body! If at any time when returning to an active routine, your body swells or there are any aches.. stop and give your body rest. Wearing appropriate sport bras will also help support and diminish any soreness and aching.

We can’t wait to see you in the office to go over all these details in person!

When Does Tightness Go Away After Breast Augmentation?

Something many people don’t realize before officially planning Breast Augmentation surgery is that a lot of patients experience temporary breast tightness post-operatively. In fact, one of our most frequently asked questions after surgery is when will the tightness go away? It is completely normal for implants to feel high and tight immediately after surgery and we always advise our patients to give their breasts time to adjust to the implants.

About 5-7 days after your surgery is when we usually start preparing you to start your breast massaging. There is a special technique that we help patients learn to help the tissue around their implants soften. Dr. Andry has a great video explaining the technique on our Breast Augmentation page and The Oaks Plastic Surgery YouTube channel in case you need a reminder after our follow-up!

Typically, we push for 6 weeks of massaging. You will experience a significant change to the tightness around week 2. In most patients, implants start to settle around week 3 and can take up to 3 months to settle into their final position.

FAT! What can we remove with Tummy Tuck or Liposuction?

Transcript:

Hey guys, Dr. Wijay here at The Oaks Plastic Surgery. I wanted to go over what can be liposuctioned and what we can remove via a tummy tuck. There are two types of fat. Intra-abdominal fat and extra-abdominal fat. The intra-abdominal fat is the fat that is around your stomach, your intestines, your liver and all your internal organs. That is the fat that we cannot remove surgically and must be removed through diet and exercise. The extra-abdominal fat, which is the fat that is outside your six pack muscles (your abs), is the part that we can liposuction down or cut out via a Tummy Tuck. So, if you can pinch it, we can likely liposuction it out or we will remove it with a Tummy Tuck. The part you can’t pinch is that intra-abdominal fat that we cannot remove via liposuction or Tummy Tuck.

So, here’s a picture of a person who had a great result from her Tummy Tuck, she’s still a touch full, however, she’ll lose that fullness overtime through diet and exercise. Her quality of life is so greatly improved due to the excess skin that was hanging over.

This is a picture of someone with very little intra-abdominal fat, but after kids, her extra-abdominal fat and skin was stretched out. By doing a Tummy Tuck and liposuction, you can see how great hr result is.

So, we promote all of our patients to be healthy, diet and exercise after surgery. Also, with the help of a garment to assist in contracting the skin and fat to get you to your best possible result.

When you come in, I’ll be able to tell you what I can liposuction, what I can Tummy Tuck safely and what procedure is best for you!

Gummy Bear Implants: What does that mean?

Hi, it’s Dr. Danielle Andry, here at The Oaks Plastic Surgery in Houston, Texas. Today I’m going to go through cohesivities of implants! The majority of implants that we use are the Allergan Natrelle implants (Gummy Bear), so, one is gummy, one is gummier and one is gummiest. In actual terms, they are responsive, soft touch, and cohesive.

The responsive sits in more of a teardrop shape, but whenever you put it in a bra, it can push up, but whenever it’s just sitting on your chest, you’re going to get much more of a teardrop shape. They are also a lot softer whenever you squeeze them.

The next step up is the soft touch! This one is a little more rounded and also has less rippling. Also, whenever you squeeze them, the responsive is softer whereas the soft touch is firmer.

The third step up is the cohesive. The cohesive is the most rounded look of the three implants. You can see the biggest difference when comparing the cohesive to the much more teardrop shaped responsive implant, which also has much more rippling!

In addition to these three implants, there is one more implant that I do like to use, and that is the Sientra implant! It is a great in-between option for some of the other implants. There is a little more rippling but it gives you a bit more projection throughout the implant. So, if you have a good tissue coverage, this can be a great option for you!

My favorite undereye filler!

Transcript:

Hi guys its Dr. Danielle Andry here at The Oaks Plastic Surgery in Houston, Texas. I’m going to talk a little bit about undereye filler. It’s something that I do fairly often and also something that I dissolve fairly often as well. I’m going to talk to you a little bit about my technique and what products I use.

5 Quick “Lunchtime” Procedures!

Transcript:

Hey y’all! It’s Dr. Danielle Andry here at the Oaks Plastic Surgery in Houston Texas. So today I’m going to talk to you about 5 lunchtime surgical procedures. These are all procedures that we can perform in our office just under local anesthesia that you can basically do in an hour or less on your lunch break!

So Buccal Fat excision is the removal of this fat pad right here that’s underneath your cheekbone. It helps to give you a contoured look all the time and kinda gets rid of those chipmunk cheeks or the area that if you bite your cheek a lot you might have a little bit of extra Buccal Fat so it just gives you a really sleek contoured snatched jawline look that a lot of people like. In the office under an hour, in and out.

So number 2 is Neck Liposuction. This goes along really well with Buccal Fat excision as it really helps slim down the area under the chin, giving you that nice chiseled jawline area for patients who have a little bit of fat there. We go in with tumescent solution which numbs the area and we remove the fat under local in the office. That, along with buccal fat removal, is going to give your lower face a really snatched, contoured look.

Number 3 is an upper eyelid lift. This is so much easier than a lower eyelid lift and we perform most of these just in our office. If you have a tired appearing look, a lot of times it comes from a little bit of extra skin right above your eyelid. We numb up that area and then we go in and excise that extra skin, sometimes remove a little bit of the extra muscle or fat away, sew it up in the office, and then do the same thing on the other side. The procedure is usually done within an hour to an hour and a half. This can help give you a much more awake appearing look and it’s one of those procedures that lasts a really long time and people look at you and know that something is different but cant quite put their finger on it.

Number 4 is two different procedure but I’m clumping them in as one. They are an Inverted Nipple Repair and a Nipple Reduction. Some people are born with their nipple pointing inward and attached with fibrous bands. What we do is go in and break up those fibrous bands, put in some special stitches and that helps turn your innie into and outie. This can be done in under an hour, in our office under local anesthesia. With a Nipple Reduction, some people have a larger nipple or even a widened areolar complex, that we can also reduce in the office. These are both very easy procedures, something that nobody will know you got done on your lunch break and you can definitely go back to work after these.

Number 5 is a Labiaplasty. This is something that more girls are starting to talk about because this is not just about vanity. A lot of women have pain or discomfort from elongated labia that can get caught during certain activities, they can get pulled even just putting on clothes, they can show in yoga pants and bathing suits. It can be very embarassing to women. This is a very easy procedure to perform under local anesthesia in our office. We just trim up the labia and most of my patients can go right back to work the same day after this. You will have just a little bit of bleeding/spotting but a very easy procedure and very easy to recover from!

So there you have it, those are my 5 “Lunchtime” In-Office easy procedures under local anesthesia!

Buccal Fat Removal: Goodbye Chipmunk Cheeks!

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi! I’m Dr. Danielle Andry here at The Oaks Plastic Surgery. So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Buccal Fat Removal. It’s a very easy procedure that we can perform under local anesthetic here in the office in under an hour. Most of our patients love it, they do great! They have very little down time and very little pain.

So what we do is we numb up the inside of your cheek and we remove the Buccal Fat pad. That’s the fat that goes right underneath right, here where you would normally contour in order to bring those mid-cheeks in and kinda let those cheekbones sit high. This procedure gives you a permanently contoured look. So it’s especially helpful for patients who have that lower chipmunk cheek look.

What we do is we make a little incision inside your mouth under local, we tease out that buccal fat, usually we get a nice size chunk. We then cauterize it, close it up with one stitch, move on to the other side and do the exact same thing. You can almost see the results immediately after you sit up.

You are a little bit swollen and the swelling can last a couple weeks, but most patients have a very easy recovery and love their results! So let us know if you’d like to come in for a consultation to see if we can remove that little fat pad for you!

4 THINGS TO EXPECT AT YOUR TUMMY TUCK CONSULTATION

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey guys it’s Dr. Wijay here at The Oaks Plastic Surgery! I wanted to go over the 4 things to expect from your Tummy Tuck consultation, so let’s get into it!

So, the first thing we’ll talk about is your medical history and BMI. Your BMI is a calculation of your weight and height.

The second thing we’ll talk about after medical history is if you’re a good candidate for a tummy tuck! If you are a good candidate we’ll go over the different types of Tummy Tuck and once we examine your body we’ll find out what Tummy Tuck is best for your body type.

Third, we’ll go over where your scar will be in your bikini line and where your new belly button will be.

Fourth we’re going to talk about liposuction. Most people do get liposuction to their flanks when they get a Tummy Tuck. It’s not required, but we’ll definitely go over what your result will be with and without liposuction.

So there you have it! Those are the 4 things to expect in your Tummy Tuck Consultation! Stay tuned to learn more about your Tummy Tuck journey!