Saturday, February 1, 2020

Labiaplasty Surgery is An Outpatient Procedure

Labiaplasty is an outpatient procedure at our office that can be done with either local anesthesia with sedation or general anesthesia. The goal of the surgery is to provide symmetrical, attractive genitalia, so excess labial skin is removed and incisions are closed with absorbable sutures. There is no need to subsequently remove stitches.

You should be able to sit and walk on the day of the surgery, although it’s also important to get adequate rest. More rigorous exercise can begin about a month after the procedure. You should also postpone having sexual intercourse for 4 to 6 weeks.

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Dr. Jeffrey H. Donaldson, a board certified Columbus, Ohio, plastic surgeon, offers patients a unique, outpatient option for labiaplasty. Columbus, OH women can have the procedure performed at the Donaldson Plastic Surgery Center without general anesthesia or a prolonged recovery. This advanced approach has created opportunities for many women to achieve their goals with less hassle and downtime – and the results are excellent.

According to Dr. Donaldson, labial skin and soft tissue redundancy are common among women of childbearing age. He says, “Pregnancy, childbirth, genetics, sexual activity and age can all contribute to labial hypertrophy, or the enlargement and stretching of the labia minora. Women who have this condition are not alone, although they may feel that way because of the sensitive nature of the problem.”
The condition, says Dr. Donaldson, is often not limited to aesthetic concerns. “Many of my patients first seek treatment because of functional issues. They may have pain during intercourse, while riding a bike, or when sitting for long periods of time because of folding or pinching. It can also create problems with personal hygiene, or limit the types of pants or swimsuits that may be worn.” Surgery can safely correct these problems on an outpatient basis with durable results and minimal recovery.
In Columbus, Ohio, labiaplasty is not necessarily a new procedure, but Dr. Donaldson has pursued the most innovative and refined techniques. He believes that traditional “amputation” methods should be abandoned in favor of gentler infolding and restructuring of protuberant labial tissue. This maintains the labial edge, and creates more natural looking results while reducing size and restoring position.
According to Dr. Donaldson, the procedure is minimally invasive and routinely praised. Donaldson comments, “I perform almost all labiaplasties under local anesthesia in my office, and they are usually finished in less than an hour. Afterward, my patients are overwhelmingly thrilled with their function and appearance. ” Many patients describe improved self-confidence, especially during intimate circumstances.
The recovery period lasts several days, and the sutures dissolve naturally. Most patients can return to athletic and sexual activities after several weeks.
For women in Columbus, OH, labiaplasty should be performed by a board certified plastic surgeon with extensive experience. The surgeon's staff should be attuned to the sensitive nature of this condition, and provide discretion and care when handling this corrective procedure.
For more information on labiaplasty, Columbus, Ohio, plastic surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey Donaldson, invites you to visit his website at http://www.donaldsonplasticsurgery.com or contact his office at 614-442-7610 or Donaldson Plastic Surgery, 4661 Sawmill Road, Columbus, OH 43220.
About Dr. Donaldson
Dr. Jeffrey H. Donaldson is a board certified Columbus, OH, plastic surgeon who owns the Donaldson Plastic Surgery Center. He has worked to improve and refine his techniques for labiaplasty. Columbus, Ohio patients who are seeking this procedure appreciate the staff's discretion and confidentiality. In addition to labiaplasty, the Columbus, OH plastic surgeon performs cosmetic and reconstructive procedures of the face, breast, and body for both men and women.
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For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweblabiaplasty/columbus/prweb8089113.htm

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Brr, Can Frigid Temps Lead to Weight Loss?

Finally, an upside to the frigid temperatures that have gripped much of the nation -- all the shivering could help shed a few pounds. The body wants to maintain a balance, a homeostasis of 98.6 degrees. If you make it cold, the body will do everything it can to get back to 98.6. And it has to burn calories to do that -- heat equals calories. 

No need to spend money on cryotherapy or CoolSculpting (Just another way to freeze fat) when you can use winter to lose that winter weight. People can burn up to 50 percent more calories by exposing themselves to below-freezing temperatures, which causes the body to work overtime.
There's actually a type of fat called brown adipose tissue -- BAT. Cold can trigger this BAT. It actually produces heat, and you burn fat tissue. In environments as mild as 60 degrees, some of these people saw metabolism rates boost by as much as 20 percent. 
But be warned exposure to extreme cold, especially through ice baths, could cause complications in people with cardiovascular problems or even induce cardiac arrhythmia in those at risk. Some should consult a physician before attempting some of these techniques.
Drinking ice water first thing in the morning can rev up the metabolism. Reduce the temperature in your house to 64 degrees or less and try to get used to the temperature without bundling up with a blanket or wearing a sweater.
Here are some at-home tips to try thermal dieting:

1) Place an ice back on the back of your neck and on your upper chest for 30 minutes while reading or watching TV to rev up your metabolism.

2) Take cold showers: Try taking 30-minute cold showers for the maximum benefit, but shorter showers help too. For an abridged version, gradually lower the temperature in the shower to 68 degrees over the course of five minutes, then stand in the cold stream for two to three minutes straight before getting out.
3) Immediately upon waking, start drinking ice cold water and continue sipping ice water throughout the day. 

4) Go for "chill walks." Make sure to bundle up extremities such as your hands, feet, ears and head, and then go for a walk in the cold in summer exercise attire. Consider working up to this kind of walk by slowly taking off layers of clothing. Be sure to carry your coat with you, so that you can warm up should you become too cold.

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

What to Expect from a Dermaplaning Facial

If you follow the latest in skin-care trends, you're probably aware of the popular professional procedure that promises to leave the skin smooth and glowing by removing dead skin cells AND unwanted facial hair (so long, peach fuzz). 

My skin is really dry and my aesthetician recommended dermaplaning with my normal facial that I get every 6-8 weeks. She said removing the dry dead skin will allow all the moisturizing products used during the facial to increase hydration and I’ll see less dry itchy skin between appointments. 

I asked how often other clients used this technique. It all depends on their skin type; some monthly without a facial, while some will do the procedure with a facial others will alternate one month facial the next month dermaplaning. 

How does dermaplaning work? Dermaplaning is performed on the face, under the chin, and on the sides of the neck. It is quick and painless. After properly cleansing and prepping the skin, a trained aesthetician or skin-care professional holds the skin taut and uses a 10-gauge scalpel held at a 45-degree angle to gently exfoliate the skin by scraping off the top layer of dead cells. This procedure also removes vellus hair (commonly referred to as peach fuzz). 

An aesthetician might also often combine dermaplaning with a salicylic, lactic, or glycolic acid peel (depending on your skin type) to enhance the treatment's exfoliation. Or a Dermaplaning itself is a physical exfoliation; combining it with a chemical peel helps reduce acne scars, brown spots from sun damage, and clogged pores. On its own, the cost ranges from $55, but with a facial around $120. Combing with a peel, it'll run you about $150 to $200. Typically, a cooling and hydrating mask will be applied following the treatment, which is intended to calm and soothe the skin. 

What skin types benefit from dermaplaning? Nearly all skin types can benefit from dermaplaning, as long as there are no severe pustular or cystic breakouts going on. People with thin, easily irritated skin should avoid dermaplaning with a peel, which is probably just too much exfoliation. 

Dermaplaning will help reduce the appearance of acne scars, remove peach fuzz and leave the skin smooth and glowing. Plus, there is no recovery time. You have the procedure and are ready to return to your day. Who wouldn’t want that? 

Will dermaplaning cause the hair on my face to grow back thicker? Many people are under the impression that shaving hair causes it to grow back thicker and darker, but that is actually not the case. Dermaplaning will not cause the vellus hair on your face to grow back thicker or darker. Re-growth after shaving may feel slightly different because the hair has been cut straight across. However, if shaving (or dermaplaning) actually made hair growth back thicker and darker, I believe we would have just discovered a cure for male baldness. 

How often should I get dermaplaning done. An aesthetician will help you figure out a schedule. Each time you get dermaplaned, you're removing about two to three weeks' worth of dead skin cells. I’ll let you know how mine goes. Maybe I’ll even let her take before and after pictures. 

Sunday, June 26, 2011

New App BuildMyBod

There really is an app for everything today, including elective body modification. A plastic surgeon named Dr. Jonathan Kaplan has announced that he has launched a new app that will be offered globally called BuildMyBod. The app will run on iOS devices and allows someone thinking about plastic surgery to build their own perfect figure in the virtual world.

The app not only points to the sections of the body that you might want to work on, but also gives you the fees for the surgery as well. The fee schedule even gives the cost of the anesthesiologist as well. The app offers procedures for men and women to check out. The clinic the doctor that invented the app works in is in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but the app helps prospective patients find surgeons around the country. The app launched on iOS devices and a version is being developed now for Android devices as well.

BuildMyBod from Jonathan Kaplan M.D. on Vimeo.

According to Kaplan, “Consumers want information to make better buying decisions, especially about cosmetic surgery, where prices for the same procedures can vary by as much as 35%. As the dramatic growth in the development of apps for the iPhone shows, people want the convenience of having information they can use to make important decisions on their phones. It seemed logical that being able to research cosmetic surgeons and procedures that way would be of real value to consumers and surgeons.”

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Vampire Facelift


The Natural Way to Supernatural Results...
Vampire Facelift™ combines the science of beauty with the science of cell biology to create the most beautiful and healthy face in the most natural way--using the youth-generating properties locked in a secret place within your own blood.

Vampire Science Secrets


When a cosmetic physician uses a filler to sculpt the face or mouth, she is trying to replace the volume that is lost with normal aging (loss of muscle and loss of collagen).
If you've had fillers already in the effort to sculpt your face, then what was put in your face probably came as a syringe inside a box.

With the Vampire Facelift™ procedure, the filler does not come from a box, it comes from you!
The cosmetic physician takes your blood in the way you would normally give blood for a lab test (same method and about the same amount).

Then she (by one of several methods) separates the platelets from the other main components of the blood.

Next, she activates the platelets to produce platelet-rich fibrin matrix (PRFM).
PRFM is like a gel, similar to the other fillers, and can be injected to sculpt the face--and it came from your body. But, here's the best part: not only does PRFM cause an increase in the volume, but also PRFM acts like a rejuvenating agent with at least 7 growth factors normally used by your body in healing.  
When the growth factors activate the unipotent stem cells of the skin, then the unipotent stem cells generate New Skin, New Blood Flow, New Collagen--New Tissue! Not only do you see more volume (as with other fillers), but you also see a younger more glowing complexion.

You do not need to transplant stem cells...they are already there! Without unipotent stem cells, you would not be able to heal a wound.
In this video (from April 2010), Dr. Runels made history by announcing the first of his designer procedures, the Vampire Facelift™...

How It’s Done
Blood is removed from a vein in the patient’s arm.

The blood is processed to isolate the platelets from other blood components.

The platelets are then activated using one of several methods, the most common being exposure to calcium chloride, to form the PRFM (a rejuvenating elixir made by the person’s platelets).

This gel is then injected back into multiple areas of the face in the specific areas that define the Vampire Facelift™ to induce growth of new collagen, skin tissue, and blood vessels around each injection site.

Collectively, this activity lifts the skin away from the bone, creates skin volume and new blood flow, thereby sculpting the face and creating a younger complexion for a more youthful and more aesthetically appealing appearance.

This improvement continues for approximately 12 weeks and then lasts at least 15 months.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Zerona Cold Laser Treatments

Treatment with the Zerona laser is easy, painless, and carefree. Each session takes less than an hour; the low-level laser is used for a total of 40 minutes. The laser is applied to the targeted area, which is generally a combination of the waist, hips, and thighs, for 20 minutes. The patient then turns over and the very same treatment is applied to the opposite side. The minimum suggested treatment period is two weeks, with three full sessions each week. You should consult your physician about the maximum results for your body type, weight, and target loss.

Many patients have described the session as relaxing, and even Zen. Some even try to catch up on phone calls with friends and loved ones as they lay down. You simply lay in a comfortable, stationary position for twenty minutes at a time, in a relaxed environment, while the cold laser does all of the work. Since the Zerona uses cold laser technology, you feel nothing during the procedure. You may feel a bit different and lighter as you exit the treatment center due to the bio-stimulation that begins in your body.

While all doctors’ recommendations are different, many will suggest that you increase your fiber and water intake leading up to the procedure to increase the speed of results. Others may encourage a detoxifying footbath or massage immediately following treatment. Each of these procedures is voluntary, and varies from office to office. What remains the same are the results.

You are always welcome to listen to music, or just close your eyes and rest during the procedure. Listening to white noise such as running water or ocean waves is always a relaxing way to spend the forty-minute sessions. Ultimately, the treatment with a Zerona laser is a stark contrast to traditional methods of fat reduction procedures such as liposuction and gastric-bypass surgery. With Zerona, you can simply lie down, relax, and let the laser do all the work.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Face exercise: a fountain of youth?



The platinum blonde you see here is Greer Childers, the 60-ish founder of the BodyFlex workout. In the clip above, filmed in the 1990s, the perky, tanned, and toned exercise instructor demonstrates a face exercise called the Lion. First, she instructs, make an "O" shape with your mouth, then drop it down so you're stretching the top half of your face. Next, stick out your tongue. With your "O" mouth down and your tongue extended, look up to the sky and hold your breath. (Childers exhales and inhales as if she is sucking in the last bit of oxygen on Earth.)

If you follow her lead, Childers promises, this exercise will "lift and smooth out the skin"—an all-natural face-lift. The comments below the video on YouTube express some skepticism. "It looks like she's exorcising demons out of her," says one. "I pissed my pants laughing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" writes another.

Proponents of facial exercise have long been the butt of jokes. I may look like a freak when I'm squatting at the gym, but at least I have plenty of company, and I can claim I'm working on improving my muscular strength. Face workouts, by contrast, are taboo both because they look idiotic, and because women (and men) prefer to hide the things they do to prevent the ravages of age.
Illustration by Alex Eben Meyer. Click image to expand.One of those women, I learned recently, is my mother. During a recent call home, I mentioned that I'd been watching that hilarious Greer Childers video. That's when my mom confessed: She does face exercises, in secret, in the bathroom. I never knew. Neither did my father.

My mother is mentally stable, and she has few wrinkles for a woman of her age. Does that mean these crazy contortions might actually slow down the aging process? Is it time that we pay face-exercisers the respect they've long been denied?

Facial exercise is no recent fad—some historians even claim it helped Cleopatra keep her jowls at bay. In the early 20th century, a man named Sanford Bennett wrote rapturously about his face workouts in a book called Exercising in Bed. Troubled by how quickly his face and body had aged, Bennett began exercising at age 50; after two decades, he was a regular Benjamin Button, known by some as "the man who grew young at 70." Jack LaLanne, TV's "godfather of fitness," was also a proponent of face exercise. "You know why so many of you students look older than your years?" LaLanne asked his audience. "And why your jowls are hanging and your chin is hanging and your neck's all craggy looking? … Because the muscles are out of shape!"

That's not the half of it—the face-exercise field is full of people who market their system as the first and the best. Senta Maria RungĂ©, author of 1961's Face Lifting by Exercise, claimed to be the true originator—the pioneer of "the only method in the world by which one can lift the face naturally and restore a youthful contour."

There's also Californian Carole Maggio, who founded her business, Facercise, in 1981. "I was newly married to a man 16 years my senior," she says, explaining the origins of her career. "After six months of marriage, he sweetly whispered into my ear, 'You're prematurely aging.' " Maggio, already a spa owner, began putting her face through the paces. When friends and clients asked about her newly youthful looks, she spread the gospel with a trio of books. Maggio says she's traveled to 18 countries to tell men and women about Facercise and claims to have advised King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan. (She has also since remarried.)

Carolyn Cleaves at age 61.Then there's 65-year-old Carolyn Cleaves, the founder of Carolyn's Facial Fitness in Washington State. A former model with a degree in English literature from Harvard—she repeats this fact several times during our interview—Cleaves says the skin on her face started to sag after she lost 50 pounds. She didn't want to get a face-lift, lest she look like her expressionless mother. Cleaves' solution: designing her own facial exercise program—15 minutes, 28 exercises, three to five times a week—complete with DVDs, books, and a skincare line.


I am 22 and don't have any wrinkles—yet. Even so, Maggio and Cleaves told me that I'm already far, far behind on my exercising. To make up for lost time, I went to see Valeria Georgescu, the leading face-exercise guru in Washington, D.C. Georgescu is the creator of FACE (Facial Activation Conscious Engagement) Val-U. (Yes, it's a play on her name.) She's 46, works at the Mandarin Oriental spa, and has been exercising her face for 20 years. She doesn't have a single wrinkle.


On a recent Friday afternoon, I met Georgescu in the Mandarin's quiet, incensed downstairs spa. The first advice she offers is that I shouldn't sleep with the side of my face touching the pillow—it presses and contracts the facial muscles. Already, I'm not feeling good about my facercising future—sleeping is generally an activity I relish for its lack of rules.

I have vowed, though, to keep an open mind. And so we begin with some basics. Georgescu starts by sliding on long white gloves. It's important, she says, never to touch your face while exercising it because fingertips are textured and have a damaging grip.


Georgescu tells her clients to exercise their faces for five minutes each morning and five minutes in the evening, working the forehead, cheeks, eyes, lips, and chin. First, she teaches me Greer Childers' classic Edvard Munch face. Next, we move into an eye squeeze. The goal here is to contract the side of your eye, where crow's feet nest, without moving the other parts of your face. (Give it a try—it's like a much creepier version of a wink.) After that, I'm tasked with moving my labial fold, the part near the side of my nose where lines inevitably form. (Georgescu likens this look to that weird quivering snarl on a dog's face just before he bites.) After raising my cheeks up and down to get the facial blood flowing, I repeat the phrase Oooooooh, chaaaaaaals, like I'm saying Charles in a British accent but dropping the r. Georgescu tells me to exaggerate the vowels with my face movements, puckering for the first part, then spreading into a half-smile as I contract my cheeks. Oooooooh, chaaaaaaals.

None of these exercises was easy—my cheeks actually went into spasm after Oooooooh, chaaaaaaals. I found it particularly tough to isolate individual muscles; when Georgescu told me to move the area around my eyes, I couldn't do it without flexing the rest of my face. The other big challenge was stopping myself from laughing. Thankfully, Georgescu and her cohort don't take offense. "I just laugh with them, why not?" says Carolyn Cleaves. "I'm laughing all the way to looking youthful. Go ahead and make fun of me."

While laughing is OK, Georgescu says there are some things a face exerciser is not permitted to do. "You ever see runners?" Georgescu asks me. "They have horrible faces." I stay quiet and nod. I do not mention that I run half-marathons. "[Runners] don't contract their faces," she says. "They kind of let it flop. And every time it flops, it stretches, like a breast."


Before I resign myself to a life without sleeping or running, I should probably figure out whether any of these claims make sense. When I question Cleaves, Georgescu, and Maggio about scientific research, they instruct me to look at their clients' before-and-after pictures. "Try it for a month, five minutes a day, and that's your research," Georgescu says.


What does the medical establishment have to say? Dr. Murad Alam, the chief of cutaneous and aesthetic surgery at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine, says there's basically no research in the field of facial exercise. Just because we don't have hard numbers doesn't mean the exercises don't work, he says. There just haven't been any controlled, scientific studies to prove or disprove their efficacy.


Botox works because it paralyzes muscles: If you stop moving your forehead, you don't get wrinkles. Since relaxing certain muscles reduces wrinkling, it's possible that tightening other facial muscles could have a similar effect. But certain realities of aging can't be wiped away with exercise. Over time, the amount of collagen and elastic in our skin decreases, giving our faces a crepe-paper-like appearance. Malar fat pads in the face also move and thin, creating wrinkles. Make wacky faces all you want—none of this is going to change.


But even if the wrinkle-abatement claims seem dubious, there are other reasons to exercise your face. Toward the end of my session, Georgescu confesses she is worried about me. "You have engaged nothing in your face at all when I speak," she chides. "You know how you lost that? From cell phones and from the Internet—because you're always texting and you're not looking."

She's right: My countenance is not in a constant, Lucille Ball-esque state of animation. Not only is my lack of facial engagement jump starting my aging process—Georgescu says it also may explain my recent dating drought. Flirting, she says, requires facial muscles. If I consciously raise and engage my face during the day, she promises I'll attract more attention.


On the Metro ride back from the Mandarin, I try to practice. An older man, his face expressionless, is sitting next to me reading a book. I try to smile at him; he stares back quizzically. I contract my cheeks, relax my forehead, and attempt to contort my muscles into some kind of Mona Lisa smile. By the end of the ride, I'm exhausted, my cheeks hurt, and no one has flirted with me. Then again, I'm just a beginner—perhaps practice makes perfect. Oooooooh, chaaaaaaals. Oooooooh, chaaaaaaals.


resource: Slate Magazine