Cosmetic Surgery Overview

Close to 1,000,000 cosmetic surgery procedures were carried out in the United States last year. With the number of people turning to cosmetic surgery rising each year, understanding the world of cosmetic surgery is a sensible option.

What Is Cosmetic Surgery?

Cosmetic surgery is an elective surgical procedure to enhance the appearance of the patient through surgical and medical techniques.

What's the difference between cosmetic surgery and plastic surgery? Essentially cosmetic surgery is a speciality medical procedure that enhances the appearance of the patient through elective surgical treatment. Whereas, plastic surgery is a speciality medical procedure that enhances the appearance of a patient through necessary and reconstructive surgical treatment. In short, cosmetic surgery is elective, whereas plastic surgery is a necessary treatment.

What Are The Most Popular Cosmetic Surgery Procedures?

These days the most popular cosmetic surgery procedures (in no particular order) are:

• lipoplasty: sometimes known as liposuction and involves the removal of pockets of fat around the body; for example: a tummy-tuck
  
• eyelid surgery: a surgical procedure which reshapes your eyelids removing the bagginess around the eyelid and tightening the skin
  
• breast implants: a surgical implant of saline-filled bags between the breast tissue and chest muscle
  
• corrective nose surgery: includes a number of surgical techniques, from reducing the overall size and shape of your nose to enhancing the nasal features of your face
  
• hair transplants: involves trying to regenerate growth of the hair by means of transplanting new roots of hair to an infected area
  
• facelifts: as with the eyelid surgery, the facelift removes skin bagginess around your face by stretching the skin up towards the scalp
  
• Botox injections: a procedure that is intended to smooth away the frown lines and wrinkles around the eyes. Botox injections use a chemical which paralyzes the muscle ­ so you need to be aware that you'll have less movement here following the procedure.
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Do You Need Cosmetic Surgery?

Choosing whether or not to have cosmetic surgery is an important, life altering decision. Most cosmetic surgery involves anti-aging techniques ­ people wanting to look younger than they really are. Alternatively, it could be that you want to either enhance or play-down a particular part of your anatomy ­- such as your nose or breasts.

Is There Any Risk?

As is the case with any surgical procedure, there is always a certain amount of risk with any cosmetic procedure. However, surgeons who carry out cosmetic surgery procedures should be fully trained and certified surgeons who have continued their post-residency education. In other words, surgeons specializing in cosmetic surgery are specialists in anatomy, physiology, pathology and basic sciences.

Things To Know Before Having Cosmetic Surgery

By far the most important thing you need to do prior to undertaking any cosmetic surgery is to have a consultation with a specialist to determine if you really need the procedure. Having decided that you'll proceed with the procedure, you need to select a reputable clinic at which to have the procedure done (if you have not already done that in the consultation process). Finally, you need to consider what costs are going to be involved in the procedure; as an elective procedure, most health-care insurance programs will not cover the cost of the treatment.

How Long Will It Take To Recover From Cosmetic Surgery?

Recovery time from cosmetic surgery procedures depends on both the procedure being contemplated, and your body's ability to recover in general. However, to generalize, you should be able recover from most cosmetic procedures within 1 to 5 weeks.

Long-Term Changes

Finally, it is important that you give the issue of cosmetic surgery careful consideration. There is absolutely no doubt that the procedure has provided people with great opportunities and new leases of life. However, the results of the treatment are likely to be permanent ­ so keep this in mind!