CosmeticSurg blog: Expert insights from Dr. Ricardo L. Rodriguez

Adipose tissue has a higher population of stem cells than bone marrow. Enough said. The tissue which has the highest population wins. Read more about this in Dr. Rodriguez’s CosmeticSurg blog.

Many young women come to my office when they start noticing a little bit of ‘extra skin’ on their eyelids, or sagging upper eyelids. They have heard about Eye lifts (blepharoplasty), and how easily it can be performed under local anesthesia. Naturally, they are very interested because the procedure is performed in the office and takes only 1-2 hours. However, the Upper eyelid lift is not an ideal procedure. I don’t think the results are as good as a brow lift. Furthermore, if too much skin is taken off, the eye lids will have a had time closing and the patient can suffer with dry eye syndrome. In fact, I usually prefer to perform a Brow Lift instead of an Eyelift in order to achieve a better result. The Brow Lift will elevate the brow to it’s youthful position, and in the process it will lift the upper eyelids. The result is a refreshed natural appearance.

The Brow lift is the new Eyelid lift.  If you want to refresh the upper eyelids, the Brow lift is oftentimes a better alternative than the traditional upper eyelid surgery. Dr. Ricardo Rodriguez, a Yale trained Plastic Surgeon explains why the brow lift is a better alternative than the eye lift in his Brow lift video.

The Botox Detox procedure is the endoscopic Brow lift. The Brow lift not only permanently smooths the forehead wrinkles, but you get the added advantage that your upper eyelids become lifted to yield a longlasting, youthful, and refreshed appearance. The modern day brow lift or forehead lift is a two hour procedure done thru small incisions behind the hairline. An endoscope is used to lift the brow to a more youthful position. The procedure can be done under IV or twilight anesthesia in an outpatient surgical facility. Recovery is very quick- within one week you should be back at work. During the post operative week, you will have minor bruising which can be covered with makeup.

Lipo to the love handles means different things to different plastic surgeons. Many surgeons consider liposuction to the love handles as just liposuction to the front flanks. They do not take any fat from the backside. Lipo to the full flanks is lipo to the love handles and liposuction to the back flanks. The back flanks is the area immediately above the buttocks.

As with any surgery, the body lift comes with possible complications and potential revisions as it lifts and tightens the entire lower part of the body. The good news is that most complications are relatively minor and can be handled post operatively in the office setting.

In general, possible complications from the Body Lift procedure include: fluid accumulation, hematoma, seroma, infection, poor wound healing (wound separation), asymmetry, unfavorable scarring, numbness or other changes in skin sensation, fat necrosis and deep vein thrombosis (primarily associated with General Anesthesia).

Yesterday I did a Lip lift. My patient was a young woman, which is unusual for this procedure. Most women that need a Lip lift are older, and they have noticed the upper lip getting “thinner” as they age. Since the red part of the lip is getting thinner, they assume this is the part that needs to be augmented. So when a woman comes to me for lip enhancement, most of the time she is thinking…

This patient is being prepped for an upper lip lift today.  After completing the surgical plan markings, she graciously allowed me to take this quick video to explain the pre-op markings I make for lip lift patients.

Several people have asked me if fat grafts are permanent. They keep reading from other sources that fat grafts are not permanent or that they may need another procedure. In my experience, when done correctly, fat grafts are permanent, and I have yet to do a second procedure to add more fat in any of my patients. This is because of the way fat is harvested and the choice of sites for harvesting fat are crucial to the success of the Brazilian butt lift or any other fat injection procedure. In this blog entry I will detail how I harvest fat, process it, inject it, and care for the graft after surgery. In a subsequent entry I will describe how choice of harvest site matters.

The findings supported the contention that regenerative treatment can be safely given to patients with dormant cancers. Dormant cancer cells are not actively growing or dividing. The study also concluded that active tumors can be stimulated to grow by contact with adipose stem cells. This asserted that regenerative stem cell therapy should not be performed when cancers are active. The University of Pittsburgh Medical School is a pioneer in the field of adipose stem cell (ASC) research. Much of the original adipose stem cell research originated at labs in the Pittsburgh Medical School in collaboration with researchers from University of California.

At the 2010 IFATS conference in Dallas, Dr. Sydney Coleman concluded that the high density fractions of lipoaspirate are superior to the low density fractions in terms of fat survival because they have a higher percentage of stem cells. What does this mean for fat grafting patients?

Since I started writing about fat grafts, stem cells, and the regenerative properties and medical potential back in 2009, about 7 years after performing one of my first fat grafting cases, I have become more and more involved and dedicated to the science of fat grafting. As the current President of IFATS (the International Federation for Adipose Therapeutics and Science), I’m excited to be posting a quick note about this year’s conference, which starts tomorrow in San Diego. This year we’re bringing together not only the leading clinical practitioners with whom we are all familiar, but also leading endocrinologists, experts in the field of genomics and big data as applied to medicine, and stem cell researchers from other specialties such as cardiology and orthopedics.

The Body lift procedure removes excess skin from the stomach, hips, and buttocks. Patients who have experienced a large weight loss (from Ozempic, Wegovy, Semaglutide or Tirzepatide, or from Gastic surgery) are the typical candidates for the procedure. The Body lift is a Tummy tuck, an outer thigh lift, and a buttock lift performed in the same operative session.

Highlights from the 2010 ASPS plastic surgery hot topics panel  In 2010 , I attended the annual ASPS National Plastic Surgery Meeting in Toronto. We particularly enjoyed the ‘Hot topics’ panel session and have written an analysis of the notable presentations on Adipose Stem Cells by Dr. Robert Singer and Dr. Peter Rubin.