Plastic Surgery and it’s effects

Galaxy

Thanks for starting this cossy.
I think it is generally terrible. I would go further and say that I think some of the medical professionals involved should be prosecuted.

Some of the medical professionals have indeed sold out, but as others have said, most do a great job in helping people with disfigurements of various kinds. A lot of the botched jobs involving fillers, for example, are done by people who have done a very short training course and are for some reason allowed to carry out procedures on the unwary.

I think the whole field needs tightening up, with proper training and certification, so that the NHS is not landed with dealing with the mess when something goes wrong. It is ridiculous that someone with no medical knowledge at all is able to muck around with somebody else's face.

That's quite apart from asking why on earth do these people feel the need to change to way they look.

That is shocking Athrawes. Had he commented as he thought it could be cancerous is one thing. But to say it would improve your looks is shicking and unethical.
Whenever the subject of plastic surgery is discussed I think of the wonderful plastic surgeon of WW2 the late Archibald McIndoe who repaired badly damaged RAF pilots and gave them the encouragement, health and confidence to face life again. He would be disheartened if he thought that plastic surgery was being used for mere vanity and enriching unethical surgeons. It should still be a skill used to turn peoples lives around. Not inflate their vanity often with disastrous results.

Many years ago I was visiting a friend at a private hospital and I met a doctor just coming down the stairs and he took one look at the mole I have just under my eyebrow and said he could take it off very quickly and it would improve my looks. I remember saying something along the lines that the mole is part of me and there it will stay - and it has!!!
Unless it is something that really needs attention I believe it makes us who we are. Having plastic surgery can cause disaster and disappointment if it's just for the sake of it.

Plastic surgery for medical/corrective reasons I have no issues with at all.
Its more the beauty tweakements that young girls have that worry me. My step daughter being a case in point - botox, lip filler that is over filled, tattooed eyebrows which are too dark and that latest thing she had done is a fat dissolving injection in her chin which was not in the least bit fat !
She is in her 20's and was beautiful without any of this, I really worry how much further she will go as the aging process starts to creep in as she already seems so dissatisfied with her appearance - I just hope she does not go down the route of surgery like the celebrities mentioned by the OP

MOnica wrote:
"This is what I meant when I said that the line between vanity surgery and therapeutic surgery is grey and fuzzy."

I understand and agree. Do you consider that if private health care were abolished NHS patients would get more treatment for dysmorphic disorder?

My brothers teased me about my "snub nose" when I was a little girl and I did not mind in the slightest, rather I enjoyed the teasing as it was affectionate. Intentions are key.

Plastic surgery - thinking of how Michael Jackson turned from a handsome young black man into a freak. Katie Price looks like an alien. I would never have it no matter how much money I had. Unless I was disfigured in some way,

In an outlet unit of a posh shop overheard this conversation
Oh it is Mary isn’t it
Yes was the reply
I had heard you had been done
Yes was the reply again
And the punch line was
I do hope it didn’t cost you a lot because I hardly recognised you
In all fairness to Mary she looked OK

A close member of my family has had filling injections to remove frown lines. I felt slightly disturbed that they had felt the need to do this.

Caleo

What about sex change operations? creating a vagina or a penis involves plastic surgery. Are these operations done because of vanity, or because of disability?

This is what I meant when I said that the line between vanity surgery and therapeutic surgery is grey and fuzzy.

As a child and teenager I was mercilessly taunted about my “family nose” it affected me badly ,maybe worse because a lot of it came from my mother and sisters Even on my wedding day in a photo with my Dad,where the nose came from there were comments about how the photographer would fit two noses that size in one shot!! It’s not even remotely funny and I still carry the results of the “ banter “ to this day .
If you haven,t lived through the “fun/banter” then don’t dismiss it it can scar you for life.
My son carries my family nose and was subject to a remark from a family friend when my DIL was introduced who said why would you inflict TWO noses like that on your kids surely your family nose is bad enough Here was me thinking times had changed.Its never funny to remark on people’s features or weight or big boobs I was born when cosmetic surgery wasn’t around so I still have my large pointy nose but if I could have changed it I certainly would have .You have to be very insecure in your looks to need and it is NEED to change them It’s not vanity when your self esteem is crushed repeatedly by folk who think they are perfect sadly very few who do remark and cause untold damage are far from perfect

I can see good reasons for some plastic surgery, for example repairs to scars. I accept some women have uncomfortably large breasts, others lose breast tissue after childbirth and both may benefit from physical intervention.

Katie Price is clearly in a mess psychologically and seems addicted to surgery. Kerry Ketona had a truly awful childhood as reflected in her chaotic lifestyle. I expect plastic surgery = publicity=money. Daniella Westbrook’s drug addiction wrecked her nose so it needed re-building. They’re fairly extreme sad examples
Like nightowl, I was a 70’s feminist who didn’t wear makeup, I’ve rarely worn it but no longer see it as the enemy of wimin, I dislike this trend to have plumped up trout pout lips and false eyelashes the size of hairy mary caterpillars. Then there are those inflated buttocks !
Awful - I’ve never seen any ‘work’ that improves the original

Kate1949
That fits with what I said yesterday. I’m glad you’ve been able to find a way to deal with your hair problem, which makes you feel good and certainly stops you feeling suicidal.

Kate, if not having hair on your head causes suicidal urges then even plastic surgery is better than the alternative.

I agree with you and your case is to the point.

Well on a slightly different note, I have alopecia. I have no hair. I have a rather expensive hair system fitted. There is no way I was going to be bald. Maybe that's vanity, I don't know. It made my life miserable when I lost my hair. I was suicidal. Maybe if some of these people feel as bad as I did then I can understand why they do it

What about sex change operations? creating a vagina or a penis involves plastic surgery. Are these operations done because of vanity, or because of disability?

MOnica, you introduce the idea of vanity. Medical ethics would disallow any reputable plastic surgeon creating monstrosities.
Do you consider that vanity is sometimes a case for psychiatry?

Plastic surgery is used, one,to repair accidental damage to tissues and 2. plastic surgery is also used to change tissues to make them more aesthetically pleasing.

Some people endure appearances and disabilities which without elective plastic surgery would be such as to make their lives miserable.

Ziplok

Obviously, it depends upon what the plastic surgery is for. If it’s just to “make you look younger” or enhance your figure or other purely cosmetic procedures, then having it could be questionable (but again, this might be more to do with the persons emotional perception of themself, but a good surgeon should help them to reach the best decision).
However, if the plastic surgery is to help someone who has a disfigurement of some kind that they have been born with or developed or acquired through accident/injury/illness, then this should be acknowledged by us and not dismissed as vanity.

I think it has always been clear on this thread from the very start, that we are talking about vanity plastic surgery. Surgery done for aesthetic reasons, not surgery done for therapeutic reasons.

Twelve years ago, following a car accident , DD left most of the skin on her right forearm on the A1(M), somewhere between the M25 junction and Hatfield. From A&E, she went straight to the plastic surgery department. She had 3 operations in the 10 days before she was discharged and over the next 5 years before final discharge had innumerable more operations and treatments to make the very large scar as aesthetically satisfactory as they could.

It was the NHS at its very best. Her injury was relatively unusual, but she shared her ward with the many people left scarred by burns and scalds.

Obviously, no one is talking about that kind of surgery, in this thread.

DD has never been remotely embarrassed by her scar, which is only too visible. She is a swimmer, going swimming several times a week, she wears short sleeves in summer and if anyone enquires, she will tell them how she ot the scar. In fact, the reaction of most people reflects her own, they either fail to see it, mentally or actually, and do sometimes ask her how she acquired it, and she tells them.

Ziplok

Obviously, it depends upon what the plastic surgery is for. If it’s just to “make you look younger” or enhance your figure or other purely cosmetic procedures, then having it could be questionable (but again, this might be more to do with the persons emotional perception of themself, but a good surgeon should help them to reach the best decision).
However, if the plastic surgery is to help someone who has a disfigurement of some kind that they have been born with or developed or acquired through accident/injury/illness, then this should be acknowledged by us and not dismissed as vanity.

I completely agree

Obviously, it depends upon what the plastic surgery is for. If it’s just to “make you look younger” or enhance your figure or other purely cosmetic procedures, then having it could be questionable (but again, this might be more to do with the persons emotional perception of themself, but a good surgeon should help them to reach the best decision).
However, if the plastic surgery is to help someone who has a disfigurement of some kind that they have been born with or developed or acquired through accident/injury/illness, then this should be acknowledged by us and not dismissed as vanity.

Allira

Plastic surgery is wonderful if carried out by the right people and for the right reasons.

Correcting disfigurement, for burns victims, cancer patients.

Don't dismiss it out-of-hand just because some people use it for vanity and go to extremes and it goes too far or goes wrong .

This.

Plastic surgery is wonderful if carried out by the right people and for the right reasons.

Correcting disfigurement, for burns victims, cancer patients.

Don't dismiss it out-of-hand just because some people use it for vanity and go to extremes and it goes too far or goes wrong .

Each to their own but I just can’t get my head round it I’m anti cosmetic surgery I blame Instagram Tik tok brigade

In my early 50s and working full time I used to enjoy having regular facial treatments. However, when the salon I went to began to offer invasive treatments such as filler and Botox I felt very uneasy and had a long conversation with the owner about the ethics of this. My daughter was in her teens and I felt very strongly that I would be letting her down if I ever gave her the message that she needed to alter herself in any way to be acceptable to others (or worse still, to herself). I decided to stop going there.

Weren’t many of us of the generation of women’s libbers who believed that even makeup was pandering to the patriarchy? I felt I’d sold out by shaving my underarms . I have been known to wear makeup as an adult but I’m basically lazy and can’t be bothered, nor do I like the feel of it. I’m far too much of a coward to ever put myself through unnecessary surgery. Why can’t we just accept ourselves, as we are and accept the changes as they come?