Research part

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the number of cosmetic procedures has jumped 77 percent in the last decade. This obsession with appearances and youth has become a reason for a growing number of plastic surgery addicts.

Plastic surgery addiction is a relatively new and little studied addiction. It has only appeared in recent years, resulting the advancements made in cosmetic surgery. People who suffer from this addiction continually change their appearance though surgeries such as rhinoplasty, liposuction, cheek implants, chin implants, breast implants, face lifts, or even skin-color changes.

While plastic surgery addiction isn't a medical designation, Dr. Nancy Etcoff, a Harvard psychologist, does say, "if something interferes in your life with devastating consequences and [yet] you persist in that activity, that's addiction."

"There is such a thing as too much plastic surgery," says Dr. Roxanne Guy, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Too much, she says, is when patients repeatedly turn to the scalpel "to fill an emotional need." They may run up debts of hundreds of thousands of dollars and alienate family and friends in order to undergo multiple invasive and potentially risky procedures.» I agree with her, because I think that patients feel excitation and adrenalin rush before the operation and attention to their person also causes euphoria. Then those feelings disappear and the person becomes as sad as before. So he/she makes a decision to undergo one more operation to relive the experience.

"The criteria of addiction isn't numbers," says Etcoff. "It's unreasonable expectations: If patients persist in getting procedures, continuing to expect outcomes that are impossible, such as saving a marriage." By Guy's standards, "Once a person starts to look really operated on, that's too much. If a person had a good result, it's enough. You need to accept what you've had." That's hard for some. "When someone is continually dissatisfied with their results," says Dr. Katharine Phillips, author of The Broken Mirror: Understanding and Treating Body Dysmorphic Disorder, "it may be a clue they have BDD."

The risk of complications increases, particularly with repeated procedures on the same body area. "Every subsequent surgery is not as easy as the first. There's scar tissue and a reduced blood supply," says ASPS President and Florida surgeon Dr. Roxanne Guy.

According to Dr. Howard C. Samuels, “people who undergo excessive surgeries may end up with permanent damage to their muscle tissue and skin. There are also reports of collapsed muscle tissue and excessive scarring. Plastic surgery addicts set out to obtain perfection and they often end up with irreparable damage that permanently modifies their appearance.”

“Sometimes I feel like a mental-health professional,” says Robert Weiss, M.D., a dermatologist in Hunt Valley, Maryland. “People get fixated on things they see in a magnifying mirror that nobody else notices. I tell most patients, ‘Let’s do the absolute minimum.’ Then there are those who feel that getting work done is the only way to stop aging. You don’t want to confuse maintenance with being age-obsessed. If you’re 55, you can’t possibly look like you’re 25—but you can keep people guessing.”

“It’s our job as physicians not to do a procedure just because someone wants it,” says New York–based Amy Wechsler, M.D., one of only two doctors in the country who are board-certified in both dermatology and psychiatry. “Managing patient expectations is very important. We don’t want people to think they’re going to have a Cinderella effect, that their entire look is going to change, that they’ll get the man or get the job. This is never the reality.” I think that plastic surgery can’t change your inward life. If you have self-reliance, happiness will find you itself.

Going for a quick self-improvement session of Botox or a laser treatment, often referred to as the “lunchtime procedure,” can be tempting. “But beware,” says Felmont Eaves, M.D., a plastic surgeon in Charlotte, North Carolina. “There’s so much greed without accountability from doctors who prey upon our desire for less scarring, less anesthesia, less downtime.”

New York plastic surgeon Gerald Imber, M.D., pioneered the short-scar facelift, which uses a small incision in the sideburns to lift the muscles under the skin. “The word ‘noninvasive’ gives patients a false sense of security,” he says. “Take Sculptra, touted as a noninvasive filler—people have reported uncontrollable growth of collagen nodules.”

Boston dermatologist Jeffrey Dover, M.D., agrees: “People get hurt by nondoctors in some states who are allowed to perform such procedures. This isn’t like a bad renovation; you can't just call in a new carpenter.”

Summing up the opinions of experts in the field we can see that dangers of plastic surgery, both physical and psychological, often overweigh its advantages. But what should we do to save our world from surgery slavery? I think that the roots of this problem should be searched for in childhood. Teachers and parents should talk to their children and teach them to love their appearance.

No less important is healthy diet and healthy life style to which a person should be get used since childhood, because it will really help to save your natural beauty.

Moreover, plastic surgery should be controlled more strictly by special rules which would protect the patients from probable dangers.

All patients of plastic surgery lose their individuality. People must think that all humanity can’t have one and the same face. We were born different and it is very difficult to live in the world where there are a lot of creatures with similar appearance. God created everybody special.

Дата добавления: 2015-08-18