Blog

Everything from facials to laser treatments can help you look your best, but don’t forget to be proactive about taking care of yourself between procedures. One habit that may help fight the effects of aging over the long-term is flossing.

Dr. Eugene Antenucci explained to MSNBC for a recent article that you leave 40 percent of your teeth dirty with bacteria if you’re not flossing, which causes staining and yellowing between and around teeth.

Too much plaque can lead to gingivitis, the first stage of gum disease. Gum disease symptoms include red, swollen, or bleeding gums, receding gums, and the formation of deep pockets between teeth and gums, according to WebMD. If left untreated, gum disease can end with tooth loss due to destruction of the tissue that surrounds your teeth.

“You register an older look because you see more spaces, less and uneven gum tissue,” according to Antenucci, a spokesperson for the Academy of General Dentistry.

Eventually gum disease can cause the bones underneath to dissolve away, explains Dr. Donald Clem, a dentist in Fullerton, Calif. “In later stages of periodontal disease we would see disfigurement in terms of caving in of the lips and cheek and wrinkles around the lips and cheeks.”

A range of cosmetic services, from Botox to a chemical peel, can help your skin look its best—and so can habits that you do every day, such as flossing and wearing sunscreen.

While women make up the majority of cosmetic procedure patients, men see the benefits as well. Men received 13 percent of all cosmetic surgical procedures and 9 percent of all cosmetic minimally-invasive procedures performed last year in the United States, according to statistics from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

Bill Neville, 52, recently shared his cosmetic surgery story with reporter Elise Morgan of WHNT NEWS 19 in Huntsville, Alabama. Neville, who has a four-year-old son, began to worry about looking old: “He’s [his son] going to start t-ball, swimming, and I don’t want to be out there with the rest of the dads and have them looking at me like, ‘Hey! Grandpa is out here to watch his grandson!’”

Neville changed his diet and exercise but decided to get plastic surgery as well. “Just rolling back the clock a bit on this turkey gobbler and possibly getting the skin off my eyelids would be great,” he said before he had surgery.

His procedures included a facelift, a neck lift, laser resurfacing of his skin, and injections to fill in wrinkles. “I was hoping not to look real “plasticky” and stretched, and I don’t think I do,” said Neville. “I think it looks real natural and everyone I’ve talked to thinks it looks great.”

ASPS statistics show that the top 5 minimally-invasive cosmetic procedures for men last year were:

1. Botox
2. Microdermabrasion
3. Laser hair removal
4. Chemical Peel
5. Wrinkle fillers

Read the full story, “Plastic Surgery for Men Isn’t Taboo,” on Bill Neville on the WHNT News website.

Related story: “A guy could get used to this no-lines life” – A male Los Angeles Times reporter writes about his experience getting Botox treatment.

Botox is famous for its ability to smooth wrinkles in the face, and now Johns Hopkins researchers may have found another use that goes beyond the cosmetic.

The researchers gave patients with thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS), a debilitating nerve compression disorder, one low-dose injection of Botox in a neck muscle. After the Botox, the patients reported a significant reduction in their short-term pain.

The study suggests that Botox could be a less-invasive alternative to the syndrome’s treatment of last resort—surgery to remove a rib.

“There haven’t been many alternatives to the use of surgery to treat this syndrome,” says the study’s lead author, Paul J. Christo, M.D., M.B.A., an assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Botox seems to be an effective treatment that avoids surgery’s obvious drawbacks, such as its invasive nature and long recovery time.”

The effect from Botox lasts only a few months, so repeated injections would be necessary to maintain the results. However, repeated treatments could lead to the development of antibodies to the compound in patients; as a result Botox would no longer block the pain. Dr. Christo says that means that not all patients with TOS are candidates for Botox.

Botox’s use as a cosmetic procedure remains very popular, even as more therapeutic uses are discovered. The American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery reported that it was the number one less-invasive cosmetic procedure in the United States in their 2009 cosmetic surgery statistics. Botox is one of the services Dr. Stacy offers at her Bellevue, Washington office and is the most popular cosmetic treatment in Bellevue and Seattle, according to her website.

The full release on the study, Botox Eases Nerve Pain in Certain Patients, can be viewed at the Johns Hopkins Medicine website.

Dermatologists from Yale University School of Medicine recently published a study that attempts to objectively assess the skin tightening results of both cosmetic facelift surgery and fractional radiofrequency treatment.

Correction of facial skin laxity was the goal with both cosmetic treatments.  To measure the results and compare the two, a randomized, blinded, comparative trial was designed.  Doctors mixed photos of patients who underwent both facelift surgery and fractional radiofrequency treatment, then graded them on a 4-point skin laxity scale.

2 findings from the study are especially useful in comparing these two treatments:

• Mean skin laxity improvement of the RF treatment was 37 percent of the surgical facelift
• Patients in the RF group returned to normal activities 24 hours after treatment, while those in the facelift group did the same after 7 to 10 days.

Read more about this study on PubMed.gov