Joan Rivers Plastic Surgery: From Overlifted to Overfilled

Joan Rivers, From Overlifted to Overfilled

Joan Rivers has been the poster child of bad plastic surgery for quite some time now.  She was one of the most overlifted individuals that anyone has ever witnessed, but I believe that she may have gone overboard in the other direction, which is overfilling. The LA Times recently stated that Joan Rivers, now 78 years old, had her 734th cosmetic procedure.

Like anything in cosmetic surgery, taste and discretion using artistic judgment are paramount when working on the sensitive nature of the face.  Just because fat grafting maybe a good thing, it certainly can be a bad thing in the wrong hands making people look overbloated, unbalanced, and unnatural.

Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS is a board certified plastic surgeon in Dallas, Texas. To see more celebrity plastic surgery blog posts, or to learn more about Dr Lam’s plastic surgery procedures please call (972) 312-8188 to schedule a consultation. If you would like to ask Dr Lam a question about facial plastic surgery please visit our Plastic Surgery Forum.

When to Say No: Understanding Limits of Plastic Surgery

I had a longstanding patient in whom I had done 5 rounds of micro silicone injections into her lips.  Her results were stunning, natural, and feminine.  She came back a year afterward wanting more.  I humbly tried to talk her out of it, begged her not to ask for more, but to no avail.  She wanted more.  I declined.  She threatened to go to another plastic surgeon.   I told her that would be a good idea since we could not meet on the same aesthetic turf.  She called my staff the next day saying that she was involved in a car accident because of my refusal to work on her.  Fortunately, I recently saw her again for fillers in areas that I thought she would benefit from it (not the lips) and she was ecstatically happy with my results.

Saying No in Plastic Surgery

Sometimes you must learn to say no to a patient because saying yes will contravene what makes good sense to you as a surgeon and violate your inner aesthetic principles.  I say no all the time. The hardest time to say no to a patient is after you have already established a relationship.  It is far easier to tell someone no before you start to work on him or her during the initial consultation.  In today’s world of the Internet, you have to be careful even how you say no to him or her because people just starting posting a bad review even if you refuse them service.  I always tell my patients, the reason I say no is not because I am interested in losing money but because I cannot stand doing the wrong thing for someone that would destroy my artistic sensibilities.

Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS is a board certified plastic surgeon in Dallas, Texas. To learn more about Dr Lam’s plastic surgery procedures please call (972) 312-8188 to schedule a consultation. If you would like to ask Dr Lam a question about facial plastic surgery please visit our Plastic Surgery Forum.

Dr Samuel Lam Featured In NewBeauty Magazine
National Glossy Magazine Heralded As The Ultimate Cosmetic Enhancement Guide.

Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS, is featured in the Winter/Spring 2012 edition of NewBeauty magazine, which is due on newsstands in January 2012. The featured article discusses some of Dr Lam’s facial rejuvenation procedures and techniques that minimize pain and downtime such as fat grafting, and facial fillers including Botox, Restylane, and Juvederm.

Readers looking for the latest in “must-have” beauty products, anti-aging strategies and cosmetic enhancements turn to the pages of NewBeauty®. The world’s most unique beauty magazine, NewBeauty is the ultimate aesthetic resource for “everything beauty,” covering subjects from advancements in facial fillers to the most luxurious spa treatments to the newest wrinkle-reducing serums and everything in between. NewBeauty’s reach beyond print—to online and retail—cements its reputation as a beauty brand powerhouse among readers, marketers and medical professionals.

Since its launch in January 2005, NewBeauty has fearlessly enabled an open and ongoing line of communication about cosmetic enhancements between consumers, manufacturers and medical professionals. Let’s face it: More than 12.4 million surgical and nonsurgical cosmetic procedures were performed in 2010—a number that continues to rise. Yet no other publication approaches the subject with NewBeauty’s dedication to fairness and accuracy. Issue after issue, NewBeauty fills the void for reliable information on all types of aesthetic procedures in light of the growing interest and surge in cosmetic-enhancing treatments. Informed, enlightened and inspired readers are empowered to make the best decisions to reach their beauty goals, be they topical, surgical or minimally invasive.

To ensure the accuracy of information in NewBeauty’s pages, the publisher established the Editorial Advisory Board, comprised of recognized experts in their respective fields. Each article and advertisement has been carefully reviewed by at least two members of the Advisory Board, assuring readers that the information provided is fair, accurate and reliable. In its Beauty Experts Guide, NewBeauty only profiles physicians who are board-certified plastic surgeons, facial plastic surgeons and dermatologists, as well as cosmetic dentists who have met rigorous standards and demonstrate extreme due diligence in their respective fields.

With a distribution of approximately 500,000 copies per issue, NewBeauty is available for purchase at 40,000+ retailers in the United States, including major bookstores like Barnes & Noble, as well as airports, supermarkets and newsstands.

Sandow Media Corporation is a cutting-edge publishing company built around a single philosophy: “Always exceed expectations.” Based in Boca Raton, Florida, Sandow Media Corporation is defined by an unrelenting drive to innovate. Founded in 2002 by Adam I. Sandow, Sandow Media specializes in high-end consumer books and magazines in the categories of travel, shelter and beauty.

Dr. Samuel Lam is a board-certified plastic surgeon in Dallas, Texas. His practice, Lam Facial Plastics, specializes in facial rejuvenation, fat grafting, facelifts, brow lifts, eye lid lifts, chin augmentation, cheek augmentation, hair restoration, rhinoplasty, lip augmentation, lip reduction, Otoplasty, and facial fillers including Botox, Restylane, and Juvederm. For more information about Dr Samuel Lam please call 972-312-8188.

Kenny Rogers and Bad Blepharoplasty and Browlift Surgery

Obviously, there is quite a bit of brouhaha about Kenny Rogers’ facial work. His alien appearance has clearly become the poster child for bad facial plastic surgery. If you are wondering what I see as far as his bad work is concerned, I can break it down into three obvious problems, each of which compounds the other and together make for a really artificial appearing look. His brows are clearly way higher than they should be. This is why I think brow-lifts fundamentally are flawed procedures, and I do not perform them any more. Second, the eyelids have been over hollowed out, i.e., all the skin and fat have been removed and now his upper eyelid shape appears scalloped out. Finally, his canthus (the area where the upper and lower eyelid meet on the outer side) has been shortened, blunted, and tucked upwards. Out of all these three things, I know that most people see the first two as the real problems. However, the canthal distortion in my opinion is truly what creates the most unsightly change to his face. With all three present, you have a trifecta of unnaturalness.

Kenny Rogers and Bad Plastic Surgery

How would I propose to fix this situation?  There is no easy answer.  However, I would consider adding fat back into the brows in order to correct all three problems.  First, fat would refill a hollowed out eyelid.  Second, by adding fat back into the upper eyelid and lower brow, the stark transition of a very high brow becomes less obvious.  Finally, fat transfer can be used to fill out farther beyond the canthus so that the eye once again looks longer and less rounded.  Although this is an imperfect procedure in a case like Kenny Rogers, it offers the best hope in correcting all three of his cosmetic problems.

Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS is a board certified plastic surgeon in Dallas, Texas. To learn more about Dr Lam’s facial rejuvenation procedures including blepharoplasty, and brow lifts please call (972) 312-8188 to schedule a consultation. If you would like to ask Dr Lam a question about facial plastic surgery please visit our Plastic Surgery Forum.

Trusting My Expertise in Facial Plastic Surgery

I was giving a lecture a few years ago in Hilton Head when the surgeon before me who is about 30 years older than I am said, “Give a patient what they want not what they need.” I went on stage right after him and said, “I give a patient what they need not what they want.” What the other surgeon meant by this is that if you do something that you want to do and the patient does not like it, she may be angry at you for doing something you wanted and she didn’t. However, I believe that my expertise in this field allows me to create beautiful changes in your face in ways that you simply could not even imagine.

Dr. Sam Lam, Dallas Plastic Surgeon

I use the example of a shoe salesperson. If you want a type of shoe, and the salesperson says that it will hurt your feet, you should probably trust him because that is all he does all day. He lives, breathes, eats, and sleeps shoes. I do the same with faces. An example is a lady that I just saw two days ago who had recently moved from Los Angeles. She had googled cheek augmentation and found me and came to my office wanting more cheeks. All I could see were these very unnatural full cheeks and sunken eyes and chin. I rebuilt her entire face except the cheeks with fillers and now her face is completely balanced and natural. She looks amazing. If I had listened to her, I would have made her look even more unnatural and not rejuvenated but I chose to help her see what I saw, which she could only appreciate when I was done with it. Am I taking a risk? Sure, but it is worth it because I truly know what will help your face oftentimes more than even you do because all I do is live, breath, eat, and sleep the face.

Samuel M. Lam, MD, FACS is a board certified plastic surgeon in Dallas, Texas. To learn more about Dr Lam’s cheek augmentation or facial rejuvenation procedures please call (972) 312-8188 to schedule a consultation. If you would like to ask Dr Lam a question about facial plastic surgery please visit our Plastic Surgery Forum.