Cosmetic Surgery Center, Dallas | Dr. Rai

There are a number of interesting theories about beauty, and, although none of them are "authoritative," they can all be useful for conceptualizing your cosmetic surgery by design. Theories of beauty typically group characteristics together in ways that are pleasing to the eye, but not necessarily identical.

One theory utilizes four different types of beauty, based on whether your body is angular or rounded, and whether it is primarily top-heavy or bottom-heavy, then refines the four basic beauty styles into twenty different types of beauty. Once you understand your basic body type, you can select an appropriate ideal that is at once reachable and attractive, allowing you to get the best results harmonious with your natural gifts, and to look out for the particular hazards of weight gain for your body type.

Gamin type body from the French word for street urchin, women with this type of body have what might be described as delicately angular bodies. They are generally short and have small shoulders and breasts, delicate hands and feet. Women who don't quite achieve gamin type beauty generally do so because they have extra weight. Liposuction is often a good procedure to achieve the delicate build of the body.

Romantic type body indicates a woman with delicately rounded features. They are generally average height or slightly below, with small chests and very defined waists and delicate facial features. Women who are close to the romantic type often miss with facial features that are slightly off, such as a nose that is just a little too large, which might be corrected with rhinoplasty, or with additional weight in the hips, thighs, and buttocks that can be addressed with liposuction. Some women of this type can achieve a balanced body type with breast augmentation that allows their breasts to balance their hips.

Natural type body is also known as a strongly rounded body. With a wide face, wide shoulders, large chest and moderate hips. Women with this body type often miss being attractive because they have very flat buttocks, which can be addressed with buttock augmentation. Another common problem is thin lips, which can transform the expression of the face from wise into severe, but can be corrected with lip enhancement. As women of this type body age, facial sagging can be a big problem, as their wide faces can become very jowly, but this can be addressed with a face lift.

Dramatic type body, or strongly angular body, is a woman who is tall, with wide shoulders, a long face, medium breasts, defined hips, and largish buttocks. Too much weight loss can make these women look bony. On the other hand, weight gain tends to accumulate at the hips, making the woman's breasts tend to look even smaller. Breast augmentation can also be a helpful procedure for these women, and plumping the features of the face can also be advantageous.

If you would like help achieving one of these types of beauty, contact Dr. Vasdev Rai at the Cosmetic Surgical Center in Dallas, Texas, today for a consultation.

The most recent study by University of Portsmouth bra researchers, technically known as the breast biomechanics team, includes something old and something new.

On the old side, researchers reconfirmed that as many as 90 % of women wear the wrong bra, and that poor support could lead to the ligaments in the breasts being stretched. During exercise, they said, breasts move up to 8 ¼ inches up and down, in and out, and side to side, but most bras are designed only to limit vertical movement.

On the new side, researchers also investigated why women wear the wrong bra. Whereas most earlier studies implied that women were simply ignorant of what constituted an appropriate bra for their breasts, this new study shows that bra choices are not simply the result of ignorance. Part of the decision was based on strong personal preferences for certain styles, preferences established at a very young age and are relatively inflexible. "They won't even look at anything that doesn't look like the sort of bra they are used to wearing" said researcher Wendy Hedger.

In addition, women's choice of bra is determined by the social stigma attached to particular sizes of bra. Women don't want to be seen as too small or too big and buy an ill-fitting bra in order to appear what they consider to be a normal size. The problem is that with daily wear a wrong-sized bra can lead to painful damage that may require surgical correction such as a breast lift.

Instead, women are encouraged to come to terms with their breast size and buy an appropriate bra size. On the other hand, women who find they cannot feel comfortable with the size or shape of their breasts can have breasts they feel proud of with either breast augmentation or breast reduction.

If you find yourself in denial about the size of your breasts, you owe it to yourself to do a realistic appraisal. If you then decide you are interested in breast augmentation or breast reduction contact Dr. Vasdev Rai at the Cosmetic Surgical Center in Dallas, Texas for a consultation.

It seems impossible that the Food and Drug Administration would pull a device from the market because of grave health concerns, then, fifteen years later, to allow the same device back on the market with only limited restrictions, but that is exactly what happened with silicone breast implants. From cancer to fibromyalgia, silicone breast implants had been anecdotally linked to a host of illnesses, so, despite the fact that there had been no scientific evidence to support such links, in 1992 the FDA and implant manufacturers decided to restrict the implants from use in breast augmentation, although they would still be available for reconstruction operations.

Then in 2006, the FDA re-approved the devices for use in breast augmentation. Breast implant manufacturers and cosmetic surgeons were excited about the return of a positive option for cosmetic surgery patients. After all, 90 % of women worldwide given the choice choose silicone breast implants for breast augmentation, so it seemed a shame that women in the United States should be denied the choice. However, surgeons and manufacturers were concerned that patients, after all the anti-silicone propaganda, would be reluctant to return to silicone.

The good news is that women are returning to silicone, although perhaps not as fast as manufacturers might like. The American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery tracks silicone and saline breast implant surgeries, and it found that in 2007, the first full year saline implants were improved for use, nearly 40 % of breast augmentation operations were performed with silicone. Further, if we exclude operations performed with either transaxillary or transumbilical endoscopic breast augmentation procedures, which can only be performed with silicone implants (between 15-20 % of the total number of operations), this means that silicone implants and saline implants are nearly equal in popularity, and as women see the cosmetic results achievable with silicone implants, that popularity can only be expected to improve, although it is unlikely that they will achieve the same level of popularity in the United States that they enjoy in the rest of the world.

If you would like to learn more about silicone breast implants, contact Dr. Vasdev Rai at the Cosmetic Surgical Center in Dallas, Texas, today for a consultation.

Partial abdominoplasty, also known as a mini tummy tuck, is a significantly different procedure from the normal abdominoplasty, requiring much less time to perform and to recover from.

In a full abdominoplasty, a long incision is made from hip to hip above the pubic area, but low enough on the abdomen so that any resulting scar can be easily concealed by underwear or a bathing suit. Another incision is made around the navel, and excess skin is removed. The abdominal muscles are tightened, and some fat may be removed using liposuction. Then the remaining skin is reposition, with an incision made to allow the navel to be properly positioned.

A partial abdominoplasty, on the other hand, will only tighten skin between the navel and the pubic area. A short incision is made just above the pubic area, not necessarily all the way across, allowing excess skin and fat to be removed from the lower abdomen. It is also possible to tighten the muscles of the abdomen. Once the excess fat and skin have been removed, the skin is brought back together, leaving an even smaller, more discreet scar.

In addition, Dr. Rai can perform an endoscopic abdominoplasty. In an endoscopic abdominoplasty, only relatively small incisions are made: just large enough to allow the endoscope to enter the body. During an endoscopic abdominoplasty, little if any skin is removed. Instead, the primary effect of an endoscopic tummy tuck is the tightening of the abdominal muscles, which, for the right people, can create quite dramatic results with little downtime and almost no scars.

You can see some representative images of abdominoplasty results in our before and after gallery. Every person's body is different, so every person's abdominoplasty will be different. To learn more about YOUR abdominoplasty, contact Dr. Rai today for a detailed consultation.

There's a lot of talk going on in response to In Touch Weekly's "Best Breasts" Poll. Now, In Touch Weekly is not exactly a scientific operation, and they probably don't even know who their respondents are, but we can probably assume that it's something of a cross-section of their reading public. When launched in 2002, the publishers described their target audience as "the daughter of the woman who in the mid-70s would have started reading People," which essentially means women in their 20s, and, based on their marketing scheme of pricing a third less than People, probably lower-middle to lower-income. And, based on length of the articles (about two pages, mostly pictures), they are probably not the most educated segment of the population. The editor also said, in accounting for the magazine's early success "We're the first magazine to be brave enough to say that people don't read magazines anymore. They look at them."

But if you trust the readers of the magazine's aesthetic sense, the best-looking celebrity breasts are:

1. Jessica Simpson
2. Tyra Banks
3. Scarlett Johansson
4. Carmen Electra
5. Lindsay Lohan
6. Katherine Heigl
7. Audrina Patridge
8. Jennifer Aniston
9. Megan Fox
10. Beyonce Knowles

And if you believe the self-appointed experts, about half of these celebrities have had breast enhancement, and the other half have not. For some, the experts disagree, and even change their opinion. Whether you agree with In Touch's readers or not, there are a number of important things we can take away from the list.

First, the split between natural and enhanced breasts means that a good breast augmentation can look as good as or better than natural breasts. If you ask people flat out whether they prefer natural or augmented breasts, they all say "natural," but the evidence seems to be mixed.

Second, not even the experts can be sure which breasts are natural and which are augmented. Some claim to be able to see breast implants in every pair of good breasts, but the truth is no one can really tell.

Third, the best breasts are not all the same size and shape, but are more importantly in keeping with the body size and shape of the woman. Sure, the top four are all relatively large, with significant, obvious cleavage, but the list also contains more moderate breasts like Lohan's and Aniston's. And it even contains some relatively small breasts, like Patridge's and Fox's.

To learn more about how to achieve the best breast enhancements, contact Dr. Vasdev Rai at the Cosmetic Surgical Center in Dallas, Texas for a consultation.

The effects of migraines or migraine-like chronic headaches can be debilitating. For those with true migraines, some relief might be had with behavioral therapy, but sufferers still lose time at work and with their families or hobbies as a result of their recurring headaches. And those who avoid migraine-related foods may not see any relief. These people may not be sufferers of the chemically-triggered form of the headache, and for these sufferers doctors in Britain are exploring the use of a formerly cosmetic procedure to reduce or stop their migraine-like headaches.

The cause of these migraine-like headaches may be pressure on a facial nerve by the corrugator muscle. The corrugator muscle, so named because it corrugates or wrinkles the brow, is sometimes, although not commonly, removed during a brow lift surgery, and cosmetic surgeons noticed that following brow lift surgery, some headache sufferers saw a lower incidence of headaches. This led them to try the procedure intentionally to try and remedy chronic headaches.

The corrugator muscle is only one possible cause of recurrent headaches, so surgeons use Botox to paralyze the muscle temporarily to see if it might be responsible for the headaches. If it seems responsible, it is removed. Only small-scale studies have been performed in the UK so far, but it seems to be effective.

US practitioners of Botox therapy for headaches are dubious of the notion that the corrugator alone is responsible for headaches. Typically, injections are made over a larger area than just that occupied by the corrugator muscle. However, if the procedure continues to be successful, it may be another example of the crossover between cosmetic surgery and general medicine, and we can expect it to move over here.

To learn more about the benefits of brow lifts, Botox, and other cosmetic procedures, contact Dr. Vasdev Rai at the Cosmetic Surgical Center in Dallas, Texas, today.

Radiesse is the first in what might called the composite injectables. In this new variation on the injectable filler treatment, the injection is formulated using two very different components. First, there is a carrier gel and a content of microspheres that last long after the carrier gel is absorbed by the body. As long as the microspheres are in place, according to theory, the body will fill in around them with collagen, leading to long-lasting results. In the case of Radiesse, the carrier gel is methylcellulose, commonly used as a food thickener, and the microspheres are made of calcium hydroxylapatite, a compound commonly used as a bone filler.

Now, the theory of Radiesse and similar composite fillers has been validated by a number of studies published in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of Dermatologic Study. In one study, at least 80 % of 1000 patients were shown to have continued results one year after treatment without retreatment, making the results much longer than nearly any other facial filler available. In addition, it was shown that the mechanism of Radiesse is, as postulated, to stimulate the body to produce collagen around the microspheres.

If you would like to have long-lasting results from your facial filler, Radiesse has always been recommended, and now that recommendation is backed by even more evidence. To learn more about Radiesse and other facial fillers, contact the Cosmetic Surgical Center in Dallas, Texas today for a consultation.

Autologous fat transplants are increasing in popularity as people seek a natural alternative to implants. Although fillers like Restylane are derived from natural compounds found in the body and skin, autologous fat transfer is one step closer to completely natural body contouring. It allows for larger amounts of material to be injected for larger-scale body contouring. An additional appeal of autologous fat transplantation is the possibility that the transplanted fat will survive and become a permanent improvement in the area into which it is injected.

Autologous fat transplantation is a popular option for buttock augmentation, and earlier I mentioned that doctors are considering its use for breast augmentation. The main difficulty with autologous fat transplantation is that the survival rate for the fat is generally 50-75%, and the dieback can be very unpredictable, leaving irregular dimpling similar in appearance to cellulite. In contrast, fillers like Restylane are absorbed by the body evenly and predictably, so that although the lifetime of results is short, retreatment can be planned and executed to give consistent, constant results.

Now doctors are attempting to overcome the dieback of transplanted fat cells by using stem cells. This is not the type of stem cells limited by the government funding ban, but, rather, a type of stem cell that is derived from the tissue extracted during liposuction. These stem cells are mixed with the fat before it is reinjected into the patient. The goal is to use the stem cells' regenerative properties to improve the survival rate of transplanted fat, leading to the steady, predictable results necessary for the procedure to come into common usage.

This procedure is not yet in common usage, but it represents an exciting future possibility. To learn more about the best available options for body contouring, buttock augmentation, and breast augmentation contact the Cosmetic Surgical Center today for a consultation.