7 Best Beauty Procedures (and 3 of the Worst!)

Speaker 1: 00:01 Hi everybody. Welcome to look live and be better on Facebook live. I’m dr. Anthony Youn – America’s holistic plastic surgeon and I’m filming today from the Phoenician in Scottsdale, Arizona. So I’m on vacation with my extended family and we’re having a great time. So if any of you are from Arizona, uh, we’re in Scottsdale. If you’re in Phoenix, uh, we’d love to hear from Ya. Uh, but we’re having a great time. And I thought, let’s do a Facebook live in my hotel room while we’re here. So in this fabulous hotel room, the lights aren’t quite what they normally are, but hopefully the show was just fine. So today we’re going to cover the seven biggest cosmetic bangs for your buck and three of the worst. And so if you’ve ever wondered what’s worth the money, uh, what isn’t worth your money today? We’re going to, I’m going to go over, in my opinion, what are the best bangs and what are the worst?

Speaker 1: 00:51 So let’s get right into it. So we’re going to count them down from number seven to number one. And these are in order. So number seven is micro needling of the best banks for bucks. So if you haven’t heard of microneedling, this is a fairly popular treatment nowadays. It’s growing in popularity and the treatment basically is you take tiny little needles and it’s typically an automated system where we make these tiny little needle poke throughout the skin. And you can literally do this hundreds of times with an automated device. You do it typically in a doctor’s office or a med spa. And the key to this procedure and effectiveness effectiveness of it is the depth of those needle punctures. Now you may have seen products that you can buy on Amazon and other places online that are little rollers that have tiny needles in them.

Speaker 1: 01:40 Those are, the problem with those is that they don’t necessarily penetrate, the needles don’t penetrate deep enough to get you much of a of an improvement. And so that’s why I do recommend if you’re going to do micro needling, do it in a doctor’s office where they can actually go a bit deeper with those punctures. And the second key to this is applying a growth factor on top of the skin. So those tiny little needle punctures, whether they go a millimeter or two millimeters into the skin, uh, we’ll uh, we’ll create these tiny channels that are open for a very short period of time, usually just a couple of hours. And that allows, if you put growth factor on the surface of the skin for that growth factor to penetrate and go deeper in the skin to get a better result. And some people even do this with growth factors that are derived from your own blood.

Speaker 1: 02:26 It’s called PRP, platelet derived plasma or platelet rich plasma. I mean, and so you can actually draw a person’s blood, you spin it down, remove the platelets, and you can apply that over the surface of the skin. Those growth factors and those platelets can help to rejuvenate the skin. Now why this is such a good bang for the buck is because typically microneedling is not a really expensive treatment. These, the actual microneedling devices costs usually a doctor less than seven to $10,000 to purchase. Sometimes quite a bit less than that because it’s not that expensive to buy the equipment. The treatments aren’t too expensive as well. So this is my number seven micro needling of the best bang for your buck. It can help to tighten up the skin. It can help to improve fine lines. It can even help if it’s aggressive to remove some minor acne scarring and wrinkles.

Speaker 1: 03:19 All right, so that’s number seven. My number six best bang for your buck is an upper blepharoplasty. So if you’re not sure what this is, this is an upper eyelid lift. So for those people who have excess skin of the upper eyelids, we can surgically remove that skin and really improve the appearance as well as for some people actually improve their vision. If you’ve got so much skin hanging that you can’t see very well, your health insurance may even cover this. Now, why this is such a good bang for the buck is because it’s a very simple and easy procedure to have done. It takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. Most patients don’t take any pain pills. You may have a little bit of bruising afterwards, uh, but usually it’s a very easy recovery and because of surgery isn’t that long. It’s usually not nearly as expensive as let’s say, an endoscopic brow lift or a facelift.

Speaker 1: 04:09 So if you’re, if you’ve got heaviness of your upper eyelids and surgery is something that you would consider this as a very good bang for your buck type of operation. All right, so number five, our chemical peels. So chemical peels are great bang for the buck. Kind of the same idea behind microneedling chemical peels. Really the actual product is not very expensive for a doctor to purchase. And because of that, the cost of, let’s say, taking out a lease on an expensive laser, those costs are not passed off onto you. So, depending on who you go to, you could get a pretty darn good moderate depth chemical peel from possibly anywhere from 500 to a thousand dollars for a, a, an intense type of a treatment. And the same type of results may cost a couple thousand dollars if you’re having this done by a laser. Okay.

Speaker 1: 04:59 So once again, the reason why chemical peels to pay for the trichloroacetic acid for a moderate as chemical peel may cost a doctor literally dollars. Whereas for a doctor to buy or pay for a lease on a laser, uh, each treatment can cause that doctor several hundreds of dollars. And your know that those costs are passed off onto you. So if you’re looking for a more aggressive way to kind of rejuvenate your skin, to get a deep exfoliation to improve fine lines, uh, improve age spots, tighten up the skin than a moderate depth chemical peel is a great bang for the buck, and it’s my number five. Number four, submental liposuction. So what is this, well, this is liposuction of the double chin. So a lot of us, we suffer from a little extra fat here. If your skin is pretty good, then you can easily do a liposuction procedure is typically what little incision right here, it heals so you can almost never really see it and that fat can be sucked out in as little as 20 or 30 minutes.

Speaker 1: 06:00 Um, typically, uh, people wear little bit of a dressing for as long as a couple of days. If you do it on a Thursday or Friday, most people are good to go back to work by that following Monday. If you’ve got a little bit of bruising, put a little bit of makeup over the neck and you should be fine. Now the reason why this is such a good bang for the buck is because unlike injectable treatments that melt the fat, you do one treatment and you’re done. And typically the procedure like I said is fairly short, like an upper blepharoplasty. Uh, this procedure may only take 20 or 30 minutes. The downtime is very minimal. Usually don’t take any pain pills and because it’s a short operation, usually not that expensive and some doctors leave and do this in their office. If you follow my podcast look live and be better podcast in a few weeks.

Speaker 1: 06:44 I have a good friend of mine who’s going to go over Beverly Hills lunchtime procedures, and we’re going to cover this as one of them. All right, so number three is tretinoin or retin-a. So if you’ve seen some of these shows before, you’ll know that my favorite anti-aging ingredient for anti-aging creams is tretinoin. The prescription strength, the version of a vitamin A or a retinoid, uh, the common name or the trade name is called retin-a. Now, the reason why this is such a good bang for your buck is unlike super expensive creams that you can buy at a expensive department stores, you can actually get a prescription for this from your doctor and your health insurance will cover it if you’ve got acne issues. However, even if you just pay, uh, pay for it at a doctor’s office, it’s usually not more than 75 to $100 for essentially what is the best anti aging cream available today?

Speaker 1: 07:40 Okay? So you can spend $400 at an, at a department store on an expensive anti aging cream that literally is just moisturizer and maybe an antioxidant. Or you can spend $100 or less from a doctor’s office to get prescription strength tretinoin this is something that you want apply, however very slowly because people, it is very strong and you can get a reaction to it. So if you do get started on it, usually we recommend starting at a lower dose 0.025% or 0.05% and start just a couple of times a week at the most. And then as you tolerate it after a few weeks and increase the frequency that you’re using the tretinoin and up to every night. Now, if you’ve got real sensitive skin, if you’ve got real thin and dry skin, this may not be a good option for you. You may want to go with something different, but if you do have oily skin, if you’ve got thicker skin, if you’ve got normal and combination, combination skin, most people do well with the tretinoin as long as you start slow.

Speaker 1: 08:39 So my number three best bang for your buck is retina-e number two, intense pulse light IPL. Another name for this is the photo facial. So if you’ve got dark spots on the face, IPL is a great bang for your buck. And the reason why this is so good is usually in just a span of a couple of treatments it can get rid of most if not all of those dark spots. So if you’ve got age spots, Sun spots, liver spots, freckles, all those are basically different names for the same thing. It’s pigment that is fairly superficial that we get as we get older and that we get from sun damage. Now the great thing about Ipl is that it will actually zap that pigment and it will turn some of those dark spots even darker and usually within a week or two they actually will slough off and fall off.

Speaker 1: 09:30 Most people do necessitate a few treatments of the IPL for maximum results. But the good thing about IPL is that there’s no downtime with it. It typically really doesn’t hurt at all. Uh, and you can see results after one treatment because it’s not as super aggressive laser. Usually it’s, uh, nurses and that’s the patients at perform this treatment. And you can have it done for relatively inexpensive. So number two, Ipl, quick way to get rid of unnecessary or undesired pigment. All right, before we get to the number one, all right, let’s go into my three worst cosmetic bangs for your buck. So if you want to avoid some procedures, if you’ve got a certain amount of money budgeted out for cosmetic procedures to look younger, these are the three things that I would exercise caution on. Okay? And, and I’m not going to go over things with just plain don’t work.

Speaker 1: 10:21 These are things that just aren’t a great bang for your buck. Number three are acne scar treatments. Okay? There are a lot of people who, uh, when they’re teenagers, they have acne issues and they develop acne scarring. Acne scarring is a very, very difficult thing to treat. And the best treatments may improve acne scarring at the most, 30 to 40%. And these are the most aggressive treatments like the old style ablative laser treatments. Because of that, acne scar treatments typically aren’t a great bang for your buck because at best you get a fairly modest return on your investment. Uh, and unfortunately there’s no way to just eliminate acne scars. It’s disappointing, but unfortunately true. So if you’re going to get treatments on your acne scars, just keep in mind that typically the improvement is fairly modest and usually not the best bang for your buck.

Speaker 1: 11:12 Number two is PRP, platelet rich plasma to fill the face. Now this is different than, remember I taught on our number seven a of the best bang for your buck is micro needling with PRP can be helpful, but this is actually injecting PRP into the face to fill in lines. Now this is something that has been done for the last eight, eight or 10 years or so. Um, and the idea is that if you, if you draw blood and you spin it down and you remove the platelets, those platelets are filled with growth factors. And if you inject that into the face, the idea is that it can help fill the face out like a filler. I have tried this many times and the problem with it is, is that the results are kind of modest. You don’t see a whole lot of filling. Okay?

Speaker 1: 11:56 And because of that, uh, it is not a great bang for your buck. So you could spend a good amount of money without seeing a whole lot of changes with it. The good thing about injecting PRP is it’s your own tissue. So people who say, look, I don’t like injectable fillers because it’s an injectable, it’s a foreign substance while instead of injecting PRP, then go with fat. Okay, fat is going to be much more long lasting and you’re going to get a much more prominent and a permanent result if you use fat. Don’t really spend the money on PRP to inject into the face. That’s my recommendation and my number one worst bang for your buck, our skin tightening technologies. Now this is sad to hear because I can’t tell you how many people I talk to in my office every day who say, I just want to get some tightening through here and through here and I don’t want to facelift.

Speaker 1: 12:46 Well unfortunately that procedures and the treatments that we have right now, whether they utilize radio frequency, laser ultrasound or any combination of those usually don’t get a great result and there’s no way to do a literal, a nonsurgical facelift with those types of results. And so you can have with these treatments, there are some mild treatments. So we have one in our office called [inaudible], which is a very nice mild tightening treatment. Um, but it really is for maintenance for the most part, you know, you’re not going to take somebody who has a ton of looseness and give them a big dramatic change. Even the most aggressive treatments that tighten up skin. Once again, using heat based technology, whether it’s a laser ultrasound or radio frequency or any of that, usually only get a modest change best. check out realself.com that’s a great website if you’re thinking about getting a skin tightening treatment and see and read about what people’s experiences are with these treatments because they will give you an actual worth it rating if it’s worth it or not worth it and take a look before you spend the money on it.

Speaker 1: 13:48 But in the, in general, caution on skin tightening technologies, that’s my unfortunate number one worst bang for your buck. So what is the number one best bang for your buck? Now I know you probably think I’m going to say Botox and the answer is not botox. Actually the number one best bang for your buck is Dysport. Surprised? Uh, no. If you’ve never heard of Dysport, basically Dysport is like botox is from a different company. Okay. Now Botox is the most popular cosmetic treatment in the country and probably the world, uh, in my office. It is by far the most common and popular cosmetic treatment my office. However, it is not the best bang for your buck because Dysport works almost exactly the same as botox, but it’s cheaper. So Dysport is a type of botulinum toxin, very similar to botox and it works basically the same and but it is a little bit cheaper.

Speaker 1: 14:44 Okay. It’s made by the same company that makes Restylane. So it’s a very reputable company. It’s just the name and kind of doesn’t have quite the ring of Botox. Um, but it is cheaper. So if you’re thinking about having botox treatments and you want to save a little bit of money and then you can try Dysport and in general get a very similar, if not the same result. So that’s my number one. Number one best bang for your buck is Dysport if you want to look younger. All right, so, uh, real quick, I want to announce my third episode. Number 3 at look live and be better podcast. Uh, this is called plastic surgery of the private parts with Dr Heather furnace. Heather. Dr Heather furnace is a female plastic surgeon who specializes in plastic surgery of their private parts for women. And so in this podcast, and you go to it at www.doctoryoon.com/iTunes.

Speaker 1: 15:35 And you can download either an audio or a video version of it. If you ever wanted to learn about labiaplasty about the O Shot, about Thermiva, um, about, uh, what a slight to be a female plastic surgeon and it male dominated specialty. We dive deep into these subjects. So I’m definitely, this is something that is, um, not potentially safe for work and let’s do it in the privacy of your own home. Uh, but if you ever wondered about what is now the most fastest growing segment of plastic surgery, uh, that is plastered to the private parts and we go into that.