- All right, so we are so lucky
today to be with Mel.
Mel is one of my patients who we did a procedure on
a year ago, right? - Yes.
- Literally a year ago, today?
- Exactly a year ago.
- So she's from the, is it Mississippi?
- Mm-Hmm, yep.
- Yeah, so Mississippi,
she's here for a conference
and we got a chance to see one another again,
which a lot of times I don't get the privilege
of seeing some of our out of town patients
so this is a real treat,
and we thought we'd take an opportunity to kind of talk
about an important topic which is these,
the need to do surgical procedures in patients
who are a little bit younger, right?
So you're 42 years old.
- 42 this month.
- This month, yeah.
And so, talk to us a little bit about
what it was that you were noticing in yourself
that led to you looking into me
and then from there?
- Well, I noticed, well, first of all,
I felt like I was in my tip-top fit shape.
I was going to the gym (claps) five days a week,
I had gotten my black belt in Taekwando,
I was running Spartan races,
I felt great, I was eating right,
drinking all my water, doing all the things
that I should do and I just,
my face just always looked tired
and no matter how sleep I got,
no matter how much water I got in,
my face just looked tired.
I've researched everything.
I put on the caffeine creams, you know,
to help with the eyes, the rollers for the puffiness,
and nothing really just seemed to make a difference
despite all of the research
and the skincare creams
and even Botox.
I did Botox a little bit, as well.
And so a friend of mine told me about you,
and I started looking at the procedures that you do,
and I just wanted to look like myself again, honestly.
I just wanted to feel like I looked like myself
and so I saw
just from educating myself with you
that it may take more than just fillers and Botox
to get back to not looking so tired,
and you know, I just noticed little things
about my eye drooping,
just my whole face seemed to fall forward
and that's something that I felt like Botox
and fillers couldn't achieve,
but I didn't know that the extent of what all could be done
until I met you, so.
- Yeah, so it was a nice--
- It was amazing (laughs).
- Yeah I know, it was a nice opportunity
and many people I would say are not fortunate enough
to have the full picture of the options available
so what ends up happening is because you're in your 40s
you think automatically that there only thing
I should be doing is the non-invasive procedures,
Botox, fillers, et cetera.
But there's certain changes that happen with the face,
primarily when things start to loosen up
and start to come down
or when you have bags under your eyes,
and you have hollows under your eyes, et cetera.
Those type of things are beyond what non-surgical treatments
can correct, and so you're almost spinning your wheels
trying to achieve what you said very eloquently
which is basically you just wanna look like yourself,
you wanna look as young as you feel
and it doesn't even matter if you're in your late 30s,
early 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, whatever it is.
At the end of the day, when you don't look
the way you feel it creates a little
bit of emotional-- - It does.
- Turmoil and dissatisfaction.
So what we suggested was doing a Vertical Prevent,
which is basically like a mini Vertical Restore
and what that did was basically address the neck,
a little bit of laxity in the neck,
the jawline, elevated the midface beautifully,
elevated the corners of the brow really nicely.
We also did an infraorbital fat transfer.
We kinda added volume throughout the periorbital region
and did a lower eyelid blepharoplasty
to remove the bags and the combination of those things
were you know, I think--
- Magic.
- Yeah, yeah. (laughing)
- It's magic.
- Yeah it's phenomenal because it's--
- I feel incredible so.
- I love that, and that's at the end of the day,
what this is all about, right?
It's about you feel whole again, making you feel
like that Spartan racer that you are and the body,
you know, weight trainer and taking care of yourself
in such a, and she's a mom of how many kids?
- Two.
- Two kids and--
- Teenagers (laughs).
- Two teenagers and you know,
basically just has this amazingly youthful spirit,
and we're so lucky that we're able to address it
and give you what you wanted
without the potential of looking different.
- Yes, that was probably my main concern
was that I was going to look different like,
people would see me and say, oh, she's had plastic surgery,
you know, very obvious and not like myself at all
and that's not how it was at all.
It was very subtle and people have noticed you know,
you look great, but I don't look
like a different person. - They don't know why.
- Yeah, they don't know why.
- I look like myself and I feel great
and I'm very thankful that I found you (laughs).
- That's fantastic and I think the moral of the lesson here
and the final point that I wanna make is that sometimes
the non-invasive treatments, fillers,
too much filler in the cheeks, too much filler in the lips,
things like that can actually make you look
more unusual and more different than a well-done
procedure like this which ultimately leaves no trace
of surgery and no one would ever know
that you've had anything done.
So I think sometimes it's about bringing those two
things together, the right procedure for the right condition
and doing it in a way that always is gonna look natural.
- Yes.
You did it beautifully. - Well, thank you so much.
Aww, thank you Mel. (laughing)
Thank you so much for coming down and being willing
to share your story.
I know, cause we're seeing more and more patients
who are in their 40s who wanna take more active measure
as opposed to doing all the non-surgical things
that don't always result in the outcomes
that they're hoping for,
so this will I'm sure serve as a nice example
and an inspiration for a lot of people.
Thank you.
- Okay, thank you.