Don’t trust to luck for nip and tuck

Sep 17 2008 by Emma Pinch, Liverpool Daily Post

“It was all infected and the tissue had broken down. The problems had started miles away with no-one to support her. The NHS has to step in and right what has gone on.”

Even if complications hadn’t set in, the results of the surgery just weren’t as good as they could have been. Sometimes it’s because the surgeon just won’t spend as long with each patient.

“A facelift may look great for two weeks, then it will stretch out again,” says Mr McGeorge. “If you’ve gone abroad and already paid for it, and six months later it’s not looking great, the surgeon says, ‘it’s nothing to do with me’.”

Here in Britain, meanwhile, surgeons are finding new methods of face and brow-lifts that avoid the dreaded “wind tunnel” look and last longer.

“Traditional facial surgery actually ages people, and we urged them to put it off as long as they could,” he explains.

“If you presented a surgeon with eyes that were a bit baggy, the surgeon used to take out excess fat, throw it away. You could get a cadaverous look that elderly people have.”

New surgery, he says, is about putting back the building blocks.

“The envelope supporting the fat gets weak and falls forward. We now tighten the envelope and preserve the fat between the lower eyelids and the cheeks and lift it up and put everything back.”

Face-lifts are about much more than just pulling up the skin.

“It’s about pulling on the top layers but also getting down to the better quality, more fibrous, layers and redraping the skin for a more natural look,” says Mr McGeorge, who admits that half of those who have facelifts live in fear of people noticing, while the other half are upset people might not.

“The fact is you might look different, but people don’t focus in much,” he adds. “If you have one operation, have your eyes done. You might have the most fantastic figure in the world, but you really only talk to people’s eyes.”

Despite BAAPS concerns about people rushing into surgery, and the statistics, Mr McGeorge insists the majority of people don’t go under the knife lightly.

“I don’t think surgery is completely acceptable, but the social stigma of spending money on yourself has lessened,” he says.

“But, as a surgeon, if it isn’t of benefit to the individual, you don’t do the procedure.