At first thought, plastic surgery during the summer months doesn’t seem like the ideal time of year. People are mostly headed outdoors to swim, run, bike, and explore.
However, more important than the time of year is the amount of time you have to recover from surgery. For many people, summer provides a lighter work schedule, time off from school, or a break from family activities that allows for a better time period to recover from surgery.
Here are some of the surgeries that are most popular at the Whole Beauty® Institute during the summer months:
Facial Rejuvenation Surgery
Dr. John Q. Cook has an approach to facial rejuvenation surgery that is passionate in its respect for natural form. Areas that have lost their tone due to the aging process are restored to their original position and facial volume is replenished with your natural fat in a process known as a fat transfer.
For many teachers and educators, the summer break is a natural time to take advantage of facial rejuvenation surgery. Also, many of our patients are in fields such as finance and law where there is a slow period in August that provides a perfect opportunity for facelift recovery.
If you have a vacation home that is not a long drive from Chicago it is usually possible to spend much of your recovery in that location with several quick trips back to our office for postoperative visits. If you are coming from out of state our team can arrange for an extended stay at one of the luxury hotels near our Chicago office.
During the first two weeks after surgery, your facelift will be most conspicuous due to swelling and bruising. After that, it is usually possible to camouflage the signs that you have had surgery, and you can return to normal light activity. You will have to avoid heavy athletics and more strenuous physical activity for several more weeks.
If you have a summer vacation planned or would prefer to stay out of the heat in a cool, air-conditioned climate, recovering from a facelift will be entirely feasible. Planning for your recovery from surgery will not only prepare you for the downtime you will experience but also help you coordinate any summer activities.
Breast Lift
Looking good in a swimsuit is something almost every woman desires, but if your breasts have settled into a position that is lower than you would like, your choice of beachwear may be limited.
Many women are happy with the size of their breasts. They would prefer to avoid breast implants since their goal is simply to restore the position and tone of the breasts and not to make them larger. For these women, the structural breast lift as developed by Dr. Cook is an excellent solution.
Many plastic surgeons routinely combine breast implants with breast lift surgery to restore fullness to the upper portion of the breasts.
At the Whole Beauty® Institute, we take a different approach. With the structural technique, Dr. Cook uses your natural breast tissue to restore volume to the upper breast. The technique involves anchoring of the breast at several levels so that all of the lifting is not just done by the skin, which tends to stretch after surgery. Scars are also limited in comparison to many breast lift techniques.
For most patients, the recovery from a structural breast lift is relatively easy with a return to normal light activity within a week of surgery. If you enjoy summer sports, you need to know that you will not be able to resume vigorous athletic activity for the better part of six weeks.
Liposuction and BodyTite
Trimming down this summer may be possible through liposuction. Stubborn pockets of body fat that won’t disappear through diet and exercise can easily be removed through a short surgical procedure.
A slimmer body contour can be achieved with a variety of liposuction techniques. Laser lipoplasty methods, such as SlimLipo® and SmartLipo®, are a good choice to reduce fat any time of year. Laser energy is delivered to the treatment area that melts fat while a suction tube removes it from the body. This is all accomplished under local anesthesia in our Chicago and Winnetka offices and most people are back to normal activity in a few days. Patients who undergo laser liposuction have a shorter time in which they need to wear compression garments and have a quicker return to exercise than what we have seen with other techniques.
BodyTite® is a minimally invasive treatment that uses radiofrequency energy to tighten skin and reduce excess fat in numerous areas of the body.
BodyTite® is beneficial for patients with a trim physique and good skin tone who want to reduce a small area of excess fat. If the deposits are larger and the skin tone is good, a skilled surgeon can use liposuction to reduce the fat with a high probability of success.
This treatment opens up options for patients who have mild to moderate looseness of skin over an area of excess fat. The energy in the BodyTite® system melts fat and tightens the skin and underlying tissue to a degree that skin removal may not be necessary. As such, BodyTite® serves as a sort of “middle ground”—not as invasive as skin removal surgery, but more powerful than non-invasive treatments.
Rhinoplasty
Rhinoplasty involves the reshaping of the nose to produce a structure that is more in line with your natural facial contour. Many of our younger patients find that the summer break from high school, college, or graduate school classes provides an excellent window of opportunity for nasal surgery.
For two weeks after nasal surgery, it will be apparent that you have undergone rhinoplasty because of an initial splint and then the presence of surgical tapes. It is also important to protect the nose from being bumped for 6 weeks, so you will not be able to engage in strenuous activity during that time. Normal light summer activity is fine after the initial two weeks, but you will need to protect your nose with a good sun block.
Summer May Be the Best Time for Your Surgery
For many people, summer is the best time to undergo plastic surgery. During a consultation with Dr. Cook, you can learn more about the procedures available and find one that is right for you. Contact the Whole Beauty® Institute at 312-751-2112 and schedule an appointment.