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Big Butts No Lies Plastic Surgery Podcast
Big Butts No Lies is a plastic surgery podcast created to help women feel informed, confident, and prepared when navigating the world of cosmetic surgery.
Hosted by plastic surgery consultant and former patient coordinator Mavi Rodriguez, the show offers a rare behind-the-scenes perspective into how the plastic surgery industry really works. With more than 18 years of experience working inside top plastic surgery practices, Mavi understands how surgeons evaluate patients, how procedures are planned, and what recovery truly looks like after surgery.
Each episode features conversations with board certified plastic surgeons, recovery specialists and industry professionals who share their experiences with procedures such as breast augmentation, liposuction, BBL, tummy tuck and other aesthetic treatments.
Whether you are researching plastic surgery, preparing for a procedure, or want to understand the process better, Big Butts No Lies offers honest conversations, recovery guidance, and expert insight to help women make smarter and safer decisions.
Big Butts No Lies Plastic Surgery Podcast
Should I lose weight before or after my BBL - ft. Dr. Matthew J. Nykiel
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, our host & plastic surgery consultant Mavi Rodriguez is joined by Dr. Nykiel. Together, dive deep into the advancements of body sculpting procedures, from the latest in liposuction technology to the evolving trends in Brazilian Butt Lifts (BBLs).
They answer the following questions:
- What is power-assisted liposuction? What is Vaser liposuction?
- What is Renuvion and its role in enhancing skin tightening for patients with loose skin?
- Why is there a shift from butt implants to Brazilian Butt Lifts (BBLs) in body sculpting procedures, and what are the risks and benefits?
- What are the best practices for choosing a plastic surgeon, and why is it essential to establish good communication and a supportive relationship with your plastic surgeon?
- Should you lose weight before or after getting a BBL?
This insightful conversation sheds light on the importance of patient-centered decision-making and supportive surgeon-patient relationships. Tune in to discover valuable tips and expert advice for anyone considering plastic surgery.
Learn more about Dr. Matthew J. Nykiel: Dr. Matthew J Nykiel (@socalplasticsurgeon) • Instagram-Fotos und -Videos
📞 Want help planning your surgery?
Book a discovery call with Mavi Rodriguez.
🌐 Visit our website: www.bigbuttsnolies.com
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📺 Watch full episodes on YouTube
Hey, guys. Do I have the show for you today? I'm super excited to have a very special guest with me today, doctor Matt Nikel from SoCal SoCal Plastic Surgeons in Newport Beach, California. Hello, doctor Nikel.
Hey. How are you? Nice to nice to meet you or see you again from the meeting, and thanks for having me.
I am very happy to have you on. And the meeting he's mentioning you guys, let me tell my girls, I went to the aesthetic meeting a few weeks ago and I got to meet doctor Nikhil in person. It was amazing. The conference was so good. I learned so much. It was so much fun. How how was your experience?
It was great. Also, it's my second time. It was in Vancouver. So it's my second time being there. III love Vancouver. Just a a great place to visit. And then, it's always great getting together with, fellow colleagues, just going over different ideas. We get to meet, new people to the industry, like yourself.
It was great great running to you at the, marketplace and just talking with you. So it's overall a great experience. Love it.
Meep, I love it. I have been going to the conferences for a couple of years. I've taken a lot of their patient coordinator courses. I've taken a lot of the classes that they offer, and I've always loved it. So being able to be there with a booth, and it's something that we came up with. It was just really a really amazing experience. I'm so happy I was able to do that. And I feel like at the these conferences, you guys share a lot of information about what is happening in your practice.
Right?
That's right. Yeah. That I would say that's 1 of the major things that we do. It's always kinda like, hey, what's what's what's new? What's the trend? What are you guys seeing? What information can we share to help each other out?
I love that. So today, for our topic of losing weight before or after a BBL, I want you to share with us, everything that you learned. I know I saw some some slides at the conference about fat transfer and the modalities, the technicalities of whether the fat will take or not. So I think it's really interesting. My girls love to hear that type of stuff. They love learning. So why don't you tell us a little bit about losing weight with the BBL? Should you wait until after surgery, after your BBL to lose weight? Should you lose your weight before the BBL? Kind of let's run through that.
Well, thanks. And I think it's a super interesting topic, especially in today's current era because with these sort of, the GLP 1 medications, which is your semaglutides and your terzepatides or your Wegovis and Monjernos. Weight loss is actually attainable now for a lot of people. Right? And and not just a little bit of weight loss. 20, 30, 40, 50 pound weight losses are within within grasp, easy for people to do, and that's just something that we didn't have before. So I think it's a a really great question because if you're thinking about, okay. I wanna use volume to get my butt bigger or rounder or more shapelier because, in general, if you just sort of pull up or tighten skin on your butt, a tighter butt makes a flat butt. It makes a square butt.
It makes a lack of a shape. So adding that volume really is what helps give you roundness, perkiness, shape, etcetera. So what's gonna happen if we take get rid of the volume? I think it is is that next question. Right? So, a little bit of this, I think this is sort of the art versus the science of medicine, that's existed for all of us, which is there is no single answer for everybody. Right? So I think we can give, these generalizations that, for the most part, hold true. But you're always gonna have to get a consultation, check with your surgeons, double check what I'm saying with with your local surgeon because I think I think that matters. Right? And and it's not sort of a cop out on this answer. It's just, hey.
It's the art versus the science that every every person is a unique individual. So pre the GLP ones or pre these amazing weight loss medications, we would say, listen. We want you to get down to relatively your goal weight, because we wanna sculpt you at relatively your goal weight. What I mean by relatively is it's okay to be 5, £10 above, maybe even 15. We have some good fat. We can suck it out. We can work on diet exercise afterwards. Right? But now with these medications, people are able to lose, like I said, £30, £50, and we can get to points where we can lose substantial weight and not have enough fat left to to even, you know, even do a fat transfer.
And that's just something that has not been, I think, a issue in our current society, right, or in our current, BBL plastic surgery practice.
Era.
That's right. That's right. It's a it's a new chapter. Right? So where's that leave us? Like and and my thoughts are this. If we are talking about losing 5, 10, £15, yeah, I think let's get you down to your goal weight. Right? If if if we're still gonna have, a fair amount of fat left and we're still gonna have to do more sort of diet and exercise after. Great. We can take it.
We can take that lipo. We can take that fat. We can shape it, and then we can add the volume. I I'm I'm in my practice, I'm really more of a shaper in BBLs. I I think I really focus heavily on creating a nice shape and a nice frame. I'm not so much about huge volume, more more about just, I think, AAA very elegant shape. And I like to sculpt you closer to your goal weights, because I think that that's it just holds better. I think it looks better.
I think we're getting more towards your goals. Now if we're talking about losing £50 and we're talking about going from, like, you know, 170 to 120 or 180 to 130, I'd say, well, we probably need to meet with each other somewhere around that 140 to 145, 150 mark just to just to have a check and to see how much available fat is left. How are things looking? What do we need to do. Because we we physically need enough fat in order to make a change that's worthwhile for you. Again, can differ a little bit on people, smaller frame people, less fat. If we're just trying to fill on a little hip dips, we need a little less fat. It really can change, but I think in general that that's kind of, how we've approached it.
I love that answer because it's very each person has their own you guys hear me say it all the time. You're on your own journey. What worked for 1 person might not work for you, and what worked for you might not work for them. So it's very important for you to trust your plastic surgeon. I wanna go back to what you just said a minute ago about how you're more about shape than volume. I would love to really dive into that because I think there was a while where there was a lot of women who were just looking for a lot of volume and they really and I think there's a lot of, I'm more of shape than volume too, so I would love to really talk about that.
Yeah. And I think I'm sorry. I gotta silence my phone there. And I think that this, is a little bit, again, from a different view. You know, I just said, from from our standpoint, from a surgeon standpoint, it's the art versus the science of medicine. Like, we wish that it was the exact same for every person. We wish that we could control healing for every person. We wish that, like, the post op was the same for every person, but it's just not.
It's the individuality, that makes our job both frustrating and cool at the same time. And I think that that holds true from a patient standpoint. Right? It's the art. It's the individuality of it. So, to 1 person, they may not care as much about the shape. To another person, they may care more about the volume, and that's all they're interested and I would totally agree with you. I would say probably sometime around 2017, 2018 until probably about last year sometime, I think volume was the main driver. And and I think it was the main thing people were interested in.
And still within that, we had a lot of people come to us because they weren't as interested in volume, more interested in in shape and just sort of, figure sculpting. But we got a lot of hate too at the same time from people saying, like, I would never go there. I want I want bigger volume. I want more volume. And I and I think we're seeing a little bit of a, like, anything that sort of pendulum swing, and we're swinging more back into the baseline, which is, in in the middle, I think, which is just, hey. Volume's not so much of the issue. It's more just sort of we call it body balance at this point in time. So we wanna balance the body.
Especially in women, we wanna really balance hips, shoulders, waist, and really try to see how we can create a more just more feminine or just more aesthetically appealing, shape, really kinda hit goals right. And that focuses on that sort of body balance shaping. In my mind, I think BBLs, are a lot of addition by subtraction. Right? Like, I think good LIPO helps to set up a good PBL result.
Absolutely. And actually, that leads us right into our next question, which was something that I want us to talk about, which is liposculpting with Vaser versus with MicroAir. Because I I saw on you on all of your stuff that I think you do both.
I do. So, I do that so in full disclosure, I'm I'm a I'm actually a international trainer for Vaser, and I'm actually an international trainer for Renuvion, which is a skin tightening device. So I'm not a trainer for for Mike Rohair. So this gets in a little bit in the weeds, but I hope that I can break it down for everybody, pretty easy. So, if you think about it, liposuction's gone through a a number of, technology improvements. First off, originally, liposuction, honestly, was done with a syringe by hand, and somebody was just, like, pulling on the syringe and moving the camera back and forth, and that took a ton of effort. It was really hard to even focus on trying to shape somebody because it took so much energy. The next thing is somebody hooked up basically the cannula to a vacuum.
Right? And that vacuum helped to suck the fat out. Significant improvement, but still require a lot of energy. Just you just moving back and forth. And with more energy, there's less time to focus on the art. Right? So then somebody said, well, wait. If I take that cannula, or that that hollow tube and we put it on a motor, so it kinda moves itself, which is what a micro area is, its power, and that takes so that gets rid of a lot of the energy necessary, and we can start actually focusing on sculpting. And we did. Power lipo, honestly, is by far and away, I think, 1 of the best advances to liposuction.
And I think if you talk to anybody that does lipo enough, they're gonna be like, oh, yeah. Power lipo, because it's just a necessity. Because it it it just helps to decrease the amount of energy that you, the surgeon, has to spend so you can focus more on sculpting. And while power lipo works great, it has some limits. It can't totally break that fat up. It requires, it just can't sometimes get through some of the the connective tissue, or that collagen. It it just can't break through it as well. And that's where ultrasound or vaser lipo really start to come in.
Those ultrasonic waves basically, through super cool processes, make make fluids bubble, and then the little bubbles actually break the fat up, and then that little fat actually releases. So now we're able to actually get into places that we weren't, able to get that fat to break up, and we can. So now we get this fat to really break up. We've got power lipo to suction it out, and we can really start to focus on sculpting. And so when you look at the surgeons, I think when you look at them just objectively, you know, like, hey. That person does a really nice job lipo. They made a really nice change. Almost all of them have vaser ultrasound ultrasound of lipo, and almost all of them use microwave power lipo.
We found that that unique combination just really helped to get us, a better result. And then, you know, sort of we we started running to issues that we had a little bit of skin lax because we were sucking off so much fat. So that's when we really brought, Renuvion radiofrequency body type, a sort of skin tightening devices on.
I've heard from other surgeons how the new generation of technology has really opened the door for less, scars on some patients when they don't maybe they're that in between patient, like, between a tummy tuck and a lipo.
Yeah.
And you're kinda like, you could go either way. Tell me a little bit about how you're seeing that.
Yeah. So it's actually super cool. And, again, I'm I'm a trainer for Renuvion. So there's 2 main, and I just say that for for all your listening audience. You always want to declare if you have any bias. So III am a trainer. I'm paid for by Renuvion, to go train other docs. There's 2 main types of skin tightening devices on the market.
There's body type, and there's Renuvion. So, like we just talked about in that prior segment about how great the combination of ultrasound and power can work, what most of us were running into, the problem was not that we couldn't remove enough fat because we could. It was the issue of what's happening with this skin now. There there's just a limit on how much skin can tighten. So that was really the first huge advance that these radio frequency, skin tightening devices allowed us. Typically, we see about 30% tightening in the skin. In really good cases, it can be 60%, but I always tell people, hey. Just focus on 30%.
Yeah. And so now we were able to actually suck a lot of fat out, sculpt it, and also get that skin envelope to tighten. So I think that's huge advance number 1. Huge advance number 2, you're absolutely right. We would have 2 groups of patients come in where they were in between this tummy tuck and lipo. And you'd say, you know, you're really not a good candidate for lipo because we've got a little bit of loose skin, and you're not really a good candidate for a tummy tuck because you've got you know, have enough loose skin, you're just I would recommend waiting. And then that was it. That's kinda what you said.
Just recommend wait, come back. We can do something later. Now with with skin tightening devices, we're able to lipo. We're able to get a nice change. We also have another group of patients that just kinda had just skin that that just had a little bit more stretch to it. Right? Just some people have really tight firm skin and other people don't. That's just the unique individuality of us all. And those individuals, you'd say, yeah.
You know, your skin quality isn't the best. I'm not sure how great you would respond to liposuction. And now by being able to add in these radio frequency devices, we say, listen. You got a little bit of of looser skin, just that's naturally your quality skin, but we're actually able to get this to firm up by about a 3rd, and improve the overall skin tightness and also reduce fat. So it's been an amazing change, to our industry. And, again, BBLs, I think, well shaped sculpted BBLs, really are a procedure about balancing the body and addition by subtraction or sucking all that fat out, really sort of setting yourself up, to then add volume and and create a nice shape in that waist to, to butt to hip hip ratio.
I love it. Thank you for explaining that so well. I can see the the expertise behind that. I want you to that code for
I talk too much. Is that what that is?
No. I can Yeah. No.
My my team's nodding their head behind me like, yeah. You talk too much.
So No. I want you okay. Now next topic, I want you to talk a lot talk a lot. Okay?
Okay. Alright.
Us the t on butt implants.
Okay. So, well, I I can we can talk a lot on this.
No. No. Go for it. Go I'm
a try and break it down.
Because we've never talked about it.
Okay. So couple things that we just have to address. Number 1, we did butt implants before we did BBLs. Right? We stopped doing butt implants because they they can have some complications. And the and the main thing I want you to think about is most surgeons were comfortable with butt with breast implants. Breast implants, straightforward, easy procedure, very easy to do. Lift up lift up the pec muscle, goes below the pec muscle. You can pretty much squeeze big implants in the breast and the breast naturally stretch out and squeeze out because that's what breasts are meant to do.
They're meant to engorge with milk. So a lot of surgeons took those same ideas and then went over to the butt implants and start putting them in. So, well, I can just I'm just gonna squeeze in this big butt implant. I'm gonna put big butt implants in. And what they found was that doesn't work because you've gotta sit on your butt implant sometimes. The butt isn't meant to naturally squeeze and and increase in in volume that much. And so what would happen is, it could actually break down the incision. They could become exposed.
If you weren't with that, the the proximity to the anus meant that you have a little bit increased risk of infection. If you use really big butt implants, you could actually risk flipping an implant. Any implant can flip, but a butt implant is flat on 1 side and round on the other. So if it flipped, it was a problem. So all these things made a lot of docs say, I don't wanna do these anymore. And then the BBLs came out right around that same time. And at that time, we were injecting fat into the butt muscle. So what the butt implant was able to do was implant goes in the muscle, basically lip pushes the whole muscle up, so it naturally creates that perky, round, muscular looking butt that gives volume.
The BBL, when we were injecting fat in the muscle previously, right, it made a big butt muscle. It made a really nice result. It was a great result. And at that time, a lot of people probably said, well, hold on. I'm getting great results injecting fat in here. I'm not coming through with the same, risks that I have with the butt implant whether I can't go super big. If I do, I can run-in some problems. I think I'm just gonna be done with the butt implant and then move on to the BBL.
The other thing is a butt implant's a harder dissection because it's gotta go into the I'm sorry. Butt implant's a hard dissection. It's gotta go into the muscle. So all these things made people say, you know what? I'm done with butt implants. I'm just gonna do b builds. And, obviously, as we know, there were issues that came about with injecting fat in into the butt muscle. Fat embolisms, you know, issues of of if even not fat embolism, just fat embolized syndrome where people would end up in the hospital, but you could also die from the fat being injected into the muscle. And so that's kind of flipped a lot of this equation.
So we start putting fat back above the muscle. But 1 of the negatives about putting fat above muscles, you don't have a ton of space to put that fat and the skin doesn't stretch. Because in the old school BBL, when you put the fat in the muscle, you'd be pushing that muscle up, which would naturally just push up your whole skin, increase the volume. But when you're trying just to put fat in the skin itself, there's just a limit how much that skin can stretch because nothing's pushing it up. And so butt implants have naturally sort of come back around. And I really long talk really long answer to that, but that's why you've seen this paradigm shift a little bit from everybody's like, no to butt implants. And they're like, hey. You know what? Butt implants aren't so bad.
Because when you compare them to the risk profile, butt implants actually say, well, hold on. They do do a really nice job, and and they're not coming with these risks of fat emboli, etcetera, when we injected muscle, and there's just limits to how much volume we can put in the butt above the muscle. So what are the key things that you need to know about if you're looking to get butt implants done for for your viewers? So that that's that's kinda my end listeners. So that's sort of my first half of, like, hey. Look. This is why you're seeing butt implants come back. So it's not all bad. K.
Key takeaways number 1, go to someone that does butt implants a lot. Now there aren't gonna be many of us that actually do butt implants a lot. That's just truth by the numbers. So if you can find someone that honestly does 1 butt implant a month, you're actually beating out 95 to 99% of the plastic surgeons, in the US. So that that's number 1. Number 2, make sure that you're, at least in my opinion again, these are my opinions. I think butt implants do better inside the butt muscle. We've done them both above and below the muscle.
We put our above and inside the muscle, and we find that the butt implant is best when it's in the muscle because that muscle just basically helps act as a sling to help hold the implant up and and helps to actually hide the implant. The next thing is you have to understand, butt implants are completely different from breast implants. So a butt implant is a firm implant. Breast implants will squish down, and you can do it if you ever play with them. You put your hand on, they'll squish down. They they actually they look a little bit smaller sometimes in in diff when people have a lot of breast tissue weight. Butt implants, that's not the case. If a butt implant is sticking out this much, it's gonna push your butt out that much.
I kinda call usually, we say tell people a butt implant acts, like, twice as big to a breast implant. So if if you were looking at, like, a 300 cc butt implant, that's gonna function similar to, like, how a 600 cc breast implant would. And that's just kind of been, what we found. We have to respect the width of your butt. So there's very limited sizes on butt implants that match each peep person's butt width. Breast implants, that's not the case. We have a we have, honestly, pages of breast implants that we can match to your size of your breast. That's not true for butt implants.
So we wanna use a butt implant that fits the width of your butt. If we do something too big, it's gonna look weird. It could stick off or it could potentially not fit in the incision, and that's not good. So those are the key takeaways that you wanna know. You wanna make sure that you're not using too big of a butt implant. The common size button plant that we use is about a 275 to 350 cc button plant. That's that's it. But it functions a lot bigger.
Because you hear those numbers, you're like, that's small, but you see a lot push out of it. The second thing is we gotta use a butt implant that matches your butt width. I really believe that in the muscle is better. I think it gives a better result. And you wanna go to someone that does butt implants frequently. And frequently simply can mean, like, hey. If they're doing 10 to 12 butt implants a year, they're doing more than than almost everybody.
That's that's so true because it's hard to find a surgeon that does blood butt implants and does them, confidently and is confident about the results. I know I've sat I've heard of some surgeons saying, yeah. I mean, I'll do it if they really want it, but it's not, like, something that they really, like to do or enjoy doing or or find, I guess, exciting, but they'd so they don't. The complications that come out from them probably cause them more of a headache than actually doing the procedure and
III think a little bit of it too was just if you, you know, if you trained as a plastic surgeon, let's say, in the past 10 years, right, you really weren't exposed to that many butt implants because they just weren't being done. BBL's fat transfers were. So unless you, specifically spent some time learning blood implants, you really don't have you really weren't weren't trained in it per se. Now there's a lot of things that we learn after the fact, but it's just something that is AAA new concept to so many, people that it's not. I think that when you get that response, they're like, yeah, I can do it if you want. It's just they really haven't been exposed to it. Totally. And and so I think that's when you're not exposed to, you get a response like that.
Like, yeah. If if they want, I I can do it. But Yeah. If you've got them, then you've seen it, you're like, yeah. No. We can do it. If we do it appropriately, we can use it for for really thin people, or people that want a little bit more of of a pronounced volume or people that are really flat butt that you're like, how much can we really expand this? They're great answers. I love to
hear that. I have another thing that I want you to talk about,
Yeah.
Which I'm super curious about. I saw on your feed the BBL vacuum in the OR?
Yeah. Yeah.
Tell me about that.
So, if it we do a lot of cellulite, treatments. Right? Like because, like, again, I think once you get a a BBL or butt implant, Don, you're loving your results. I think it's always in you're just staring at your butt more, and you start to notice, these things and cellulite swallowing. So naturally, I think if you do if you're doing a lot of BBLs or butt butt implants, butt practice, cellulite's gotta become, 1 of the things that you treat because it's gonna help your patients. And and so that's what we started doing. We've actually developed some really neat techniques, for cellulite, and it and it it works. I think there's a lot of, you know, myths out there that cellulite treatment doesn't work. It does.
It's just sometimes we gotta treat more than once, and so that's why people I think sometimes they're like, oh, it doesn't work. It's just sometimes it got pop up more once. And 1 of the devices we use during cellulite is we put a vacuum suction device. Kinda looks like a big cupping device. Right? And it and it sort of pulls that cellulite band a little bit so I can pop them. We sometimes gotta use that in, like, really hard cellulite cases. And 1 day, we were doing it. We kinda thought, well, I wonder if this would help stretch that skin out and give me a little bit more volume to put the fat in.
Because all of us struggle now putting fat above the muscle, but, hey. Can we get enough space to put that fat in? And so we tried it and what we found was the results were good. They do use a similar device like this when they do fat transfers to the breast. It's called a BRAVA device. And 1 of the things that study showed that is it it increased blood flow to that area. And as I'm sure all everyone knows that's listening here is that fat transfers, sometimes they can take well, sometimes they cannot take well. In my opinion, that's really due to how much you're off your butt. But 1 of the other issues of sort of fat taking is, does it get a blood supply? Does it actually transplant into the tissue surrounding it? And so 1 of the ways we could get that to actually improve is increasing the blood supply, and we know that actually vacuum suctioning does it.
And there's been studies done on it with with fat transfers to the breast. So, we found when we were doing it, we could get a little bit more fat in and that our results were just a little bit better. And it's super easy to do. It takes us a couple minutes. We just vacuum suction the butt, before we inject that fat, and and we're we see a nice change from it. Again, just all these little things that you're trying to do when you're injecting fat above the muscle.
I love to see the innovation.
It's it's a long again, another long answer, but I don't wanna run you through, like, because you're like, how did how do you that's what I would think if I was listening or watching. It's like, how did you decide to put a vet a suction device on somebody's butt? And that's kinda how we how we how we sort of got to that point.
You know, I love that. The problem solving, though, you're like, okay. This works over here in a different way. Well, wonder how it would work if we did it over here and it turned out it worked out great.
Yeah. It did. It did. It's awesome.
So before I let you go, I have 1 more question. Well, 2 actually. My first 1 is 1II ask all my surgeons, and that is if you are team drains or no drain.
Oh, I got I got such a long answer for you on that, but it's a good story. Okay. Oh, go go go go go go go. Originally, I was team no drains. 100%. Team no drains. It's like, no. You you don't need drains.
Like, just, leave them open. They'll drain. Get some chalks. Actually, also, we will recommend patients even like the puppy pads because you could get puppy pads for, like, substantially less than than these medical, you know, sort of chalks. They're the same thing. And then, yeah, it's a terrible 24 hours. Just a lot of fluid drains out, but, like, it could be fine. And then, I did the surgery on my wife, and so I was taking care of her, in a hotel.
And I was just kinda watching all this drainage come out, and, you know, her her sort of in these chucks as all these fluids come out. A lot of people a lot of surgeons still do it, and I used to do it. And I just thought, this is gross. Like like, this is no. I'm I this is I'm grossed out, and I'm the surgeon, you know, kinda like with all the fluids. And it's true. So, honestly, the day after, I went to the OR. I was like, guys, we're putting drains in.
Everybody kinda looked at me weird. I was like, it's just it's gonna be so much cleaner. And, also, we get the drains out of the following post op visit. So, like, we just we take them out right away. It's just for those first, you know, 8, 12, 24 hours. It just helps collect that fluid. It keeps things so much cleaner. And I think overall, it's just a better experience.
I don't think it has any impact on the results at all. I do think it just makes your life as a patient better, and it's what I would want if I was a patient.
I love that answer because I'm team drains and I had I my surgery I had drains, but I've worked with plastic surgeons who had who did drainless. And that I mean, it is messy. And I I think it's funny because a lot of, in 1 episode I did with Annalisa, maybe 2 seasons ago, we were having a talk about this and she's like, oh, but, you know, it's better, it's cleaner, and then I'm like, no, it's not. You're draining. You're draining out of your out of these little puncture holes and it's getting everywhere. She's like, oh, but you can use puppy pads. So, this is really interesting because it's it is you still drain. It's not like you're not draining, the fluid still is still there.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's amazing. Yeah. It's just amazing how much of that tumescent fluid comes out. It's just so much cleaner. You know what I mean? It's just clean.
Just I I think it's cleaner.
Better. Because it you don't get it on your on your garment, so you're not wet. So then you're not uncomfortable.
And then the bed. I mean, like, that that that you know, I mean, like, the whole thing. Like, then you don't have to worry about, like, what about your sheets? What about your clothes? What what about your, you know, your furniture? It's just it's just cleaner. It's just better.
It is. It is. I love it. So good answer. Okay. So my next 1 is and my last 1
Alright.
Is if it was your wife or your sister, I guess your wife already did it. So maybe your mom, your sister, your best friend, somebody very close to you who was considering having a plastic surgery procedure, and they're just about to get started on their journey. What is 1 tip that you would give them?
So this so 1 tip 1 tip that I would give them. I talk so much and you've you've you've pushed me down on 1 tip. Okay.
You can make it to you can make as many as you want.
Alright. So well, okay. I will. So so, alright. So this is these are my tips for people. Just wholeheartedly that I feel. Number 1, you've gotta be doing plastic surgery for yourself. If you're doing plastic surgery for anybody else, and I and I mean like and I mean that in in all sincerity, if you've been in a 10 year marriage, if you and you're just kinda like, I don't have that same spark.
I'm gonna do this because I hope that my partner will show more interest in me. I can pretty much guarantee you you're gonna walk away unhappy because you're not doing it for yourself. You're doing it for somebody else. You've gotta do it for yourself. Number 2, look at before and afters. I think before and afters are great. And and there's nothing wrong with saying that you don't like before and afters or you do. Honestly, we just put up a Instagram post, with that focus really heavily on on sculpting, shaping someone.
Nice change. And we had, you know, 2 or 3 people hating on it, like, hey. There's not I would never the butt's not big enough, not enough volume for me. Great. Very happy that you're able to see it. I'll try to be respectful all the time when you're in these communities, but but, right, know what you like, know what you don't like. And if you see a surgeon, that makes art that you don't like, and just it is art versus science of of of of medicine, Don't go with that surgeon. Like, even if you like them personally, we we have a lot of people.
Someone would be like, hey. I saw your videos. You're great. I wanna go to you. I just don't III like a different look. And I say, don't go to me because I'm not I'm not the person. III appreciate you want to, but go somebody that makes the art that you like, that that really resonates with you. Number 3 is you've gotta like your surgeon.
And what do I mean by that? Well, it it it goes a couple ways. You have to have full confidence in your surgeon, and you have to also like them. Complications can happen to and they will happen to anybody. It's it's a nature it's an inherent nature of what we do, which is surgery. And you want to have full confidence that when a complication happens, that you trust your surgeon and that you like them. Because if you don't really like your surgeon and and you have complication and you're going through this period that's harder, it's it's not gonna make your life easy. It's gonna make your life harder. Those would be my main, sort of, I think, things to kind of kinda go over.
I love that. Those were really great tips. Good. The the last one's really important because I and I talk about this on the show all the time about how complications can happen. And what's important is knowing that the surgeon that you are with is going to hold your hand during that whole process, And that's super important. We always talk about that on the show, so I love to hear it coming from the doctors as well.
Thank you. I I agree with you. I think it's just it it's it's just, you know, unfortunately, 1 of those inherent things that happen. And and I can guarantee you, you know, speaking as I have family members that don't go on plastic surgery and speaking to surgery myself, no 1 wants complications to happen. Like like, nobody wants it. It's just sort of, okay. Here we are. What can we do now to kind of get us through this and and try and, you know, in some ways, make lemons out of lemonade Make lemonade out of lemons.
Just really what can we do together, work forward, try and put us both, on on a path towards the goals.
Absolutely. Because I wanna I'm I don't wanna go too long, but I do wanna give this example of imagine you're after surgery. Right? You just had a tummy tuck, for example, and you have drains and you have all of these you're sore, you you're nauseous. And let's say you maybe something happens in that 1st week post op where you're starting to see for example, maybe your your incision is looking dark or you're maybe scared of an infection. And now imagine that you can't get a hold of your doctor. You can't call your surgeon because the communication from the from the beginning of the whole process was bad. They're they don't answer their phones or they don't get back to you or they never call you back or something like that. So now imagine you're after surgery and you're not getting calls back.
You're you're you're afraid. Maybe you're traveling for surgery. Now you're gonna go back home. All of these things snowball on oh, 1 on the other because the the flip side of that would be you start having doubts and you have such a great relationship with your surgeon that you can call them and tell them what's going on, and somebody answers. And if you do have to come in, they tell you come in to see us. If it's something, hey. You're it's totally normal. You're just a healing process.
Then you already know it's the healing process and you can move on with your life. But not having that that ability to, I don't even want I don't know if the word is problem solving, but, like, to have us an a solution. Like, hey, look at this. Is this is this normal? Am I overreacting? Do I need antibiotics? Do I need to come in? Like, what's going on? Versus you're still feeling all of those questions, but you can't get a hold of anybody. It's the opposite you can't. Should I come in? Can you write me a prescription? Can the doctor call me back? I need to come see you guys. So you've that's the different reality of having a surgeon that you have a good communication and relationship with versus having a surgeon that only sees you for the surgery and you don't ever see them again.
I think that's a good point. And I and I I'd also say just for for your listeners, I'd split that up in the in the 2 things, just to just to give you. So 1 of those is absolute, like, interpersonal sort of relationship. Right? Do do you have a good working interpersonal communication relationship? And if the answer is no, like, you feel friction every time you talk to the individual, you just don't get along with them, and that's not. I think sometimes in general, we we sort of shy away from saying that. Like, that's totally fine. There are personalities of people that get along well together, and there are personalities of people that don't get along as well together. Great.
If you find yourself when you've met a surgeon, and even if you're like, I love these before and afters. I love what this person does. I love these results. And then you maybe like, I just don't get along this person. You really wanna take a step back and say, wait a minute. Is that a good choice? The second part of that is if you find that you cannot ever get in touch with the office, no 1 will, call you back, no 1 will respond to you, I'd say that's a that's a good indicator too. Right? To give you an idea, like, every 1 of our every single 1 of our patients gets my cell phone number. It's just directly my number.
It goes it's right to me. They can text me, call me whenever they want. It's part of that's sort of that that's sort of that concierge treatment, but it's that it's that direct line of communication, once you are that surgical patient of, like, hey. It's really important we stay in communication with each other, and here's our here's here's my number. Here's my cell phone number. And not not every surgeon has to do that, but, you just wanna make sure that's a great question when you were kinda asking also to circle back on the journey. Like, make that 1 of your questions. Hey.
How do I get in touch with you guys after surgery? How do we keep in communication? Because I agree with you. There's many stories of, sort of clinics, etcetera, where kind of you can't ever get in touch with anybody, and that's not good.
That's not good. And it the patient journey is really affected. So I'm glad that we're talking about it today, and I'm going to continue talking about it. And it's something that I'm very passionate about, educating my girls, my audience, about what to look for, what what are red flags, what are green flags, and talking to different plastic surgeons on the show and exposing the surgeons to my girls so that they can get to hear, like, hey. This is somebody that, I respect, and I admire what they're doing and how they, run their practice. And it also kind of sets as an example. Like, okay. This because this is something I've always said.
Just because that's how they do it, doesn't mean that you have to accept it. So it's just, meaning, oh this is how they do it, you don't get to meet the surgeon, that you only get to meet them the day of, you don't see them. Like just because that's how they do it doesn't mean that you have to accept them and and that you have to go there because you you love the results. There's a lot of plastic surgeons that can deliver amazing results and give you the bedside manner and take care of you.
Yeah. And and it going back to the journey, I I if my family member said they went somewhere and they weren't able to meet the surgeon until the morning of surgery, I'd say no. That's just I people do it. I'm not saying it's wrong, but if it's my advice, I'd say no. Don't don't go to that
Don't go to that person. I think we couldn't leave leave off on a better note. Thank you so much, doctor Michael, for you did such a good job. I you did great on your answers. Not long not not, long winded at all. You did great.
My staff is laughing back behind us. I promise now. They're like, okay. We'll see. Yeah. Hey. Hey. Sincerely, thanks so much for having me.
It was great meeting you at the meeting, it was I'm so happy we were able to sync up, and and do this. Thank you.
Thank you. And we'll have you back on in the future, and let's pick a good topic.
I would love it. Yeah. Let let let let your let your audience decide and and we'll talk about whatever. I love it.
0:02 - 39:32
Yeah. That would be good. So that's the episode for today you guys, and I'll see y'all next week.
