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Plastic Surgery for Couples

More and more couples are being seen together for cosmetic enhancements! Yes, that includes you and your spouse, LGBT’s (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) duos are interested in looking better together. Go it a bit further and we are seeing bi-racial / bi-ethnic teams supportive of each other to improve physically. Committed friends and couples are more cooperative of each other’s personal desires as our world communities become increasingly more gender-equal, “color-blind” and in many cases ethnic-racial-religious tolerant, says Dr. Dean Kane, a board certified plastic surgeon in Pikesville, Maryland.

Daughters are encouraging their moms and dads interested in what their wives and sons are going through. Of course you have heard of the mother-daughter teams who have had breast augmentation or nose reshaping (rhinoplasty), fillers and Botox. Friends come together for advanced skin care and chemical peels.
Following the beginnings of a family, the younger married male is seen for liposuction contouring to motivate their weight loss and the younger wife desire a breast augmentation, a breast lift or a tummy tuck to return to their pre-family appearance and sexual appeal.
Increasing consultations include spousal duos and committed couples jumping out of the empty nest following the college kid’s investments, wishing to rekindle their lost youthfulness. Face and neck lifts, eyelid lifts, breasts lifts for her and a gynecomastia reduction for him; tummy tucks and liposculpting are up in the baby boomers retirement era.
An increasing numbers of men are requesting plastic surgery. With pricing more affordable and a partner who may have recently had cosmetic enhancements, the men feel more at ease talking to me about their eyes or necks, says Dr. Kane. Many also wish to improve their “love handles” near the time their wife may liposuction a “muffin top”.  With increasing competition in the workplace, even Botox and Dysport can improve tired brows and angry “11’s” he explains.
I also find more disparate relationships too! Younger women with older men and vice versa. It’s not so much that the younger man wants to look better but the older woman doesn’t want to look aged and out of place so keeping youthful at the gym, hair salon and nips and tucks at our SurgiCenter.
“After they come in together and the man learns a little bit of what is available, he complements his partner with simpler skin care like a reduction in wrinkles with Botox, Dysport and fillers, a reduction in rosacea with IPL, sun-damage with fractional lasers or a facial in our MediSpa; and on his own time.”
So, if you’re looking out for someone in your life, think of keeping up yourself too!
Plastic surgery increasingly is a couple’s activity. When one has work done, the partner may say, ‘Looks good, babe. Maybe I’ll …’
More couples are choosing to nip and tuck in the quest to beat time. (Alex Nabaum / For The Times/ April 13, 2012)
By Susan CarpenterLos AngelesTimes
April 15, 2012
When Margaret first met her boyfriend, she weighed 105 pounds and wore short crop tops. But after 13 years together, the 55-year-old retiree from Torrance developed a “muffin top” that she just couldn’t eliminate.
So she did what so many other women do to get their bodies back: She had lipoplasty on her waist, hips and upper and lower abdomen in September. One week later, her boyfriend had lipoplasty for himself.
“He hadn’t thought about getting anything done, but after hearing how I would look afterward, he decided he should probably go ahead and have a little something done too,” said Margaret, who asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons.
The couple represents a growing trend. Although neither the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery nor the American Society of Plastic Surgeons keeps statistics, representatives for both groups say there is anecdotal evidence that more couples are having cosmetic surgery together.

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The trend is a corollary to the increase in recent years of cosmetic procedures performed on men, who now account for 9% of the total.
“It’s a male ego thing. When a wife comes in and has work done and is delighted with the outcome, the husband or partner feels more confident and secure and more likely to ask questions,” said Dr. Richard Chaffoo, a board-certified plastic surgeon who runs La Jolla Plastic Surgery in La Jolla. “Men are often initially introduced when they come in with their wives, who are looking at having this or that done. When the husband is in there, he sees some of the information, and then he sort of gets interested. Then, when the wife comes in for a post operation appointment, we’ll talk about his eyes or neck.”
Lipoplasty is enormously popular for both men and women. In 2011, more than 300,000 lipoplastys were performed in the United States, surpassing breast augmentation as the most popular cosmetic surgical procedure for the first time since 2008, according to the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
But although coupled men and women may have their procedures done around the same time, what they’re having done may differ. At the office of lipoplasty specialist Dr. Aaron Rollins in Beverly Hills, the most common areas of men’s lipoplasty are the abdomen, chest and chin. For women, it’s “all over,” he said.
Rounding out the list of top anti-aging cosmetic surgical procedures for women are tummy tucks and cosmetic eyelid surgeries. For men, it’s eyelid surgery and gynecomastia, also known as male breast reduction, according to the ASAPS.
If cosmetic surgery is, to some extent, about keeping up with the Joneses, there’s no more important Jones than a spouse. Psychologically, there’s just something unsettling about a man and a wife who are aging out of sync.
“Sometimes the man will say, ‘Well, I think my wife’s looking good, and I don’t want to look as old as I look when she looks so young and energetic,'” said Dr. Malcolm Z. Roth, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “Maybe the man was the courageous one, so the wife follows suit,” added Roth, who has seen several couples celebrate their anniversaries with cosmetic surgeries as chief of plastic surgery at Albany Medical Center in Albany, N.Y.
“I wanted to have at least one good picture with my grandchildren before I die,” said Reita Greene, 59, a nurse from Rancho Palos Verdes who had aface-liftin January. Her boyfriend of 16 years plans to follow suit.
“This all started several years ago when I got a chemical peel,” Greene said. She took her now 55-year-old boyfriend with her to the appointment, and he got one too. Then Greene got Botox. Again, her boyfriend followed her lead. Since Greene had her face-lift, she said, “Every day he looks at me and says, ‘That looks so good.’ I said, ‘Now it’s your turn …’ Neither one of us is getting any younger.”
Most doctors who’ve seen an uptick in couple’s plastic surgery say their clients are in their late 30s to early 60s. The women are typically done with childbearing, and both members of the couple are unable to lose weight through diet and exercise.
“They’ve finished having children,” Dr. Chaffoo said, “and they want to restore how their bodies looked before their kids ruined them.”
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