What are the risks of plastic surgery?

Like every other procedure, there are risks with plastic surgery. Learn more about the risks associated and how likely they are to happen.

Transcript

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We instill upon our patients preoperatively that they have to stay off of blood thinning products. They have to. That's absolutely [INAUDIBLE] Aspirin, Advil, Motrin,

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Excedrin, Ibuprofen. And something interesting now that patients don't tell you about, which increases it, are herbal products.

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The risks of cosmetic surgery, believe it or not, are the same risks of any major surgical procedure.

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The number one most common complication of any surgical procedure is bleeding. It's always bleeding, number one. And the incidence of bleeding from a cosmetic surgery,

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just like any operation, is 1%. The second most common complication is infection. And that's about 0.5%.

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After that, there's a multitude of different complications that can occur-- deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolus,

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severe scarring, chronic pain. When you're dealing with the breast, there's things like loss of sensitivity to the nipple, inability to lactate,

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tissue loss called fat necrosis, skin loss, skin atrophy, and all types of problems like those.

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Certainly, when we're dealing with bleeding, for example, we instill upon our patients preoperatively that they have to stay off of blood thinning products.

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They have to. That's absolutely [INAUDIBLE]. Aspirin, Advil, Motrin, Excedrin, and Ibuprofen. And something interesting now that patients

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don't tell you about, which increases it, are herbal products. Ginger, [INAUDIBLE],, garlic-- those cause bleeding.

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They cause all types of problems with platelet clotting. And we see patients just oozing in the OR. Stop that for two weeks before because that causes bleeding.

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Other things that could cause bleeding would be just, you know, straining, lifting. Overexertion immediately post-operatively

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can cause tearing of a blood vessel. And you can end up with a hematoma. So we have to be careful about mobilization.