Plastic Surgeons Live-Tweet A Double Mastectomy, With Photos <i>And</i> A Playlist

Marking the start of this year’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the team at PRMA Plastic Surgery in San Antonio live-tweeted from their operating suite earlier this week. 39 year-old Arizona native Melissa Ray travelled to the surgery for a double mastectomy, a preventative procedure having tested positive for breast cancer gene. (Ray’s mother also died of breast cancer.)

Welcome! We will begin tweeting live from the OR with Dr. Chrysopoulo in just a few minutes! #BRCAdiep

— PRMA Plastic Surgery (@DiepFlapBreast) October 2, 2013

Photos may be graphic #BRCAdiep

— PRMA Plastic Surgery (@DiepFlapBreast) October 2, 2013

PRMA’s surgeons specialize in “advanced breast reconstruction” procedures. Ray chose a DIEP flap reconstruction in both breasts — surgery where skin, fat and blood vessels from the abdomen are removed and used to reconstruct the breasts removed during a mastectomy. (In medical textbooks, the vessels are “deep inferior epigastric perforators,” hence the DIEP acronym.)

Dr. C removing breast tissue from left breast #BRCAdiep pic.twitter.com/R7DQb4o3im

— PRMA Plastic Surgery (@DiepFlapBreast) October 2, 2013

Interspersed with updates on the surgery, PRMA’s feed tweeted information on breast cancer, surgery options and other helpful advice. In just over four hours, the surgery had been completed successfully — and shared extensively.

We end with a quote from our patient. "Get all the information you can to determine what is best for you. Knowledge is power." #BRCAdiep

— PRMA Plastic Surgery (@DiepFlapBreast) October 2, 2013

Photo: Getty Images

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Stem Cell Facelifts Are Adding A Whole New Level of WTF To Plastic Surgery

These days, if you've got a problem with your face, some plastic surgeon's got an answer.

Fire facials, vampire facials, injecting poison into your frown lines ... what will they think of next?!

Introducing the stem cell facelift: For a mere $20,000, the procedure (not to be confused with the stem cell facial) takes stem cell-enriched tissue from troublesome fatty areas like the tummy or thighs and injects it straight into the face (how pleasant!).

Fans of the procedure are claiming it's better (and obviously more costly) than Botox. Practitioners of stem cell facelifts insist they deliver better results, since there are more fatty tissues in stem cells, so that desirable, less wrinkly younger look lasts longer, naturally.

But critics says this fancy-schmancy title is just another name for fat grafting—taking fat from a part of the body and putting it elsewhere—and that's been around for years. Others are saying that it still has some major kinks to be worked out: One account of a woman who dished the five-figure cost to a Beverly Hills doctor claims she now has a permanent clicking sound whenever she opens and closes her mouth. It turns out some of the stem cells injected into her eyelid mixed with a dermal filler and formed into bone. If that's not something straight out of a horror movie, we don't know what is.

There's a price to pay for beauty. But $20,000 seems pretty high for a facial that still needs to be test driven. And while we're at it, let us point out that stem cells might/definitely have more important uses right now than facial rejuvenation, like, I don't know, IMPROVING CANCER TREATMENT, researching all sorts of diseases, healing burn scars, reconstructing breast tissue, testing new drugs, etc. etc

That seems a little more important than a housewife's crow's feet, dontchathink?

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Photo Credit: iStockPhoto

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