This is the Art Beauty podcast, where we are always reaching for truth in beauty. Remember, the brands and the people on the show aren't paying to be here. So we get to asking the questions we know you want answered because you deserve to be informed so you can make the best decisions for yourself. With that said, I'm Amber Milt and today my fabulous co-host is Dr. Dare Ajibade. He is a plastic surgeon practicing in the DC area.
And today we are going to get all into why this new year and this time specifically might be the best time to get that nip and tuck you've been considering. Before we get started, Dr. Dare how's it going? It's going really well. Thanks for having me, Amber. Thank you for having us. And thank you for being on the show with us today. Rather, I know you were with patients all day, so we do appreciate your time and I wanted to get right into it. It is the new year. We've gotten through the holidays.
You know, all of that madness, you know, And I think a lot of people start to think New Year, new you. So whether it's like a new diet, getting into a gym routine and then there's all of us who are thinking, wait a minute, maybe it's time to really consider that procedure I wanted done. But there is actually some benefit to doing it in the winter too, doing these procedures. So I'm wondering if you could start off you know, let's just start at the top.
What are what are one of the benefits that we have for choosing this time of year as opposed to the summer spring? Warmer temperatures? Awesome. I think you're absolutely right. There's never a bad time to feel your best or look your best. But yes, there are some advantages to this time of the year, especially the cold or winter month, to get your cosmetic surgery body control. Right. So let's get into it.
One, a lot of people save their holidays, their time off, their pets, vacation to sort of the end of the year, the winter months. So whether to be able to spend time with family or just kind of thinking of what to do or they don't want to go away in the summer, they want to be able to go away in the winter. So a lot of people tend to have time available during the winter months. And as you know, there are a couple of things that are very important to have.
One you have in cosmetic surgery, obviously the finances and also time to recover. So if you have time off and available time from work and you can recover nicely without having to worry about going rushing back to work, it's very beneficial to patients and to their recovery. So, you know, I mean, I know that we're already into the new year. We just started the new Year and some people might be thinking, wait a minute, how much time do I need to block?
But actually this is a really great time because most of us are Vacation has started in plastic surgery like any other luxury or feel good thing that you're going to do really does involve a little bit of planning. And then there's also a few carryover days. What better way to spend them. But but how long do you think people should set aside? I know all different surgeries are different, but what's a ballpark for recovery? It's a great question.
So as you know it, you already mentioned it all depends on the surgery. And here at GMAC, plastic surgery, we're very particular about really individualizing care. You know, not just the type of surgery, but the patient. It's really important to take the actual patient into consideration. Their, you know, whether it's their pain tolerance or the type of work that they do or how far they have to travel. Obviously, the type of surgery they're doing.
But in general, for the most part, we if you're office based procedure and all you walk in an office, usually about a week or so is a good time to kind of give for yourself. If you have work that involves a little bit more rigorous activity, maybe standing on your feet or walking around a lot, you might want to give yourself a little bit more time, maybe 2 to 3 weeks. Certainly if you're doing surgery that involves any skin excision.
So we have to make a big cuts or you have to have drainage tubes and it's best to not go back to work onto that. Drainage tubes are out because nobody wants to go back to work having to deal with, you know, accessories that are not cute. Right. So it's very important to keep that in mind. Most of the time when we use drainage tube, they last about two weeks. So I encourage patients to weigh at least that at two weeks. Give yourself maybe a buffer of a week. It's much easier.
We find that if you take more time off and you were ready to go back early to call your work from a place of employment and say, Listen, I come back now, people are always happy to have you come back to work early, but it's often much harder to say, Hey, I only took two weeks off. Can I have another week? So yeah, that's sort of the way we we talk to patient about it.
Certain liposuction type cases tend to require much less time for recovery excision type cases, anything that involves deeper tissue. Again, if you have to use drainage tubes tend to require more time.
Another thing that's very popular is fat transfer, particularly to butt and Bebe allows, We get sort of the basic principle of Bebe out is that when we shape the waist through lipo sculpting to make it smaller and we transfer a fat to the butt in the hips area to augment that to fix any area of destruction, deficiency improves symmetry and things like that. Well, we transfer fat to any area. You cannot put pressure in that area because we take fat from its blood supply.
We put it to a place where it needs to get blood supply. So we're very particular about protecting it for at least two weeks. So if you get a bill and you need to see sit at work all day for 8 to 12 hours, it's not a good idea to go back. So those are the type of things to keep in mind. So make sure, you know, I think it's so important to really talk to your surgeon.
And really, that's the time to not be shy, to ask the particulars, to share the type of work that you do, because that's a great point. I mean, if you have to sit which many, many office jobs are I mean, many jobs these days are, it doesn't matter if you can be remote, you still can't be sitting away. That's got to be tough if you can't sit for two weeks. But if you do lay on your tummy.
So there are so many ways that we can walk around that, yes, you can lay on your tummy, you could get a stand up desk. They have different devices that basically are cut out in the middle that you can sit on that doesn't put pressure on your butt and your hips. So there's a lot of things that we could do. They have foam pillows called biblical laws, basically a rectangle, pillows that you sit on, but you're not sitting on your butt. You're sitting on the back of your thought.
So your butt is suspended. So that good, we use it to drive. They use it in the house. There's different things that we could do to help you get through that two weeks where you can't stay at all and after the two weeks, you still cannot sit directly on the butt for another four weeks. So there are things we can do. But to your point, you absolutely right. This cosmetic surgery, esthetic procedures, they are an investment in yourself that costs money. They cost time.
You cannot be shy if you're not shy. Going to buy a house, you know, you pick out the kitchen. Todd The the splash board, you know, the curtains. You're not shy about that. You shouldn't be shy about the most important thing you have, which is your body. It's one you only get one. You're not getting another one. We can make it better, but you're not getting another one. So you can't be shy about that.
It's very important to be able to go to a plastic surgeon or cosmetic surgeon that you can relate to, that understands you and your esthetic sense and what's really important that be able to translate the vision that you have into a finished product. Yes, That relationship with your surgeon is so important. You know, I want to get on to to because I know we were talking specifically with like liposuction.
This time of year might be really good, too, because you have to wear this compression garments right? You you, you nailed it. So that's another reason why this time of the year is important is because of how you have to recover, particularly liposuction, lipo, sculpting, fat transfer to any time you do those procedures. Basically what we do is we separate the layers of your tissue.
So for the most part, if you think about it, the muscle, the skin, the fat, sort of sandwiched together and we go to remove fat to create contour and shape, you would basically separate that in order for it to come back and lay back down flat and smooth out and have a ironed smooth look. We need to compress that. And also that also helps you feel better because it's the swelling and the separation and that causes discomfort.
So if you have to wear compression for 4 to 6 weeks after surgery, you probably don't want to wear it when it's 100 degrees outside. No, but but I love you said before, any time of year is a good time to do it. But but certainly it's easier. You know, you're not dealing with the heat. You're also not dealing with sweat as much. And let's be honest, you can go out in a big baggy sweater and nobody's got it now. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Nobody has to know. Nobody's going to know.
And then, you know, you recover. It's like nothing ever happened. I love that. So. So what are some of the other reasons that you find and that your patients have found it's beneficial to do surgeries like this in in the in the colder months. So in the same line, in the same vein in terms of the the winter months, the fat one of the things that we are very particular about is how your incision and scar looks after surgery. It is cosmetic surgery, after all. So we want it to be nice.
Fine, not res, not dark, not discolored. One of the biggest thing that could change the way a scar look is sun exposure. Right? So during the summer months, you're you're very you're restricted in how much sun you get because we it's hot. You want to be in a bikini, you want to be by the pool, you have scars exposed, you get some exposure so it can really affect your scar. However, in the winter months, you're not going out in a bikini.
You're you know, you're covered up and it's it's okay because you're recovering. And this allows you to scar to heal without any unnecessary sun, sun exposure that will impact the the effect or that that result of your scarring. Amazing. And if you are doing something like this, make sure that you are wearing that SPF and covering that scar because we want that to look as good as it can.
And I think to your point, even in the winter months, we encourage patients to always wear sunscreen, because besides the cosmetics, we know that our sunscreen sunscreen prevents sun, sun damage that could lead to cancer or discoloration in the skin. And also to which lead to skin to aging much faster. But having the sunscreen on even in the winter months, it's very important for that. I'm so glad you said that. And even indoors, we we preach that a lot on this podcast.
You should wear sunscreen every day, 365 days a year, even if you're just going to be indoors like I have all day wearing sunscreen right now. Anything else that you feel like really? People love doing it this time of year? Yes. So we talked about the time off. We talked about the sun exposure due to the garment and the and the scarring. The other thing that we don't think of as much, but it's very important to the patient is what you might see we kind of refer to as the big reveal.
It's very it's very important for patients to be able to sort of come out at the end of, you know, two or three months of recovering and be able to show off their new body. So the winter months is the perfect time to sort of hibernate, hide away, like you said, big baggy clothes. You're recovering, you have compression underneath. People don't know. And then you come spring some months, you're now in your nice, you know, revealing, you know, short shorts, midriffs, bikini.
You're planning vacation. So that's a really important part of why people really enjoy and love kind of advent surgery at this time of the month. I love that you brought that up. Who's reading that reveal right? And that bangin bod, You know, you have to kind of work backwards and it's a good time to think about if you've got big events like a graduation or your wedding or I mean, just because. Right.
Just because you want to feel better about yourself, it does take a couple of months, even with the best liposuction. Right. They say it's a couple of months before you're going to notice those full results. So I we we do a lot of those surgeries. Patients are always happy. However, I you know, it's really important to have realistic expectations and to be on the same page in terms of that expectations. Everybody heals differently.
Your swelling, your bruising, take different times to two to resolve. So it's very important for patients to know that your final result with cosmetic surgery, most cosmetic surgery takes about 3 to 6 months. Okay. I expect you to see a result immediately. A different immediately by your final result takes up to 3 to 6 months. This does a few things. It alleviates a lot of anxiety for patients. They're not. my God. Is this is it's all. So you just relax 3 to 6 months, you know, It's okay.
You're still swollen. I find that most people, the most swollen around the two week mark, which goes down around about four weeks, so about 50% of the peak by six weeks to three months. Most 75 to 80% of the seven has gone. What we find is, especially with liposuction, aggressive liposuction for sculpting HD liposuction, when we use different technology to tighten the skin so we get as much skin that we have to remove, it might take longer for the swelling.
We find that you might have about 10 to 20% of swelling left, even up to six months, depending on how well you compress. And so it's really important for patients to not be stressed and worry about their final result, you know, in those early months. And so understand that it takes 3 to 6 months. Some surgeries like rhinoplasty takes swelling, might be there for a year, sometimes up to two years, depending on the technique and how aggressive the rhinoplasty.
So it's really important for, again, you have realistic conversation and direct conversation with your surgeon, make sure that they understand you, your expectations, and and they're able to guide you in not only the appropriate surgery, but how best to recover without any issues. That's great advice. You know, before I let you go, can I ask you, are there certain procedures that you see more of this time of year? So, yes, I think not so much this more this time of the year.
But what we we're starting to see certain trends a lot lately. And I think some of the trends you're seeing is people are looking for more. What was the classic natural look? They want to look special. They want to be able to see that this I got my money's worth, but they don't want to look so-called different, Right? They want to look like themself just better. So when looking into more natural look, the baby out doesn't have to be overly too big, but it's about contour and it's about shape.
And the other thing is that we've seen a trend of is combination therapy. How do we get the most for less, not necessarily in terms of pricing, but in terms of recovering and the toll on your body. So, for example, mommy makeovers are a big thing. Like recently we've been moving towards like how do we get the same result or at least close to the same result without having to have this the same length of scar?
So if I could do liposuction on you, reduce your fat, control your waist and tighten your skin without having to actually do a tummy tuck. People love that. I know, right? So and how do we do that? How are we doing? The tightening and. The biggest technology in cosmetic and esthetic surgery right now is radiofrequency radiofrequency technology. Tighten skin. We can use it externally.
And what you probably heard of Morpheus, which is the big thing right now, which goes as a starter, it's essentially microneedle couple. What radiofrequency helps with every skin condition, whether it's color, tone, laxity, fine lines, wrinkle. So scarring, hypertrophic, scarring, so resurfacing, we can use it to target pretty much everything. How Padroes is, it's very good.
We have other radiofrequency technology, whereas body type and face type from a mode or Renew Nubian, what used to be known as jade plasma. We could use those to tighten underneath the skin so contoured the jawline to really shape the jawline. We've gone at the margin myself in the past five years. We've gone from like really having to doing a full on less than a full thigh lift because the scar from left goes from elbow to armpit and the scarf. With that, let's go from knee to your groin.
We don't have to do as many of those anymore because we could just do liposuction and skin tightening and patient get just as good if not better, results. Wow. Wow. You know, I would love to bring you back on to talk about that because I feel like from afar. Listen, we keep you honest here from what I've seen here with like a lot of the RF skin tightening, it's okay. But if you're taking out a lot of fat and you're going to have a lot of skin, I think that there are. I love to you know what?
I'm going to go and take a look at these results because I feel like it it it's not the same as getting the cut. So to your point, as we talked about, it's it's about patient selection. It's about having the surgeon that understands the technology very fast, versatile with the technology and understands the patient and the patient. Esthetic sense.
Yeah. If I have a patient that comes in that says, listen, I know I need a tummy tuck, I don't want a tummy tuck, I don't want the scar, I don't want the downtime. But what can you do for me to get me as close to the result as possible?
I tell them, Listen, we could do lipo sculpting, skin tightening, and if you want, we could do a small scale decision on the lower abdomen that's just a little longer than you had your C-section scar and a mini tummy tuck that will get rid of as much skin as possible underneath and will tighten the rest. And people love that. Yeah, I had a young lady, young 65, that was like, I don't want sorry, excuse me, I don't want to a long scar on my thigh, but I want to look better.
I want to wear a bikini. So what we did was we did circumferential liposuction of the thigh, liposuction of the inner thigh, skin tightening all around. And we were left to a little bit of excess skin, just blast, you know, just in the groin area. So we took just a little bit of groin incision right along the crease that when she's wearing a two piece bikini, you can't see. Wow. And see as you know, she wanted a gap. She has a gap. All her loose skin is gone.
I had a young lady after some weight loss. Similarly, she had excess skin. She didn't want the long scar. She's young. She's in her twenties. We did a similar thing, liposuction. We had a little bit of skin left. We were able to just make a little bit of incision in the armpit, done something like. That. And yet the technology has become so good that I understand what you're saying with like a little bit of an incision. We can really help to minimize. You don't have that hip to hip and beyond.
Dr. Ivory, I just want to thank you so much for being on here with us today. If people want to know more about you, if they want to find you, what's the best place for them to go? Where? Located at 8714 and Georgia Avenue here in Silver Springs. They can find us on social media, just type in Jamachi And our website is Jamachi.com. Amazing. And I want to wish you such a Happy New Year. Thank you for spending your time with us today.
And of course, you at home, if you have questions that you want me to pass on to the doctor or his team, I'm absolutely happy to do that. You can email me at hello@artbeautypodcast.com. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube @ArtBeautypodcast. And as always, we will see you next Tuesday, hopefully feeling a little bit more like you can you can take that plunge right now. We give you permission. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Happy holidays. All right.