A very popular plastic surgery trend these days is to have several cosmetic procedures performed during one operating room session. Apparently this can save on costs and make for one massive recovery rather than several painful recovery periods over the space of a year.

People choose to do all different combination of plastic surgery procedures at once, but some of the most common are the face lift, the neck lift, breast augmentation, and the tummy tuck.

A face lift is a procedure designed to get rid of many fine lines and wrinkles in the face. It begins with an incision made along the hairline or just behind the hairline. The skin is gently loosened from the muscles below.

The surgeon carefully repositioned and augments if necessary the underlying muscles and tissues, after which she pulls the facial skin upward and tight and removes the extra skin. The face is sewn back together at the incision point, placing the future scar in a very inconspicuous place.

While it may take a few weeks or months for the swelling to subside, the results are the most long-lasting of any cosmetic facial procedure and certainly produce a younger, fresher look for years to come.

Neck Lift

Nothing gives away your age faster than wrinkles and sagging in your neck. A neck lift can help hide that age by smoothing out your neck skin, giving you a younger appearance. The process is very similar to the face lift, except that the incision is made under the chin or jawline.

The skin is pulled upward and the excess skin is excised. The recovery period involves some rest and refraining from a lot of neck twisting or straining for the initial post-surgery period. Yet after the swelling and pain subside, you are left with a tighter looking neck that is reminiscent of much younger days.

Breast Augmentation

Breast augmentation is very popular in combination with all sorts of other procedures, especially with breast lifts. Breast augmentation involves inserting breast implants on top of or under the pectoral muscles.

There are several different techniques used to do this so the incision might be made just under the breasts in the natural crease, through the underarms, or even in the naval. Silicone implants are pre-filled and often provide a more natural look and feel, but saline implants can be filled after they are inserted offering ease of adjustment.

The recovery includes a week off of work while you rest and the pain dissipates. The swelling will take a month or slightly longer to subside. The results are permanent unless a revision surgery is needed and most patients are very satisfied with their procedures.

Tummy Tuck

Finally, the tummy tuck is a way to get tighter, firmer, slimmer abs. The tummy tuck removes extra belly skin, can pull out unwanted fatty deposits through liposuction, and allows the surgeon to tighten the abdominal muscles by suturing them together. The results are much firmer and more toned looking abs that inspires greater self-confidence in bathing suit weather!

Rhinoplasty is one of the most common plastic surgery procedures for men today. Taboos about plastic surgery have broken down over the past several years and more and more men are going under the knife to improve their appearance with a shapelier nose.

While some men are interested in rhinoplasty because it can correct their breathing problems, some others are looking to reduce the size of their nose to make it more proportional to their face.

Others are dissatisfied with the flare of their nostrils or the shape of the tip, be it too bulbous or droopy. The wonder of plastic surgery has made these issues fixable. Before you take the leap, however, consider the following questions:

Are You a Good Candidate for the procedure?

You are a good candidate for this procedure if you are over the age of 16 and your nasal cartilage has basically stopped growing. An additional qualification is that you have realistic expectations about the outcome of the operation.

The plastic surgeon can only change your nose so much. As long as you realize that the results may not be a perfectly contoured nose, you are a fine candidate for male rhinoplasty.

How is This Plastic Surgery for Men Performed?

This plastic surgery for men is usually performed in an outpatient facility and the operation can last up to three hours. An incision is made around the nostrils and the nose skin is pulled back to all the plastic surgeon easy access to the bone and tissue.

Then, depending on the aim of the particular rhinoplasty, the height of the bridge is lowered or raised, bumps on along the ridge are filed down, the tip is reshaped, or the nostrils are tweaked into a different form. The c skin is replaced and sutured together again.

How Much Does It Cost?

Most estimates are the rhinoplasty costs between $3000 and $8000 dollars. It may not be cheap, but the result can be dramatic and worth the price tag.

What Are the Risks Involved?

Rhinoplasty is a very safe plastic surgery for men, but there are some rare risks involved. These include excessive bleeding, swelling, anesthesia complications, and infection. It is also possible to experience numbness, nerve damage, frequent nosebleeds, ruptured blood vessels.

These are fairly uncommon, of course, and most patients have a very positive experience with their rhinoplasty. Choosing a qualified and certified plastic surgeon will also increase the chance of a successful surgery.

How Long Does the Recovery Take?

Recovery involves the wearing of a nose splint for two weeks to protect and hold the shape of the new sculpted nose. The nostrils may be packed with gauze to help keep the desire shape as well, but will that material will be removed after one or two days.

Rhinoplasty can be a very rewarding experience for men that have been unhappy with the appearance of their noses for a long time. Getting a nose job can help men regain their social confidence and help them stop worrying about their appearance so they can concentrate on other important matters!

Many parents these days are choosing to have their baby’s umbilical cord blood frozen and stored as a future source of stem cells. This article looks at the different ways in which blood and stem cell samples are stored.

The process of having your baby’s umbilical cord blood collected, processed in a laboratory and kept in frozen storage is a relatively new one. The idea is that the whole blood containing the stem cells or the extracted stem cells themselves are available for future use if the child needs any medical treatments which require them. Although some treatments such as those for sickle cell disease, leukemia and Hodgkin’s disease already use these cells, the idea is to also have a stock of compatible cells that can be used in treatments yet to be developed. Since the use of this type of cell for medical treatments is the subject of much current research, the likelihood of new treatments becoming available in the future is high. These future treatments have the potential to offer cures for diseases, injuries and conditions that are incurable today.

The collection and storage process starts just after birth when the umbilical cord blood collection kit supplied by the storage company is used by one of the medical professionals to safely and painlessly collect the blood from the cord. This sample is then transported to the storage company’s laboratory for processing. Some companies will extract the stem cells from the cord blood before freezing the sample, whereas others freeze the whole blood.

Liquid Phase Nitrogen

The sample is frozen in a storage tank which is cooled by liquid nitrogen at around minus 190 degrees Celsius. This extremely low temperature can preserve the quality of the sample for many years. There are, however, important storage tank design factors to take into account when deciding which method of storage to choose. The two main types of tank both use liquid nitrogen for freezing, but use it in different ways. The oldest method uses liquid nitrogen in its liquid phase to freeze the sample and keep it at the required temperature for storage. The important thing to remember is that there are usually also other samples from other individuals in the same storage tank. The liquid phase nature of the nitrogen in the tank means that there is a possible risk of contamination of samples by infectious disease particles if there was one or more infected samples in the tank. The liquid nitrogen can carry infectious particles, such as viruses, between samples. There is evidence that transmission of Hepatitis B virus between samples has occurred while the samples were stored in liquid phase nitrogen.*

Vapour Phase Nitrogen

The other design of storage tank also uses liquid nitrogen, but it is used in a different way. The liquid nitrogen is confined to the walls of the storage container, and only vapour phase nitrogen comes into contact with the samples. This means that any infectious particles present in a sample could not be carried to other samples to cause contamination. In the past, concerns were voiced about the vapour phase nitrogen’s ability to maintain the correct storage temperature when the tank was opened for access. Design improvements now mean that a constant temperature can be maintained in this design of storage tank.

*Tedder R., M. Zuckerman, A. Goldstone, A. Hawkins, A. Fielding, E. Briggs, D. Irwin, S. Blair, A. Gorman, K. Patterson, D. Linch, J. Heptonstall, and N. Brink. 1995. Hepatitis B transmission from contaminated cryopreservation tank. Lancet 346: 137-140.