In this episode of Carpools & Cannulas, Dr. Gallus of Restore SD Plastic Surgery in San Diego, CA, and Dr. Greer of Greer Plastic Surgery in Cleveland, OH, talk about their insecurities and the common ones they see in their practices. We also learn about Dr. Greer’s “tiny” nail beds and all the things that can bother us. They talk about common body parts women “hate” and why we shouldn’t feel alone or insecure. They also talk about what plastic surgery can and cannot offer for the most common complaints.
Transcript
Dr. Gallus: Hi, everybody. It’s Dr. Gallus with Restore SD Plastic Surgery, ready for another edition of “Carpools and Cannulas.” In just a minute, I will have Dr. Greer with us. And we’re gonna talk about… (Let me just plug her in. Go Live.) …about insecurities, which I’m sure nobody has anything to say about. No one’s ever insecure. All right. Just waiting for her to hop on. There you are.
Dr. Greer: Hi.
Dr. Gallus: Hey. See, we have matching buns today. My hair is so disgusting right now. Oh, hey…
Dr. Greer: Mine’s…
Dr. Gallus: …Sylvia.
Dr. Greer: …mine’s clean, but I was in the OR all day, so it’s just…
Dr. Gallus: I was in the OR so I was like, I’m not washing it. Yeah.
Dr. Greer: Reasonable, reasonable. I actually hate washing my hair, by the way.
Dr. Gallus: I don’t think it’s good for your hair. That’s what I’ve told myself. Yeah.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don’t mind, like, showering, I just don’t like wet hair.
Dr. Gallus: No, no, exactly showering, not the hair. So, yeah, I was just talking about how we’re gonna do things that women are commonly insecure about. Although, when we’re having a conversation, I was like, maybe we could just…it would be shorter if we just did things we aren’t insecure about because…
Dr. Greer: I can’t think of anything for that list, though.
Dr. Gallus: Right? The only…I still remember back in the ’90s, do you know who Amber Valletta is? She was a model, not like a super, supermodel, but she’s a very pretty model who tried to make it in acting. Anyway, it was like one of those interviews with her in it, they asked her what was her least favorite thing about herself, like, body-wise. And she said her nail beds were unusually short.
Dr. Greer: Okay. Now, as someone who has the world’s tiniest nails…
Dr. Gallus: You do.
Dr. Greer: I do. No. They’re like the…
Dr. Gallus: See, I didn’t…you’re insecure about that.
Dr. Greer: That’s the thing, though. It’s a real thing. I have the smallest nail beds. I have gone to get manicures and they’re like, “You have a little baby nail.”
Dr. Gallus: No design for you. No design for you.
Dr. Greer: Oh, oh, there’s nothing here. I mean, they’re like very tiny.
Dr. Gallus: Oh, my God.
Dr. Greer: Oh, yeah. So, I’m with Amber Valletta. But I do paint my nails now. I got over it. But, yeah, I know I have, like, super short nail beds. It’s a real thing to be self-conscious…
Dr. Gallus: I just think…
Dr. Greer: …about.
Dr. Gallus: …my nail beds would be like 337th on the list of things to be insecure about. It’s just…
Dr. Greer: Well, but…
Dr. Gallus: …gonna be, well, whatever.
Dr. Greer: …you probably don’t have short nail beds, though.
Dr. Gallus: That’s right. That’s really my issue. I have amazing nail beds, they’re very normal looking.
Dr. Greer: Oh, yeah. I mean, look at my little pinky nails, they’re like babies. See.
Dr. Gallus: God.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. You’ve got great nail beds. They’re really long. You can paint them. I bet they look fantastic.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. So, well, speaking of things that women are commonly insecure about, I will say if you get out of the nail bed situation, hands are…you show me your hands because mine are like…this is rejuvenated. So, you have nice youthful hands, and I have…mine are pretty old, so they’re not getting…
Dr. Greer: They look literally the same to me.
Dr. Gallus: So, I do feel like if women…like it’s not something that, unless you have unlimited budget, you generally spend money on, but I do feel like women are like, “Oh, I’ve done all this work to take care of myself, and then my hands are, like, don’t match my face, or my neck, or whatever, right?
Dr. Greer: Yeah. And chest too. Chest is another. Like once you notice it, once you see it, you can’t unsee it. But a lot of people don’t notice it. So it just kind of depends.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. Most people don’t pay attention to that. Do you do any hand rejuvenation in your practice?
Dr. Greer: Actually, a fair amount because we do Radiesse injection and then quite a bit of BBL.
Dr. Gallus: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. And we just got Vivace too. So I’ll probably try that on hands. That’ll be fun.
Dr. Gallus: Oh, radio frequency. Yeah. We do Radiesse. We also do CO2 laser, fractionated CO2 laser. We have the Aurora laser. And then. I have tried, and it was trending, I’ve tried the Renuva fat transfer, not on my own hands.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. How was that?
Dr. Gallus: It was okay. My patient was not totally thrilled. So I asked, Usha [SP], a plastic surgery friend of ours in San Francisco, she’ has quite a bit of experience with it. And she said that it might need a second round. But it’s a little hard because you’re using…I did one and a half ccs in each hand, so that’s like $3 grand in product. And then…yeah, we will talk about that in a second. And then, three months later it looks marginally better, and then you have to do that again. It should last forever. I would say…
Dr. Greer: But you got to build it up.
Dr. Gallus: Someone is asking if it is painful. I feel like the laser, if you numb the hands, you can do it without numbing, if you put a little numbing cream on, you don’t feel it at all, so.
Dr. Greer: It’s not that bad.
Dr. Gallus: It’s easy. And then your skin’s a little scratchy for a week or so, and then it’s fine, so.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. BBL feels hot, but it doesn’t last very long. And again, you can use numbing, so it’s not bad. Like none of the hand rejuvenation methods are very painful in my opinion.
Dr. Gallus: And then using filler, I use Radiesse as well. Usually, mix a little local anesthetic in there. So that is pretty painless.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. Not that bad.
Dr. Gallus: You can do it with lift, but I like Radiesse, I think it lasts longer for the hands. And Renuva didn’t hurt either. You just numb up where you’re gonna stick the needle in and then drop it in with a cannula. And you can do fat in the hands, too. You can use your own fat if you’re so inclined and you’re already asleep for something else generally, and you’re putting fat somewhere. Why not throw it in the hands? Yep.
Dr. Greer: So that’s one area. And then, there are lots of other areas that we’re all commonly self-conscious.
Dr. Gallus: What would you say is your most common, like, people feel like self-conscious about it?
Dr. Greer: I think the top…
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. Oh, you’re freezing up.
Dr. Greer: Oh, it stops keep cutting in now. Is it better?
Dr. Gallus: You’re back.
Dr. Greer: I would…okay, good. I would say either, like, breast asymmetry or sagginess which…
Dr. Gallus: Who’s “Charles in Charge”? I wanna know. I love that name.
Dr. Greer: I have no idea. That’s an amazing name, though.
Dr. Gallus: You remember that show? Okay. Sorry.
Dr. Greer: No, but I remember the theme song. I never saw the show, but I know the theme song. Is that weird? Yeah. So breast asymmetry or general sag, because people have this misconception that breasts are perky always for all young women. And I can assure you, from legit personal experience, they’re just not. And then…
Dr. Gallus: And there are young girls with large breasts.
Dr. Greer: Yeah.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. There’s a concept that aging breast is, you know, saggy, deflated breast, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be old at all.
Dr. Greer: No, you can be 20 and have a breast that look deflated. And that’s normal. It’s like nothing wrong. And then labiaplasty is another area where, like, every patient feels like they’re the only person ever in the world to have this problem. And I’m like, “No, I’ve seen three of you this week.” It’s very normal.
Dr. Gallus: Right. I just saw the same thing an hour ago. Right. So, yeah, I would say those the…oh…
Dr. Greer: Oh, “Charles in Charge” was the new senior executive. Nice.
Dr. Gallus: So, yeah, labiaplasty is a common one because I mean, people will complain about their breasts, I guess, not really in like at a cocktail party, but you’re definitely not complaining about, you know, labia issues at a cocktail party or even amongst your friends. So that is…
Dr. Greer: No. I mean, unless you have a really close friend base, which…
Dr. Gallus: Or unless you’re with me at a cocktail party where people, like, drag me into a room to hold it. “Look at this. What do you think about this?” I’m like…
Dr. Greer: All of us. All of us. And they’re, like, “Is this normal?” And you’re like, “I’m gonna…I’ll be at the bar.”
Dr. Gallus: I wanna black out of the laundry room now. So, yeah. So, I feel like with that situation, women definitely feel like they’re the only one. It’s that situation where like, I’m sure everybody else’s labia are completely normal, and I’m the first person to have this problem. And it bothers me with clothes, with swimsuits. I feel uncomfortable in leggings. It’s in the way. And you’re…or they have a significant asymmetry like you said. People always freak out when one side is not like the same…the other side. Yeah.
Dr. Greer: And by the way, that’s labia and breast, too.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. Right. Or…
Dr. Greer: Yeah. Not just breast.
Dr. Gallus: …eyes or anything. Everything is asymmetrical from side to side. It’s just different. It’s on a, you know, bell curve, like most everything. So, yeah. So, being able to reassure people that, you know, you’re quite within that bell curve and it just depends on, you know, whether it really bothers you or not. There’s actually an article in “ASJ” that I saw today where they talk about it. Like, why it’s so still, like, stigmatizing or there’s, like, kind of, a social pushback to women correcting that as opposed to correcting your nose, or, you know, adjusting your breast size, or something like that, so.
Dr. Greer: Right. Which is really interesting to me because as labiaplasty goes, that’s a pretty low-risk, very simple procedure.
Dr. Gallus: Right. And you’re only…I mean, you’re not really doing it for everybody else to see. Like that’s not…
Dr. Greer: Yeah. I mean, most of the women I do, either do it because they feel self-conscious, or it’s like literally like getting pinched and tugged.
Dr. Gallus: Right.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. If you ever wanna see the, like, normal variation of labia, I found this one artist, I cannot remember her name or I would credit her. But she did plaster casts of hundreds of women’s labia. And her homepage has, like, pictures of all the different ones. I used it for a labiaplasty posting and credited her. But it’s amazing to see just the huge variety. And obviously, it’s not quite so weird as actually looking at pictures. But it was a pretty amazing art project.
Dr. Gallus: Cool. Okay. So that’s two areas. What else can we cover that people are insecure about?
Dr. Greer: Cellulite, which drives me nuts because it’s physiologic, it’s normal.
Dr. Gallus: Two things we suck at fixing, cellulite and stretch marks.
Dr. Greer: Oh. stretch marks. Everybody always asked me, they’re like, “Do you have a fix for this?” I would be a billionaire. Literally, I would be richer than Jeff Bezos if I could fix stretch marks.
Dr. Gallus: For sure. So do you wanna explain what stretch marks are?
Dr. Greer: Yeah. So stretch marks happen when your skin actually tears in the dermal level. So it’s thinned out. And you can’t fix that, short of excising it. I still remember in med school, rotating on plastics, when we were doing a tummy tuck, and the surgeon, like, flipped up the skin flap to show me the cross-view. Like you could see where the skin was torn and thinned.
Dr. Gallus: Right. Right. Your dermis is, like, cut or incised. And then the epidermis, the top layer of the skin’s still intact, which is why it always looks thin, and shiny, and looks funky. And there’s no way to put the dermis back together. Although we try to stimulate collagen in that area, and maybe laser it to try and get the color pigment changes out. But, yeah, there’s no…you can put filler in it, but I don’t recommend doing that because it looks funky. Yeah. So there’s no good treatment for it, unfortunately. But it can happen with a growth spurt. It can happen with rapid weight loss. It most commonly happens with pregnancy.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. I actually got stretch marks stomach, thighs, and lower back when I hit puberty, and then didn’t get any with pregnancy.
Dr. Gallus: Oh, wow. Yeah. I remember getting a couple on my thighs when I, like, grew…as a growth spurt as a teen.
Dr. Greer: I think guys get them on biceps when they start working out really heavily.
Dr. Gallus: They get a little…100%. So, yeah, you can get them anywhere. The most common ones we see are in pregnancy. Excision is the end-all, be-all, meaning if you have them in the lower abdomen and you do a tummy tuck they’re going in the bucket as one of the older general surgeons used to say. So, famously quoted Eminem: “the colon’s in the bucket, what are we still talking about?” So, yeah. So, the stretch marks would be gone, and then that would be the end of that. But other than that, there’s no magic there.
Dr. Greer: Yeah.
Dr. Gallus: There’s a lot more options for treatment. But there’s a new device out now, apparently, that I have not…
Dr. Greer: I saw that. I haven’t tried it and I never did Cellfina, which… Have you ever…? Yeah. So…
Dr. Gallus: It seems…
Dr. Greer: …stretch marks, by the way. Yeah. There’s this one podcast I listen to, and whenever they have to explain something, it’s like for their sister in Wisconsin who doesn’t know anything about the business. I feel like we need that. So for my brother in Michigan…
Dr. Gallus: Tracy.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. Yeah. Tracy. Oh, you listen to “SmartLess.” And they’re like, “For Tracy in Wisconsin.” So, like that. Anyways, cellulite is basically the little connections between the skin and the underlying muscle layer, and then your fat pushes on it, kind of, like a button in upholstery. So the best way to treat them is to cut those little connections and it’s incredibly tedious. And that’s Cellfina does. There’s a new device on the market. There was also Qwo, which seemed so brilliant. It’s a collagenase is which breaks down collagen. It was initially marketed as Xiaflex for Dupuytren’s contracture, which happens in the hand. And it seemed brilliant because it would dissolve the bands, but it apparently doesn’t work all that well.
Dr. Gallus: It creates some bleeding and bruising that is semi-permanent. Like, you can get bruising. So if you bruise easily and then the bruise stains the overlying skin, you can get like a permanent bruise essentially, which someone like my color would be at risk for. So somebody with any, kind of, ethnicity, Hispanic background, or black skin would be potentially in the danger zone for that. So, there was a lot of like hoopla. And then the other thing is there’s different, like, then you have to like analyze the cellulite. Is it really cellulite or is it just your skin is like, you know…?
Dr. Greer: Heavy and you need a lift, and there’s some droopiness.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. I really, I don’t know. Yes. I’m sure if we have really significant cases, it might be helpful, but I don’t know that the general, like, smooth out my skin airbrush, make me look like a filter is there yet. Because there’s entire industries based on, you know, lotions that will help improve the look of skin. So, one of the things is…oh, one of my daughters has, is it sun…? It’s not Sun Bum. Bum Bum Cream. That’s, like, it’s whole schtick, is that it’s supposed to like, make your skin look better.
Dr. Greer: What does it have like caffeine in it or something?
Dr. Gallus: It must. So, yeah. I feel like somebody else could like, I hope, remind us what it is. It comes in a cute packaging, like all Zoomers like. And I was like, “You don’t have cellulite.” But she likes the way it smells. I mean, she’s obsessed.
Dr. Greer: Okay. I mean like my three-year-old has cellulite, it’s not abnormal. It’s not an aging thing. Like supermodels have cellulite. That’s just for the way your skin attaches to the muscles.
Dr. Gallus: Right. But it can be worsened with weight gain or loss or, and like…I don’t know. And it’s usually a little bit genetic, too.
Dr. Greer: True.
Dr. Gallus: Yes. But those two things are kind… And then I would say another thing people, men and women are insecure about acne scars, if you have those.
Dr. Greer: True.
Dr. Gallus: And those can be treated, but it usually requires, aggressive treatment to like really make them less visible.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. They’re tricky. Even excising, sometimes they’ll heal back indented. I’ve had that happen. And then you do laser treatments, but it takes like eight.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. Multiple modalities is the most effective. But it’s hard. My PSA for that is to try not to have bad acne, which, of course, nobody can control that. But you can treat it aggressively upfront instead of living with the scars later because once the acne is…then it’s a bummer.
Dr. Greer: Well, I think Accutane was a game-changer for that.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I know back in the like ’30s and ’40s, they used to radiate people.
Dr. Greer: Oh, my God. And then they’d all get skin cancer. Fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Whenever somebody questions putting their kid on Accutane, I’m like, “Please do it.” Acne scars are really hard to treat. And Accutane, you need a pregnancy test, but…
Dr. Gallus: Right. And they’re…
Dr. Greer: …it works.
Dr. Gallus: …back too, so it’s not such a big deal. Okay. Well, so we talked about hands. I would say another area that I think there aren’t amazing solutions for, as you get older, but another area is this like arm area, which I know there’s a breeze outside and we’re in San Diego, but I don’t like being cold in my office or in the OR, so I’m always dressed like this. Anyway.
Dr. Greer: It’s okay. I’m wearing a sweater. It’s 75. It’s fine.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. So, this under your arm area, like, where it’s loose or hangs, people hate that.
Dr. Greer: They hate it, and they’re like, “I just want the skin.” I’m like, “But you don’t wanna scar from your armpit to your elbow.” They’re like, “Well, no.”
Dr. Gallus: Oh, no, no scar.
Dr. Greer: That’s all I got. Yeah. That’s it.
Dr. Gallus: So, yeah. So I think in the right patient, liposuction can help a lot. And I do…when I liposuction, the arm, I go all the way around, I do a 360 arm. There are people who will just like lipo right here. But anyway, so I go all the way around. And I think the trauma of the liposuction also helps tighten the skin somewhat. And our colleague, Megan Gruber also showed that also just offloading that weight too allows the skin…
Dr. Greer: It will shrink. Yeah. Now you have Renuvion, right? You use it in upper arms at all?
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. And then, I like to add a tightening device, so that would help too, to help tighten the skin. But there are limits. And really, a younger patient that has more subcu and less skin is a better choice. But if you just have skin and you wanna try and get some tightening, I’ve done it in older ladies with the Renuvion, we’re not really taking any fat. It’s just like, if you look at the quality of your skin on that surface because it’s only tightening underneath, and so if the epidermis is a little crepey, that’s not gonna tighten either.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. I’ve tried Dilute Radiesse for that crepey epidermis.
Dr. Gallus: I mean, you’re stimulating collagen, but you’re also aging at the same time. So I’ve done that above the knees. That’s another, like, I’m insecure about what my knees look. Well, I hate that. There is no great…So, at least, with the arms, if you really, really, really didn’t like it, you could bite the bullet and go ahead and do an excision, right? And then that solves your problem, and it hides well. So, that’s an option. But over the knees…
Dr. Greer: I mean, maybe side lift a little bit, but that’s a really long distance from the excision site. And the skin stretches, so it’s tough.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. So I have actually, successfully, injected Radiesse in those areas and gotten a nice result. People were happy with the little creepy, wrinkly skin right up over the knee. But, yeah, I’ve also had patients who I was operating on for something else, and then they pointed out that they had…I was like, “Oh, it doesn’t look like a total knee replacement or normal ortho incision.” And they had had somebody had tried to directly excise the skin above their knee but they could not. I mean, it healed. It’s just weird, the problem, so.
Dr. Greer: And it’s like, I saw brow lift once that was like right here, kind of in the middle.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. I always wonder, like, what was going on there?
Dr. Greer: You know, the other area here is like the creepiness here, but no one wants a neck lift, but they don’t want the crepiness.
Dr. Gallus: I know.
Dr. Greer: I know. I don’t have any magic tricks.
Dr. Gallus: I’ve tried Dilute Radiesse there. And if you’re trying to stave off surgery, then do all the things. I do Renuvion. I’ll do radio frequency micro-needling. That being said, all these energy devices make it harder for a facelift later, but whatever. You can do Dilute Radiesse. I was not super excited about how that went. And then you can do some fillers and Botox, and CO2 laser. You can just keep hitting it using that cream, use retinol. Do everything you can to strengthen the skin. And I think it’s easier to work on the neck than like, you know, if your arms, if you’ve been playing tennis or golfing your entire life, there’s no rehabbing that skin in a short amount of time.
Dr. Greer: Although, here, like I’ve had so many patients come and they just want something to treat the skin. But the underlying issue is, like, the platysmal muscle is just banding and heavy. It’s like, I’m not gonna tighten your muscle with some retinol and a laser peel.
Dr. Gallus: Not Rodan and Fields.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. No, no. Those are magical. You just…the after picture is like this.
Dr. Gallus: It’s just tape it, like a clip, on the back of your neck.
Dr. Greer: It’s amazing.
Dr. Gallus: It is amazing. Yeah. I think…isn’t there a Nora Efron book, “I Hate My Neck,” or something like that?
Dr. Greer: Is there? I don’t know.
Dr. Gallus: I think. It’s a common, common area. All right. So we’ve, kinda, hopped all over the body. Nail beds to arms, to, I would say thighs because we already talked about cellulite, and the knees, and…
Dr. Greer: Okay. You know, what’s one area that I will totally get self-conscious about when this happens but no one else seems to notice it, is ear lobes. Like they get so big and they get, kinda, floppy. They do. They grow. And I feel like when this happens to me, I’m gonna be, like, resecting my ear lobes in the office. But nobody else ever seems to notice their ear lobes. Maybe because I’m a surgeon.
Dr. Gallus: I’ve only had one patient ask me to fix it. Unless you have those giant plugs. But, yeah, like an aging earlobe. You’re right, people do not get up in arms about that.
Dr. Greer: I notice it on everyone and they don’t notice it. So I don’t bring it up. I mean, I’m not a jerk.
Dr. Gallus: It’s more of a practical problem. Like if your earlobe piercing stretched out and that’s dragging, technically people will complain about that for sure.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. And I fix a lot of piercing or if they’re just…your ear lobes do lose volume as you age and a little filler really helps. I do filler in my ear lobes to keep my earrings straight. But now I have a nose ring, so as that ages, I guess, I’ll have to do a little nose filler.
Dr. Gallus: No, no, it’s not gonna…I had a nose ring, so that’s not gonna work. You take it out, you’ll just have an extremely large pore.
Dr. Greer: It’ll be beautiful and am excited. But I just got it like two weeks ago, so.
Dr. Gallus: It’s cute. I thought I noticed it while you were lecturing.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. You know, on the WPS lecture. I got a new tattoo and a nose ring. I had a weekend away with my high school bestie and we had a great time.
Dr. Gallus: OMG. Where did you go?
Dr. Greer: So fun.
Dr. Gallus: Are you gonna tell us about your tattoo?
Dr. Greer: Oh, yeah. Of course. By the way, full disclosure, this is my midlife crisis because I’m getting divorced, nose ring, everything. I have another tattoo scheduled for next week, and I’m gonna get a needle driver right here. Like I drew it out. It’s a loaded needle driver with a suture in it. That’s what we used to suture. I’m excited. I also have a 10-blade scalpel, like, on the rounds handle drawn out for later. So, here’s my new tattoo.
Dr. Gallus: Oh, wow.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. It’s a compass because I realized very conveniently, I named my kids Wyatt, Ella, and Sawyer. So they’re all compass points. But the south arrow has three arrows here, and that’s the Down syndrome tattoo because Sawyer has Down syndrome, so.
Dr. Gallus: Oh, wow.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. It’s fun.
Dr. Gallus: It’s meaningful.
Dr. Greer: It is.
Dr. Gallus: I love that. Yeah. But then you’re gonna do a needle driver with suture.
Dr. Greer: Yeah.
Dr. Gallus: Where are you putting that? On the other arm?
Dr. Greer: I’m gonna put that on the inside of my bicep. And then maybe when I get the scalpel, it’ll be like outside arm here. I totally expected my mom…
Dr. Gallus: When are you moving to California? Because you said…
Dr. Greer: I don’t know. I could. It’s okay. My boyfriend’s down with it. He’s got arm tatts. It’s great. I totally expected my mom to freak out even though I’m 41 and a half, and she was just like, “Okay. Whatever.”
Dr. Gallus: Whatever. It’s all you.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. You’re an adult now.
Dr. Gallus: That’s great. I just can’t…I saw somebody in…I mean I practice yoga, so I see a lot of tattoos in the studio. And one girl just had one, and it was just in a cool font, and it just said, “Same.” And I just thought that was the best.
Dr. Greer: Nice.
Dr. Gallus: I would love that.
Dr. Greer: I have a patient in her early…
Dr. Gallus: Or nope.
Dr. Greer: Oh, nope is good. I have a patient in her early 70s who just came in with like a full shoulder. It was like a vine and flower. It looked amazing. She’s got her legs done. I’m like, “Yeah.”
Dr. Gallus: Okay. You go girl. That’s awesome. Very fun.
Dr. Greer: It is. I don’t remove tattoos, but I’ll get them.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. So the nose piercing, I don’t think you’ll need filler there. It is a hole that I don’t think closes up though. And I’ve seen, again, Southern California, there’s…yeah, that’s true. When I was in the military and we would do our pre-op conference, all of my patients like we’d present, you know, three or four breast reductions for the week, and my patient would be the one that was like tatted to the max. I mean, I’ve seen everything. The guys for gynecomastia, like you couldn’t even find their chest because it was just all big tatts. Girls with like pistols on their chests. I mean, some crazy stuff.
Dr. Greer: I am noticing now that I got, and this is not my first tattoo, the other one just doesn’t show. But like so many of my patients have tattoos and nose piercings, and nobody cares.
Dr. Gallus: No, not at all. Like I said…
Dr. Greer: It used to matter. Like, a doc with a nose ring, when I was in med school, was, kind of, a big deal. But I’m obviously old. Yeah.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. I know. I know. Yeah. No, I’ve seen that. I feel like somebody asked on a women’s…there’s a women’s physician’s group for…like there’s a thousand of them. But one of these, somebody asked if it was appropriate to wear multiple earrings in our earring clinic. And people were like…
Dr. Greer: Oh, you mean like this one, and this one, and this one?
Dr. Gallus: …people are like, “Oh, 14? I have 12 in one ear.” It was funny.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. It’s just, like, not the thing anymore.
Dr. Gallus: We were like,” Who told you that was unacceptable?” I’d wear more if I wasn’t so lazy.
Dr. Greer: Seriously. Oh, planning incision on her in tattoo designs. Great question. So actually, no, I put the incisions in the same place. The key is to line the tattoo up really well, and it doesn’t show. Yeah.
Dr. Gallus: And if it’s possible, like if it’s a lower abdomen tattoo and it could possibly get removed with like a tummy tuck, per se, then we’ll ask and say, “Hey, you want this out or in?” Because you can, kinda, design around it.
Dr. Greer: Yeah. I did have a patient entire abdomen tattooed. It was a coverup of a coverup. It was a giant fish. And I was really happy with how the belly button inset worked because there was like a little ink left on the belly button and it blended really well with where the tattoo moved down. I mean, that’s something I really look at when I close.
Dr. Gallus: Right. You definitely take it into consideration to make sure that it’s not looking insane or that they’re gonna be able to work with it pointed out.
Dr. Greer: Slowly, I’ll be getting all the surgical instruments tattooed. And by the time I’m, like, presenting at PSTM plastic surgery, the meeting, you know, in like 10 years, it’s just gonna be like a full sleeve.
Dr. Gallus: Sleeve of surgical instrument.
Dr. Greer: It’ll be great. Yeah. And like with some flowers mixed in, maybe.
Dr. Gallus: I mean, a theme’s a good idea. I love the theme. If you’re gonna do it.
Dr. Greer: It’s fun, right?
Dr. Gallus: I like that. I never could settle on anything. I have a tattoo also at a place you can’t, like, show on Instagram Live. But it was a cover-up of, like, what you said. And it’s like half lasered off, and whatever. I was gonna move down, getting two more, and then I knew that was gonna be a rabbit hole that I wasn’t going to go down. Same with the piercings, same with everything.
Dr. Greer: You start putting one and you’re like more.
Dr. Gallus: I never did get facial piercings though because those leave holes in your face as well, just an FYI.
Dr. Greer: I mean we can excise the hole, it will leave a scar. And then the dermals where they’re embedded those, you know, for surgery with like people to take out their piercings, but the dermals they can’t, so.
Dr. Gallus: I’m thinking that’s an old wives tale though. You can just tape them.
Dr. Greer: I know. I’ve never seen one arc. I will have patients take out nipple rings for breast augs obviously or put them, like, they’ll change them out with glass, which is non-conductive.
Dr. Gallus: All right. Well, we got way off-topic. That’s cool.
Dr. Greer: As we do. But, you know, I gotta show off the new…
Dr. Gallus: The new piercing. And speaking off-topic, your talk was great for the webinar series.
Dr. Greer: Thank you. That was so much fun.
Dr. Gallus: So amazing. I was on, I don’t know, some other conference call for our national society for ASPS, and oh, I know I was like, “I’ve already blocked it out.” I was in the nominating committee and so interviewing international representatives to the board, and I think two out of three said that they appreciated the webinars. And I didn’t really understand that like webinars presented by WPS by Plastic Surgery The Meeting, it’s like easily accessible for international plastic surgeons. They thought that they were great. And I was like, “Ooh, can somebody, like, write that down? Like, is everybody listening?” Because it is 100%. This woman from Australia mentioned the WPS webinar, and I was like, great!
Dr. Greer: I loved getting to hear Dr. McClenan present on her tuberous breasts. I’m, like, taking screenshots of her video for notes. And then, yeah, Dr. Gordon’s technique for breast revisions. I mean, I learned as much on those. They were fantastic.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. They were all really high quality. But it was good to see you on Instagram Live.
Dr. Greer: Thanks. And I can’t believe I was texting you the whole time. I’m like, did you see my eight-year-old walking behind me shirtless?
Dr. Gallus: No.
Dr. Greer: No? He totally did. He like came up behind me and he’s whispering in my ear while I’m presenting. I’m like, “Go put on a shirt.”
Dr. Gallus: I guess we’re all, like, focused on the talk. Okay. Cool. So, if anybody has ideas, DM us for suggestions for our next session, we’ll come up with…
Dr. Greer: Yeah. I mean, I suppose we could talk about like piercing repairs and tattoo removals. That’s the one we haven’t talked about.
Dr. Gallus: Yeah. We could do that. Maybe let’s do it.
Dr. Greer: Awesome.
Dr. Gallus: All right.
Dr. Greer: All right. Two weeks.
Dr. Gallus: Bye everybody. Thanks for joining us.
About Restore SD & Dr. Katerina Gallus
As the Director of Restore SD Plastic Surgery, board certified female plastic surgeon Dr. Katerina Gallus has over 15 years of experience helping San Diego patients enjoy head to toe rejuvenation with face, breast and body procedures. After a successful career as a Navy plastic surgeon, Dr. Gallus founded Restore SD Plastic Surgery with the intention of creating a welcoming space for anyone seeking cosmetic enhancement.
Restore SD Plastic Surgery offers popular facial rejuvenation procedures like facelift & neck lift, facial fat grafting, and eyelid lift; breast augmentation with implants, breast lifts or breast reduction; body contouring procedures such as tummy tuck, liposuction, mommy makeover, and Brazilian butt lift (BBL), as well as aesthetician services, BOTOX, injectable fillers, and laser treatments.
Dr. Gallus and her highly-experienced aesthetics team are here to help you look and feel your best! To schedule a personal consultation, please contact us online or call our San Diego office at (858) 224-2281 today.
