Podcast - Beware the Brutal Bargains: The Truth About Traveling for Plastic Surgery

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San Diego plastic surgeon Dr. G and Bri are back with more plastic surgery true crime, and this time, they’re exposing the dark side of bargain procedures abroad.

From shady clinics and botched surgeries to horror stories straight out of a nightmare (kidnapping, organ theft, seriously?!), they’re breaking down the real cost of cheap plastic surgery, and why some deals are just too good to be true.

Transcript

Dr. G (00:02):
You are listening to another episode of All the B’s with me, Dr. G and my scrub tech Bri. Hey everyone, welcome back. So thanks for joining us today. We’re going to continue to discuss true crime and sort of the travel edition of true crime, I believe. But first we got to get to the important stuff, which is what’s up with Blake Lively.

Bri (00:31):
I feel like if I hear her name come out of one of our mouths one more time, I don’t know if I can do it.

Dr. G (00:39):
We need a swear jar and every time somebody says Blake Lively, we like ding, it’s a dollar or whatever. Right?

Bri (00:46):
I agree. We would be so rich.

Dr. G (00:49):
So yeah, her own plastic surgery, but this one time it actually involves plastic surgery, rumors about her getting a rhinoplasty. I mean, I don’t know how they’re rumors. She obviously had a rhinoplasty and some veneers put in, please, let’s be real.

Bri (01:06):
Yeah, there’s no way.

Dr. G (01:07):
So yeah, everyone saw that clip where she, they’re supposed to be trying to kiss and her nose bumps against Baldoni’s nose and she says, oh, maybe it’s time to get that fixed.

Bri (01:20):
Nose fixed or something.

Dr. G (01:21):
I know. I was like, wow, that’s so rude. And then they showed up on the SNL 50 thing and that there’s so many things wrong about that. First of all, if you guys are going to lay low, why go to that?

Bri (01:36):
Out of all the things you’re going to go to his ex-wife’s thing, her husband’s thing.

Dr. G (01:42):
Husband’s thing. Yeah. And then I know their lawyers were like, please don’t, when they said what’s new or something, and he was like, why have you heard something? So embarrassed?

Bri (01:54):
Her face was just priceless. I keep seeing all these really awful clips about her coming out and the way she talks to people. And at first it was kind of in part Switzerland and now I’m just like, she is so rude, which is such a bummer.

Dr. G (02:12):
Yeah. You never want to know that people in Hollywood are rude, even though we know a lot of ’em are.

Bri (02:17):
Yeah. Oh, well.

Dr. G (02:20):
All right. Moving on. Let’s talk about some good plastic surgery. I love Cher.

Bri (02:26):
She’s amazing.

Dr. G (02:27):
First of all, I can’t, I have to love her that she’s 78 because people are always like, you look just like Cher. I was like, okay. I just went to a sixties party and I had my hair super straight and I was channeling Cher’s seventies look for sure. But more than one person came up and was like, oh, are you as coming as Cher? I’m like, no, just me. It’s just me.

Bri (02:53):
It’s just me on the daily.

Dr. G (02:54):
Yeah, she looks great. And somebody, there’s a interview where she’s asking her about her plastic surgery and facelifts and stuff, and she’s like, it’s my right to do it. She’s like, if I want to put my tits on my back, it’s nobody else’s business but mine.

Bri (03:09):
That is the answer that everyone needs to have. That is it. She looks phenomenal. Yeah, and she doesn’t look overdone either.

Dr. G (03:21):
No, she looks good. She has that lower lip thing, but I think that’s, we’ve talked about that before, but the rest of her looks really great. She looks good.

Bri (03:30):
And I also love her as a blonde, not that I’m biased to blondes, but.

Dr. G (03:34):
I feel like that’s your exact shade right there.

Bri (03:38):
I love it.

Dr. G (03:38):
Oh, she’s also dating some guy 40 years younger than her who also appears like blonde.

Bri (03:46):
Well, they obviously didn’t go to the same hairdresser.

Dr. G (03:48):
No, he needs a better hairdresser.

Bri (03:51):
Oh wow. Very. Okay. I like that. Go Cher.

Dr. G (03:55):
Yeah, she looks great.

Bri (03:57):
I hope when I’m 80 I’m dating somebody. Well, obviously Eric, but if not like 40 years younger.

Dr. G (04:06):
I love the quote Dr. Vincent Wong, a London-based cosmetic doctor said he also suspects Cher may have undergone a brow lift. There’s nothing to suspect.

Bri (04:16):
It’s there.

Dr. G (04:17):
It’s been done.

Bri (04:18):
It’s all there.

Dr. G (04:19):
Right?

Bri (04:21):
Yeah. There’s no way at 78 you look that refreshed. I don’t even look that refreshed. And I just turned 30. Yes. I’m still going with, I just turned 30, 3 months later.

Dr. G (04:30):
Yeah, I think that’s fair. Okay. And then our last, oh, well no, you want to talk about P Diddy.

Bri (04:40):
P Diddy’s lawyers. Imagine the things you have to do to get your lawyer who I also, obviously, if my facts aren’t correct said was on counsel for Osama Bin Laden. Imagine the things that you have to do to get dropped by your lawyer

Dr. G (04:57):
Who represented,

Bri (04:58):
Who represented Osama bin Laden. We’re going to have to fact check that, so don’t come for me, but I read that. And

Dr. G (05:07):
On TikTok, did you read it?

Bri (05:09):
No, I actually read it. And what do you have to do? Either the crimes are so heinous, you’re just like, I mean, you’re getting paid either way. So as a defense lawyer.

Dr. G (05:23):
Yeah. It’s disturbing. He would be providing no details to support the application to,

Bri (05:29):
Or Diddy was just like a dick.

Dr. G (05:32):
Yeah, I mean, he’s not the only lawyer, so it’s not disrupting the timeline of the trial, but.

Bri (05:40):
I just have so many questions.

Dr. G (05:44):
Yeah. And of course the guy can’t say anything,

Bri (05:48):
That’s how we know he’s guilty. I mean, along with 5,000 other facts, but

Dr. G (05:56):
Including a lot of baby oil.

Bri (05:57):
So much baby oil. Ugh, Diddy.

Dr. G (06:03):
Alright. Okay. And then our last little non-related to our current events is Demi Moore, which I feel like this article is stupid. Yeah, I mean, you had a lifetime supply of plastic surgery, so how are you not falling for the plastic surgery trap anymore?

Bri (06:22):
Yeah, you can’t do anything else.

Dr. G (06:25):
Yeah, come on.

Bri (06:26):
Yeah, you look fabulous. Just own it, it’s from plastic surgery. Some girl yesterday was like, you look so amazing. How do you stay so skinny? She’s like, you have to work out every day. I was like, I’m all natural. It wasn’t the tirzepatide or the full body lipo or anything else. It was me.

Dr. G (06:48):
And olive oil and horseback riding,

Bri (06:50):
Castor oil, green juice.

Dr. G (06:53):
She looks great, but to then get this good and then be like I’m not doing it anymore is so silly.

Bri (07:02):
You don’t have a wrinkle in your forehead. You look like you’ve already had a facelift. Maybe not.

Dr. G (07:09):
She has, she’s had two. You can see the scars behind her ears when she turns, girl. Yeah, she had one, I think it’s rumored that Jakono did this version.

Bri (07:18):
That’s too much.

Dr. G (07:19):
Which is not good. And also a lot of, I think this is also a case of a lot of really bad makeup question mark. But yeah, that look, I remember when she hit the runway with that and people were freaking out. I think she had an overdone lip lift too.

Bri (07:35):
Her face was so full.

Dr. G (07:39):
There was a lot going on there. But then the other rumor is that somebody then redid her facelift and fixed it. You can definitely see the scars behind her ears when she turns around in one of those dresses. Yeah. Anyway, I mean, again, who cares? It looks great. She had a deep plane facelift. Go for it.

Bri (07:58):
Everyone gets plastic surgery

Dr. G (08:02):
And I’m sure she’s also taken care of her skin over the years. So I mean all the facials and lasers. and good skincare. So all of that helps Botox, whatever filler you need, PRP, whatever, probably sleeps in an oxygen tank or something.

Bri (08:23):
A hyperbaric chamber.

Dr. G (08:24):
Doesn’t actually have to take care of her kids, although they’re older now. But now let’s talk about when you don’t have unlimited funds and so you go for cheap plastic surgery.

Bri (08:37):
Viva la Mexico.

Dr. G (08:37):
Which is our topic. So Turkey is making the rounds and I think if you’re in Southern California, the idea of going to Turkey is probably not high on your list. I feel like if you go to Turkey and get botched surgery and you’re coming from Southern California, that’s on you. Because you just bypass Mexico and the Dominican Republic, which are both equally, and even Miami, all places you can go to get cheap botched surgery. So why go all the way to Turkey for that, in my opinion. Anyway. But if you’re in the uk, it is very popular to go to Turkey for surgery cuz it’s a lot closer. And it’s become a problem in the UK for kind of the same issues we have here with people going to Mexico or if on the east coast going to Dominican Republic. So this first story is super sad because she went for rhinoplasty to Turkey and then ended up in a coma, which is

Bri (09:40):
What kind of complications for a rhinoplasty?

Dr. G (09:45):
I think it has to be an anesthetic complication. So there’s nothing specifically that you’re going to do during a rhinoplasty that’s going to put you in a vegetative state, but they could lose the airway. And of course now you’re trying to investigate what happened to your loved one in a foreign country and it’s really not, they’re going to be clear about it. It’s not the same. So you don’t have any of the, you can’t file a subpoena. You can, but they can just tell you to kick rocks, I guess. So they’re trying to bring a legal case against those who were involved, but it’s pretty hard to do.

Bri (10:23):
Speaking of, side note, I found all the paperwork from when I got my first breast aug. This was way before I knew better and I was going through it and I didn’t realize all the things that I signed. All these can’t talk about it. Everything has to be fixed in office. You can’t sue us. And I did not realize this entire list after working in an actual plastic surgeon’s office. It was kind of insane. The 40 bullet points of things you cannot do. And I don’t even think I remember signing stuff. Obviously I did.

Dr. G (10:59):
That’s interesting because I’ve seen that a couple of times. Usually in malpractice cases I’ve reviewed. But to have somebody, people get in trouble for that you cannot have people sign an

Bri (11:11):
And he was here in San Diego.

Dr. G (11:14):
You can have patients sign an NDA piece of paper that says you won’t sue them before you even operate on ’em. It’s wild. It usually doesn’t go well. It’s usually questioned, just often related to somebody who is anticipating having all those problems. Her claim is strong, but it’s pretty hard for a foreigner to file a case in Turkey for medical negligence, of course. And it’s just, it’s terrible. So that was one of the cases. And then I think the second case in this article is somebody who went there and then ended up with a rip roaring infection and skin grafts and a bunch of other things.

Bri (11:53):
We’ve seen some pretty nasty scarring from surgical patients that went to foreign countries and it’s just brutal.

Dr. G (12:04):
So she went with her weight loss to get skin removed, but then said that she had a BBL and liposuction was carried out without our permission. I mean, again, are you signing those consents in English? I don’t know.

Bri (12:19):
That’s crazy.

Dr. G (12:21):
Then they often do just ship your butt back without, you don’t get to recover. And then so you’re back home with no pain meds. You can’t take narcotics with you as you’re traveling across the border.

Bri (12:35):
Then you have no, what kind of post-op care? Your post-op care is just as important.

Dr. G (12:41):
I know it’s a problem on the east coast as well. I have friends that practice over there and they see people go to the Dominican Republic for medical tourism and then come back and are infected or have drain problems or whatever it is, and they end up in the ER. And again, physicians are sort of reluctant to take them on because

Bri (13:01):
They don’t want to deal with that.

Dr. G (13:03):
You don’t want to deal with it and you didn’t want to come to us in the first place. So it’s a slightly offensive, but.

Bri (13:10):
It’s very offensive.

Dr. G (13:13):
They want, I don’t know. I just think if you’re doing something like this, maybe don’t go for the cheapest cost.

Bri (13:20):
Or the ones that go to you first and then do the whole consult, go down to Mexico or somewhere else and then come back and it was like, fix me.

Dr. G (13:31):
Let me just preface that with fix me is usually way more expensive than the original deal you got.

Bri (13:36):
Yeah.

Dr. G (13:38):
And it often doesn’t give you the end result you wanted. So

Bri (13:42):
Yeah.

Dr. G (13:43):
So Turkey’s a huge issue. If you’re baller and you live in the UK, you go to Switzerland, they have some really nice plastic surgery clinics there. Swiss are annoyed about the fact that Turkey is becoming this hotspot for medical tourism. And then remember you have socialized medicine in England, so these people are coming back and then they don’t pay for healthcare. So it’s England starting to take notice because if you have more and more patients that are coming back that are putting the stress on what they call the national health system, it becomes a little controversial. Like you’re going to go out of the country to get something done and then when it’s all jacked up, England’s supposed to take care of you. So that was cheap plastic surgery in Turkey. The two surviving Americans who were kidnapped in Mexico that are back in the US, this happened in 2023.

(14:34):
She didn’t even get her plastic surgery. So four people left to go across the border. I remember when this happened and I feel like we’re accidentally, I mean as accidentally as you could be kidnapped and held captive. And I think honestly the cartel just grabbed the wrong people and it was all caught on video at the time. So as soon as it happened, the US intervened and Mexico actually intervened and released the two living survivors. And the one woman was unfortunately the whole reason for them going down there, she was going to have a tummy tuck. That sucks.

Bri (15:15):
That’s insane.

Dr. G (15:16):
That’s probably worst case scenario. I mean, I don’t know. That’s horrible. You don’t even make it to the cosmetic surgery clinic. You accidentally get hijacked instead. And then this article in the New York Post about the woman who died during a BBL and then came back with missing body parts is I feel like you were alluding to this in our true crime.

Bri (15:39):
Yes. So one of the patients, and I just have to always point out, I don’t have the exact facts. So one patient told me that she worked as a tech over in another country and she said it was super common out there to have plastic surgery and then come back home and all of a sudden start getting sick and being like, what’s going on? And in cases like tummy tucks where it’s easy to take an organ, people would take a kidney or whatever else they would want to take, sew you back up, steal your organ, and then just send you home and then there’s nothing you can do about it.

Dr. G (16:17):
Yeah, you can’t get it back.

Bri (16:18):
Insane.

Dr. G (16:20):
It would be also worst case scenario.

Bri (16:24):
I just can’t imagine.

Dr. G (16:25):
It’s a really bad movie. But you got to imagine that their black market organs are coming from somewhere, right?

Bri (16:32):
Oh yeah. Huge. Do you remember that story a while ago about this young girl who wasn’t 18 and she had gone down to Mexico, she wanted to get a breast aug. She didn’t want to tell her parents. And then three days later she filed a missing person’s report and one of her friends finally told her parents, she went down to Mexico. And when they finally got in touch, she had passed away on the table and they cremated her body without ever, they couldn’t come back home. No one had any idea what happened.

Dr. G (17:07):
Oh my God.

Bri (17:08):
That is terrifying. That is the fact that they didn’t even allow the body to come back of a 16-year-old girl. And that kind of gives me organs stealing vibes,

Dr. G (17:20):
Organ harvest or not knowing. Yeah,

Bri (17:22):
You said it much more politically correct than I did.

Dr. G (17:26):
There was a Manhattan doctor years ago who also was soliciting, I mean the reverse is possible. It’s just not as common. Soliciting people from Ireland to come to the states for plastic surgery. And it was a very similar scenario where this woman from Ireland came to the US to have a facelift under twilight anesthesia and then died under the anesthetic and then her family had no idea that that’s why she had gone to the US. It was pretty awful. So I guess it’s sort of rock climbing or caving or if you’re go let someone know where you’re going and not go by yourself.

Bri (18:11):
Right.

Dr. G (18:11):
I don’t know. This is terrible. This is another situation where they went to, I think she went to Turkey again and patient died on the table, not sure what happened. Maybe a fat embolism. And then when they did return the body, she was missing organs, which probably are not from some nefarious black market organ sharing situation, but probably just to cover up the cause of death would be my guess. But who knows? Again, I don’t know how many of these stories, and usually when this happens and the patient survives and comes back, they take to the news to warn people. But you just have to google it for two seconds and you will see a hundred stories of this happening. It happens over and over again, and yet people are still like, I mean it’s 2999 for that breast aug. What could go wrong?

Bri (19:08):
I can make three payments of. Yeah, it’s just not worth it. It’s not worth not, that small possibility of not coming back. I don’t know, it’s, it’s so scary and I’m sure there’s some really great actual certified people in other countries, but it’s always the ones that aren’t with the cheap prices that get people and it’s just, unless you do your research.

Dr. G (19:33):
I know there are board certified plastic surgeons in Mexico. There’s board certified or equivalent surgeons in Turkey. They publish articles on rhinoplasty and do some great work, but usually those physicians are catering to actual Mexicans who can afford plastic surgery, not to people who are looking for a good deal. So they’re going to be just as expensive as the equivalent is in the United States to some degree. So then you’re not getting as great of a deal. And also your aftercare, once again, is not happening because you’re not staying in that location for a significant amount of time.

Bri (20:12):
If you walk into somebody’s house or basement to get your plastic surgery, please turn around because all these places that aren’t accredited, I mean all the things that you have to go through to have your place, like sterility, you have to have a sterile OR, you have to have airflow, you have to have sterile instruments. There’s just so many things that you don’t think of that a basement is not going to offer you that. Okay.

Dr. G (20:40):
Yeah. So speaking of sterility, the next article is about people going to cosmetic surgery in Mexico and then getting meningitis. Which this is from last year, and I guess I remember this hitting the news, but now I’m like, Ugh, horrible. Horrible. So again, the anesthetic that they were using was probably a spinal, which is crazy. We use zero spinals for in our OR. Like why, why do a spinal? I don’t understand. Probably because they don’t have an anesthesia machine, but I don’t know why you’re doing a breast aug under spinal. Anyway, the technique was contaminated with a weird fungus, and so they had 12 people get a strange fungal meningitis and it was drug resistant and really bad. Oh, 13 cases, nine of which were fatal.

Bri (21:40):
That’s a terrible way to go.

Dr. G (21:42):
Yeah. Oh, epidurals for surgeries like tummy tucks and Brazilian butt lifts. I don’t know why you’re doing an epidural, I guess. I’m confused. It’s going to be a new just go under anesthesia, but you’re not, so this is cheap except when they don’t clean the needle or use, I don’t even know how.

Bri (22:00):
Use the same needle over and over.

Dr. G (22:03):
I think it was a medication that they use in the epidural, but I don’t know how you have contaminated. It’s usually some sort of narcotic and some kind of local anesthetic, like a lidocaine or Marcaine or whatever. But I mean really bad, so bad. You could get bacterial meningitis. You could get viral meningitis. Fungal meningitis is extremely, extremely rare. And so that’s an infection in your central nervous system. So in your spinal fluid, it’s really, really hard to treat with antifungals or even if you get bacterial antimicrobial agents, I don’t know. And of course you’re not going to expect that. It’s not on your radar. So in the weeks after their surgeries, they start having headaches and fevers and you go to the ER, that’s not number one on their list that you have fungal meningitis.

Bri (22:52):
Right.

Dr. G (22:53):
Again, we’re coming up for our quad A re-certification, which has a in-person surveyor come through, and we’re prepping for that, making sure all our ducks are in a row. But that’s kind of what you’re paying for. You’re paying for the facility to be up to standards. You’re paying for a surgeon who has credentials at a local hospital in case something goes wrong. You’re paying for the availability of crash cart medications that expire without us ever using them, knock on wood, but are there. And so we continue to replace them in case something untoward happens. You’re paying for a board certified anesthesiologist to be managing your anesthesia, for Bri to make sure your equipment is clean.

Bri (23:38):
Oh yeah.

Dr. G (23:40):
And sterile. Visit the place. If it looks kind of dirty or don’t go there. I mean, the fact that has to be stated is so embarrassing.

Bri (23:54):
I know. It’s not worth it. Having a bigger butt is not worth it. If you’re walking in to someone’s basement and then you don’t walk out. Like it’s, cheap isn’t always better.

Dr. G (24:09):
It’s almost never better.

Bri (24:10):
Unless it’s shoes on sale and that’s about it.

Dr. G (24:13):
That’s right. The designer clearance at Nordstrom.

Bri (24:15):
Yes. Designer clearance is about the only thing you want to go cheap on.

Dr. G (24:21):
And you got to get it from somewhere where you’re actually getting that.

Bri (24:25):
Yeah, exactly.

Dr. G (24:25):
You’re not getting counterfeit. Right?

Bri (24:27):
You’re not ordering off of, what is it that gate north? Wait, what is that site? The gate, DH gate.

Dr. G (24:36):
Oh yeah. Where you’re getting garbage.

Bri (24:38):
Yeah,

Dr. G (24:39):
Where someone’s scamming you. I mean really good dupes if that’s what you want, but if it’s really cheap, then no.

Bri (24:45):
My mom bought this Louis Vuitton bag off Saks fifth off, wait, Saks fifth Avenue off something. But the website was just a little bit different. And she’s like, I got a bag and a wallet for $200. And I was like, yeah, I don’t think that’s accurate. She’s like, it says it’s real. And I was like, I don’t think so. I was like, send me the link. And it was just a little bit off. I was like, you got scammed.

Dr. G (25:12):
Remember I did that with those stupid pandas. It wasn’t actually a sneaker. I think I was looking for stock X and I got some

Bri (25:23):
Stock XY.

Dr. G (25:24):
Yeah. Sometimes when you do stuff on your phone, if you’re not paying attention, that’s how they get you. It’s like Saks but spelled SAX or something.

Bri (25:32):
Something just like one letter off and you’re like, well, crap

Dr. G (25:36):
Damn it. Yeah. But at least the risk is a lot lower if you get garbage for your fake Louis. Okay, so moving on, we can segue over to the 90 Americans that have died after cosmetic surgery in the Dominican Republic, which is another popular place to go. Like I mentioned, my friends on the East coast take care of the ones that don’t die all the time. They’re just absolute train wrecks. Infections are a common issue or they get blood clots, so like a pulmonary embolus or a fat embolus, which is generally fatal. The problem with the infections are because you’re doing a lot of liposuction, it’s minimal incisions and then they’re spreading whatever that infection is everywhere. And so it’s not easy to correct. If the antibiotics don’t do it, then you’re opening up all these places that weren’t open to start with and you have skin necrosis and you can be pretty disfigured afterwards, but unfortunately, when you present to the emergency department with a necrotizing infection from your overseas BBL, they’re going to do what it takes to save your life and they’re not concerned about the aesthetics of it at that time.

Bri (26:49):
Getting into labiaplasty really quickly, so we had one patient who, the only time I’ve ever gone down the Reddit rabbit hole for labiaplasty, and it was the most disfigured butchered, and I’m like, this is why people are worried because people go out of country and they get these crazy chop chop labiaplasties where they have nothing left, and they look insane and it’s like, went down to Mexico. This is what happened. Ugh.

Dr. G (27:18):
Also extremely difficult to correct if you’ve already,

Bri (27:21):
I could not look, I was like, there’s nothing you could even correct on this.

Dr. G (27:25):
No. It’s equivalent of genital mutilation, which is still done in some countries. There’s a few people nationally recognized for correcting genital mutilation. And so I think if somebody came in and had a botched some maneuvers, I could offer to correct that. But if you’re beyond those local maneuvers, then I would have you seek somebody who is specialized in that. So yeah, I mean, it’s just insane that you would do something potentially disfiguring to your body and go somewhere where you don’t know anybody, you can’t verify their credentials. It’s hard enough, I was recently on the local news discussing how to verify credentials in San Diego,

Bri (28:09):
She’s famous.

Dr. G (28:11):
Which, the more I explained it, the more I realized it’s really difficult because you can practice plastic surgery in California in the US without having plastic surgery training. Sort of declare yourself a cosmetic surgeon, do whatever.

Bri (28:30):
The doctor I went to that made me sign all those, you cannot sue me type things.

Dr. G (28:35):
Right, right. That’s a big tip off that it’s probably not a board certified plastic surgeon.

Bri (28:40):
I didn’t know.

Dr. G (28:42):
I know. But if you look at their websites, it can be confusing. There was a legal win for California in the last couple of years in which if you said you were board certified on your website, you needed to say in what? Because a common bait and switch was to say, board certified. I’m a cosmetic surgeon, I’m board certified. And the implication is that you’re a board certified plastic surgeon. Well, it’s not. You’re a board certified pediatrician. You’re a board certified OB GYN, doing cosmetic surgery. So great, you’re board certified, but not actually in what you’re doing. So that’s like me doing heart caths and saying, I’m board certified. You don’t want me doing your cardiac cath.

Bri (29:24):
I’d be like, girl.

Dr. G (29:26):
I mean, how hard could it be? Right.

Bri (29:28):
I can do it too.

Dr. G (29:30):
You can assist. Yeah. I mean you just thread that little thing in.

Bri (29:34):
Yeah, I have exactly no cardiovascular training, but I’ve got it. Don’t worry.

Dr. G (29:40):
So I mean, I think we should take a weekend course and then offer that up. So anyway.

Bri (29:44):
Weekend?

Dr. G (29:44):
Weekend.

Bri (29:46):
We turned her into a meme.

Dr. G (29:49):
Yes. So I think knowing that it’s hard in the US to verify who’s doing your surgery or who’s doing your cosmetic procedure. Going somewhere where you don’t speak the language just makes it impossible. And I think that is a huge factor in trying to decide what you want to do. I assure you Demi Moore did not go to Turkey to get her facelift. So consumer protection’s important.

Bri (30:16):
All the men can go get their hair transplants, but

Dr. G (30:20):
There’s, again, people who are really good at doing it here in San Diego. It’s expensive, but your paying for the technology, your paying for the person who is going to do the right, really the finesse is in deciding where the hair transplant is going, the pattern, and then the techs that are putting it in are really good at what they do versus somebody just jamming a bunch of hair plugs in Turkey and maybe it getting infected, which is a huge problem. So this last little is just a classic article of this guy who went viral for using fake photos.

Bri (31:03):
I mean, I could have told them that.

Dr. G (31:06):
So good. I think the person in the photos was like, bro.

Bri (31:14):
That is not my before and that is not my after.

Dr. G (31:17):
And also that’s me.

Bri (31:18):
Yeah, that’s great. Now that’s a real criminal. That is somebody that was doing illegal activity and wanted a full face transplant. What was it? I think we said it in our last podcast. The cartel person that wanted to change his whole face.

Dr. G (31:36):
Oh, right. Change their whole face and then took out the cosmetic surgeon. Yeah. This,

Bri (31:41):
I should have been a detective.

Dr. G (31:42):
This looks like, I don’t know if I can say it. I’m going to say it.

Bri (31:46):
Just say it.

Dr. G (31:47):
This looks like those Rodan and Fields skincare Instagram posts, they’re like, use our multi-level marketing skincare and you will turn back time and you’re like.

Bri (32:00):
Reduce 40 years.

Dr. G (32:02):
No.

Bri (32:02):
I look like an infant.

Dr. G (32:09):
It’s so bad. Yeah. I mean, again, once again with before and afters, you can change the lighting, the angle of the photo and do some dramatic before and after with doing nothing. There’s a plastic surgeon out of Pennsylvania that proves this over and over again, and he’ll do before and afters of himself where the only thing he changes is the lighting or the angle of his face. This is not even the same person.

Bri (32:32):
This wasn’t even a realistic before and after.

Dr. G (32:36):
But I feel like if you think this is,

Bri (32:38):
Do they have the same color? Just kidding.

Dr. G (32:40):
I don’t know if you think this is a real thing and then you go to that doctor, then that’s on you.

Bri (32:47):
You got gypped.

Dr. G (32:50):
They don’t have the same ears.

Bri (32:51):
They don’t have nothing. And they did all that facial hair. They don’t have this, obviously they got their nose done. They got a full face transplant. Their ears aren’t even the same shape.

Dr. G (33:05):
No, I can’t.

Bri (33:07):
He also shaved down the middle portion of his face.

Dr. G (33:12):
I know.

Bri (33:12):
If this actually happened, it’s a hundred percent by somebody who doesn’t want to be found who just paid like $5 million. I’ve seen the shows.

Dr. G (33:20):
If you’re going to do it, you might as well go younger and more attractive.

Bri (33:24):
He doesn’t even have the same face shape.

Dr. G (33:29):
Come on, a little buccal fat pad removal will go a long way.

Bri (33:32):
That’s more than a little.

Dr. G (33:34):
Alright, well, so I think the moral of this story is don’t go overseas for plastic surgery. And if you’re going to stay in the states, do your research, super important, make sure you’re comfortable with your surgeon. If you get icky vibes or you don’t like our sense of humor, I mean you really want to,

Bri (33:54):
I don’t know why you wouldn’t.

Dr. G (33:56):
You really want to be comfortable with whoever it is that you’re entrusting into your care. And it’s a huge undertaking. So even our own patients are nervous about the anesthesia, are nervous about the procedure, we understand that, it’s life changing. So making sure that you’re confident in what your decisions are and who’s doing it and what the recovery is going to look like is super important.

Bri (34:22):
Amen.

Dr. G (34:22):
So that wraps up our last maybe of true crime. I’m sure there’s always more true crime out there, but if you’re interested in hearing about something else, plastic surgery related that we haven’t covered yet, please drop us some comments on what you would like more of. And if not, we’ll catch you later.

Bri (34:42):
And if you know of any illegal activity happening in other states plastic surgery related, put it in the DMs because I want to know.

Dr. G (34:49):
All right. Take care.

(34:54):
If you’re listening today and have questions, need info about scheduling, financing, reviews, or photos, check out the show notes for links. Restore SD Plastic Surgery is located in La Jolla, California. To learn more about us, go to restoresdplasticsurgery.com or follow us on Instagram @restoreSDplasticsurgery. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it and subscribe to All the B’s on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcast.

Podcast – Beware the Brutal Bargains: The Truth About Traveling for Plastic Surgery

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