The Cosmetic Procedure I'll Never Do Again

Dr. Chang (00:04)
You are listening to Secret Services, where we discuss the procedures nobody admits to, but everyone's curious about. I'm your host, Dr. Christopher Chang.

Jackie (00:14)
I'm Jackie.

Dr. Chang (00:15)
Good to see you, Jackie. I'm Dr. Chang. So what are we going to talk about today?

Jackie (00:20)
I wanted to talk about regrets and I wanted to know have you ever had anything done that you regret having done?

Dr. Chang (00:30)
How do I gotta be the one to open up about this? So regrets are super important part of what we do, I guess, you because everything we do is elective, right? You choose to do something. So you don't wanna have regret, but of course not everything is perfect. I don't regret, but I don't do PRP anymore, at least right now for my hair. So PRP is called platelet rich plasma. The way we do it is we draw blood.

We spin it through a special centrifuging device that purifies the platelet-rich plasma, the growth factors, the stem cells, and we use that purified fraction to supercharge the skin and tissues. And particularly we use that in the hospital in joints and healing in orthopedics and in plastic surgery, in cosmetic medicine, we can use it in skin and in the face.

Typically in hair restoration, we use it in areas of balding or thinning. And so I tell patients, this is a lot like fertilizer for the soil. And when you use those supercharged growth factors, they're from your own body. They're very natural. It's not pharmaceutical, so it's very safe, but it is a procedure. It is a little expensive and a little painful. So because of that,

I don't do it that much to myself that much because I'm a little bit of a baby. It means that I got to lay down and let somebody from the office stab me in the head.

Jackie (02:08)
That's what I was gonna ask. so you don't do it to yourself. No,

Dr. Chang (02:14)
no, no, no. I don't do it to myself. I wouldn't trust that I would be able to do it evenly. There's a certain amount of pressure that you have to be able to apply because it's a tight space. don't have, your scalp can't expand, right? And in areas where your hair is thin or at the top of your head, you don't see it very well. So, like, even if you're trying to find a bald spot or try to see it, it's hard to see it. I do think it's a great treatment.

I do think if your provider gives you good pain control and you're not a baby like me, it's pretty good. And for our patients, we do a whole bunch of things. do some cooling sprays to cool the skin. We use a special vibration device to reduce the prick. And we use a local numbing medicine to sort of make sure that it's least amount of pain as possible. We also have some nitrous oxide that you can breathe to take the edge off. So I think. You know, for patients, it's quite comfortable. ⁓ But when I'm the patient, think that sometimes it's a little bit of an ordeal for me. And also I need to have a little bit of downtime. So I would say I regret it. I definitely like it. But I think that it is something I don't do much anymore.

Jackie (03:27)
How many times have you done it?

Dr. Chang (03:29)
Like two or three times. Like two or three times. I do a lot of the other stuff for hair. I do some supplements, Nutrifol. do the Finasteride and Minoxidil. I do have a laser cap. So I'm doing these other things. I'm throwing the kitchen sink. I'm just not also throwing the faucet. You know, the hair loss thing. The other thing is that at the time that I was doing it, I had a nurse injector in the practice named Stacy who was wonderful and she's a great injector. But she was not so good at doing the numbing block that I teach everybody to do. ⁓ And so I just haven't gotten up the courage to have them do it for me, which maybe I will, but ⁓ as I said, if I give the office crew a little opportunity to stab me, they might get a little carried away. Off to be in their good graces.

Jackie (04:15)
That's true. I know we just got the skin pen and we were trying it out for hair loss and on the head and Dr. Jenny was just trying it on me. So I felt the feeling of a few stabs to the head and I can't imagine PRP. I was like, wow, these people are so strong.

Dr. Chang (04:37)
That's interesting because, the skin pen is this micro-needling device. It kind of vibrates and oscillates to make small little pokes. The interesting part is that it's gotta go deeper because your hair takes up some space, so it's hard to get in down to the skin and the scalp. So I've done it for patients as well. I personally like doing the manual injection with a syringe, but it is quite popular in med spas and other hair places to use that skin pen, but it's no joke. You gotta be numbed up pretty good. And that's, I want everybody to comfortable. Even when I was a resident, know, I'd numb up, let's say a finger laceration, I would numb that thing, like totally. Like I want extra numbing, because I don't want somebody to say, I can still feel that.

Jackie (05:21)
Yeah, that makes sense. Well, I wanted to talk about regret because I don't know if you saw Jessi from Mormon Wives. 

Dr. Chang (05:29)
I've heard, but I don't know anything about the Mormon Wives. So we're gonna have to rewind a little bit.

Jackie (05:35)
They're Mormons from Utah. They're all mothers and they all got together to make these TikToks together. they're all, know, these girls are sharing everything online. So they're sharing all their procedures. I think in like season one, one of the girls got a labiaplasty and like all the other girls are there and she's like, do you want to see? And you're just like, whoa, this is crazy. Yeah.

So this girl, Jessi, I think she's already had a rhinoplasty. I thought she had already had a bluff, but perhaps she had a lower bluff. But basically she's like really in the news now because she just had another procedure and everyone's like, girl again. she also

Dr. Chang (06:22)
How old is she, she looks young.

Jackie (06:25)
I think she's got to be like 32 is my guess.

Jessi (06:31)
Let's get ready and about the suture I just got I feel like I have to preface every single video I post late. Alright, let's get ready

Jackie (06:37)
Yeah, so she posted like a month ago, her completely bandaged up, like full face wrap, swollen, and everyone's like, what did she get done? ⁓ So then she- Yeah, exactly, exactly. And everyone's like, why are you touching your face? So then she finally like unveils her face and she got an upper bleph, fat grafting, CO2 laser, but after the fat grafting, like,

Dr. Chang (06:51)
like a teaser.

Jackie (07:07)
She's swollen, but also, you know, more puffed up from the fat grafting and she's getting a lot of backlash. And she recently was like, I don't like the way I like, I don't like the way I look. want, I want my old face back, but, but I'm in the healing stage. And they kind of took that headline. I don't like my face. I want my old face back. And kind of they're running with that as like a headline. So it's like, does she have regret or is she just trying to say that to please her followers?

Dr. Chang (07:44)
I saw something, maybe there's a clip that you guys sent me or somebody sent me that she said, you know, like what you just said, I don't like my face right now, but it's in the process and I'm working. She also said I'm working on it. I'm talking to my therapist or something.

Jackie (07:59)
Yes, yeah.

Dr. Chang (08:02)
So sort of, it's so much to get into. She's just kind of ⁓ doing a lot at a young age. She's vulnerable, but exposing herself on social media to essentially the opinion of strangers. Yes. ⁓ It's kind of wild to be so open and vulnerable, I think, huh?

Jackie (08:27)
Yeah, well what would you do if she was one of your patients and you know, she hears some feedback from friends and family after getting something done and there she's getting negative reviews and then comes in and is like, this is not the face I wanted.

Dr. Chang (08:43)
Well, there's a couple layers to that. I saw that she either talked about the doctor. I think his name is Dr. Ward, ⁓ but I don't know him. ⁓ But she talked about the doctor in one clip. And I sort of think it's a mixed bag. When you work with somebody who is an influencer or somebody who's giving you this shout out, you think, well. it's gonna be great, but there's so many haters. I'm sure there are people saying, the doctors did a botched job or you should sue the doctor. Or like, I would never go to the guy. And then they kind of dig up stuff from this doctor's past that is totally, you know, not necessary to do just to try to prove their point online that they're right. They did their research. Why did you see that this doctor, I don't know, a complaint against him?

Jackie (09:17)
comments saying that.

Dr. Chang (09:39)
You know, so I think that this is the tough side of social media. exposing yourself in such a way is that you're to get opinions from all the people, all the trolls, all the haters. Much harder to get love.

Jackie (09:53)
Yeah. Definitely. And I also think like she is still so early post-op. So like to be like, you know, posting your face every single day, it is, it does change week to week, you know, she probably is still healing. it's like, give this girl a break. But I think the, obviously the general population does not understand the healing process. And so I think it's also pushing this poor girl to be like, my God, I made a huge mistake.

Dr. Chang (10:25)
Yeah, I wonder how much of this is her actually feeling bad about it or does she just love the engagement? I mean, she's getting a lot of engagement.

Jackie (10:32)
That's a good point, yeah. Lot of engagement and the new season's coming out soon.

Dr. Chang (10:41)
I mean, maybe she's just an evil genius.

Jackie (10:44)
I think a lot of these girls are evil geniuses. I mean, look how much money they're making.

Dr. Chang (10:47)
The beauty industry is so pervasive in a community like Salt Lake City. I often think of the people and the women, men and women being so beautiful out there. they do so much. They do so much. lot of aesthetic procedures, hair, makeup, whatever they're doing, fitness, nutrition, plastic surgery. They do all this stuff to maintain this beauty standard. And it's not. Easy. They put it in the work.

Jackie (11:18)
Right. Yeah. And also more Mormon lore, but Jessie was best friends with this girl, Demi. And it seems like with all these procedures they're getting, they're all kind of like morphing into one. Like they're all, all their faces are starting to kind of look alike, you know? Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Chang (11:38)
no. So that drives me crazy because that scares other people. It drives me crazy because I often tell patients or the significant others who are with them, I think those bad results are those results where they all start to look the same or just people call like, you know, bubble face or puffy pillow face and something like that. It's when people start doing too much of

Jackie (11:45)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Chang (12:06)
the same thing. So if you keep injecting your lips once, okay, great, twice or once every couple years or whatever. But if you keep doing it over and over and over and over again, you start losing the baseline of what is normal and you start getting into extreme because you're trying to find a little difference with each treatment. So like at some point the differences are starting to get distortions. Like you need a doctor or an injector or a provider that just says to you, okay.

Jackie (12:25)
Yes.

Dr. Chang (12:36)
it's getting a little out of hand. Like you don't need to do all that. It's not looking natural anymore. And maybe that's your goal. Maybe your goal is to have big fake lips or big fake boobs or whatever, big ⁓ upturn Barbie nose. You just have to be honest with what you're looking for. But ⁓ the distortion is a real problem. And especially if you're jumping around from provider to provider, that's a real problem.

Jackie (13:00)
Yeah, that's a good point. And that's why I'm like so eager to see, you know, her results play out because is it just swelling or is it like you said, she just keeps repeating the same treatments and now it's just like distorted, too overdone. 

Dr. Chang (13:16)
Yeah, and the other flip side of that is patients that are getting things that are a little too extreme or too much too early. A young person that doesn't really need to have an eyelid lift. Yeah, you can find skin to take off on somebody, but is it going to make a significant difference where you can appreciate how much better they look or is they going to look exactly the same? You just cut off skin.

Jackie (13:44)
You're right.

Dr. Chang (13:44)
gave them scars and now their eyelid is tighter and it looks a little more bizarre actually. There aren't very many 30 year olds who need an upper bluff. It's just not that common. It happens. Not a lot.

Jackie (14:00)
interesting.

Dr. Chang (14:01)
I think that you just have to, I think people have to be very discerning, find the right level of someone who's cautious and has good judgment, is to sort of like, okay, this is reasonable. just because we can do it doesn't mean we should do it.

Jackie (14:19)
Right, yeah, exactly. And someone who's filming themselves all day, every day, the public's going to pick apart any little differences that they're noticing.

Dr. Chang (14:21)
So. Yeah, I definitely think that you have to be very strong to be exposed on social media. Yeah. Like, you really have to know, be sure of yourself, be confident in the decisions you've made, and understand how absorbing or ignoring hater comments, because it's like a mob mentality out there. Yeah. You get one person saying something, then somebody else says, yes, I agree, and then it becomes gang up on you.

Jackie (15:00)
That's definitely what I've seen like in the comments for this Jessie girl It's like one person's like well, you didn't need to get that done And then it's like well your face is puffy and then now everyone's like you look like a monster.

Dr. Chang (15:12)
You know, TikTok isn't really as I'm the expert as Reddit, but I see some of that on Reddit. People will post a result and say, ⁓ is this a bad result or did I get botched or is something wrong? And then people will just respond with this level of confidence and expertise. And you're like, who is user 54321?

Jackie (15:38)
Is it someone just sitting at home, hiding behind their keyboard, zero medical background?

Dr. Chang (15:45)
They're ballsy. I mean really to say stuff that some people say you're like Wow, that's a lot to say for being essentially someone who monitors plastic surgery forums or Twitter accounts and stuff and and becomes a an expert from social media essentially But you know, I think that people should just be a little kinder to each other Let them just do their thing and see how it all plays out. Then you say if it's not if it looks bad or heel and you just be like, you know

Jackie (16:02)
Yeah.

Dr. Chang (16:15)
You know, as long she's happy with it, you don't got to beat her up. mean.

Jackie (16:21)
Yeah, yeah, I think it'll definitely be interesting to follow her journey and see if she like finally comes out and says I shouldn't have done it. But then you turn into then do you get another procedure like what

Dr. Chang (16:32)
Well, what's her personality like on the show? Is she crazy? Is she is she pretty vanilla? Like, what's her what's her persona as a character?

Jackie (16:41)
Yeah, like she was not super crazy, then her and that girl Demi that she's literally morphing into now that they look identical, they got into this big fight. so she kind of became way more popular in the last season. So then that's why it was kind of interesting.

Dr. Chang (17:00)
the drama of the fight they basically focused on her in the

Jackie (17:03)
Yeah, so then I'm like, wonder if like, cause she's getting more screen time. Is that why she like felt so inclined to like get another surgery? That's my thought. Also there were like cheating rumors, divorce rumors. So is it because she's unhappy there? know, lots of layers to it. this is a very important thing. The girl that she's, the girl that she's like face morphing into was the

Dr. Chang (17:22)
I better not be caught watching this.

Jackie (17:30)
and also involved with the same cheating scandal, same guy. So everyone's like, are you trying to look like her?

Dr. Chang (17:37)
Wait, the Demi girl and Jessi, they're both involved with the same guy? Romantically involved with the same guy?

Jackie (17:46)
allegedly. They're both married to not this guy. you got a.

Dr. Chang (17:47)
Are they both married? Ooh, this is crazy. Real show.

Jackie (17:56)
It's so crazy. It's so crazy. like you always remember like there's a few that like occasionally drink, but majority of them are sober and you're like, these people are having these, this crazy drama, crazy fights, dead sober. And it's the best entertainment.

Dr. Chang (18:11)
Got nobody to blame. can't blame like, you know, oh, I was drunk. Wow.

Jackie (18:15)
Yeah. Mm hmm. Another thing I noticed on the show, like they all get Botox and filler, which fine, but they all get nitrous when they get Botox. And I'm like, is this just like a gateway for you guys to like dip your toes in?

Dr. Chang (18:33)
They wanna get high a little bit. 

Jackie (18:36)
I don't know. was like, I've never seen nitrous for a Botox treatment. That's crazy. yeah.

Dr. Chang (18:43)
Did they make a big deal out of that? Was that like a

Jackie (18:45)
It was like a talking point on the show, We're nitrous for our Botox and I was like, what?

Dr. Chang (18:52)
Well, that's really interesting. know, growing up in the Maryland area, we had lot of actually, a lot of Mormon families and some of the biggest families ⁓ in ⁓ the DC metro area are very successful Mormon families. Like the Marriott Corporation is a Mormon family. And I know another plastic surgeon whose son I went through the residency interview things with and everything like that. They have their roots out in Salt Lake City too. it's really interesting to hear within that group of the community of people like, you know, all the different cultural.

Jackie (19:32)
yeah, I'm sure they can't be like the Mormon church probably isn't super happy with. But yeah, it's just interesting ⁓ because they're really normalizing plastic surgery and doing whatever makes you feel happy, which is awesome. But yeah, just the little things you pick up on. was like, Botox, nitrous, what?

Dr. Chang (19:37)
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, exactly. I'm sure other people probably didn't don't pick up on that. Right. Yeah. But you know, yes, that's a little bit unusual. It's kind of like really getting a little bit of a little extra treatment. So, all right. Well, maybe you guys have to feed me some good stuff from there, because I don't know if I can get shows kind of intense.

Jackie (20:02)
Yes, not the norm. Yeah, exactly. I will and we will follow her face journey here.

Dr. Chang (20:21)
Yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see how she reports she's feeling and you know, her eyes look really wide open. She has pretty high brows, but she also has them kind of threaded and arched and and and I don't know, how do you guys color color tinting? Yeah, like there's a lot going on in her pictures in her in her selfies and stuff like that. You know what mean? So it's hard to totally see that.

Jackie (20:39)
Like a tent. Right, and then you always have to assume there's some sort of filter on.

Dr. Chang (20:55)
Right. There's some filtering. It's tighter now because she just had the procedure, right? This is within the last month.

Jackie (21:01)
Yeah, think it's like month, month and a half tops.

Dr. Chang (21:04)
Yeah, it takes time and everything settles a little bit and becomes more natural looking to

Jackie (21:10)
So I feel like there is a moment or a thought that passes through everyone's head after having a procedure or something done. You do look different than what you're used to seeing in the mirror. ⁓ So how would you describe the difference between that fleeting thought and what Jesse from Mormon Wives might be experiencing? Full regret.

Dr. Chang (21:33)
Yeah,

I think that there is the physical part of recovery and then there's the emotional and psychological part of recovery. In some types of surgery, for instance, facial surgery, I think the emotional and psychological aspect is a lot more significant than in body and breast surgery.

Patients that have had like a big facial procedure or lasering or eyelids done and your face is swollen and red or bruised, it's natural to look at yourself during the recovery process and say, my God, what did I do? And you've had a lot of things going on. You've had medications, the adrenaline has left your system and you're kind of have this big sort of endorphin rushes and then lows and you kind of say.

my God, am I gonna be okay, did I make a huge mistake? So regret is a normal part of the process. We often see there's a roller coaster of emotions and sometimes there are days when you may feel like, wow, it looks so good, I'm so happy I did this. And some patients are also just up there. They just upburst and they're like, yes, great, finally we got it done and I'm so happy. And they're all the way. But the common path is a little bit of a roller coaster which has big swings at the beginning and then settles down.

at the end. And I think that particularly for face, often tell my patients the emotional and psychological recovery is something you should be prepared for. Sometimes those feelings will creep in. Call me, let me know how you're feeling. I will pick you up as best I can. And I just want to tell you know, if you expecting it, it won't be scary.

Jackie (23:14)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's huge to like set, set that expectation.

Dr. Chang (23:19)
Right, so that's what we try to do. That's what I think really helps people get through these things. And then in the end, people of course are really happy and have a great experience and they don't even remember those low points. Yeah. But I think that if you go into surgery with a positive attitude and you recover faster, trying to be optimistic, those patients that have a really upbeat personality really

I'll perform the ones that have a negative and an anxious ⁓ outlook. And so we really try to pump patients up. We have a lot of cheerleaders in our practice and in the surgery side of things. And we really try to make sure that ⁓ people have the right psychological preparation as well as physical preparation.

Jackie (24:07)
Yeah, that's huge. All right.

Jessi (24:10)
Okay.

Dr. Chang (24:11)
Well, patients here, we gotta go. But we'll see you next week.

Jackie (24:13)
All right.

Dr. Chang (24:19)
Thanks for listening to Secret Services, the podcast where we see everything and say nothing except right here. I'm Dr. Christopher Chang, double board certified plastic surgeon located in Tysons, Virginia. Follow us on TikTok @congressionalPsurgery or on Instagram @congressionalplasticsurgery. To send us a classified message or to hear more episodes, go to secretservicespodcast.com. Everything we talked about on today's show are available in the show notes. Patient's here. We got to go.