Guide To Male Plastic Surgery

Don’t even try to pretend that you didn’t know plastic surgery was popular for men these days.  It’s way past that, even with the older population.  What people don’t know- and they ask about all the time- is which surgeries men are getting.  Some of them are obvious and have been common for a few decades, but a few might surprise you.  And when I looked at my practice, my stats surprised me because they were pretty different than the rest of the country.

So here you go:

National

Liposuction
Male Breast Reduction (gynecomastia)
Eyelids (upper and/or lower blepharoplasty)
Nose (rhinoplasty)
Tummy Tuck
Neck lift
Facelift
Ears (otoplasty, or fixing prominent ears)
Brow/forehead lift

Weniger Plastic Surgery

Tummy Tuck
Facelift/Necklift
Liposuction
Male Breast Reduction (gynecomastia)
Eyelids (upper and/or lower blepharoplasty)
Brow/forehead lift
Chin implant

I like to think of these surgeries falling into 3 categories.  Some are done to reverse normal aging, some are done to reverse the unfortunate side-effects of significant weight loss, and some are just done at any age to improve appearance/self-confidence.  The first 2 tend to address drooping (from aging or “deflation” after weight loss.  The third category of surgeries usually is chosen by younger people and focuses on shape and proportion changes as opposed to fixing laxity.

Reversing the obvious stigmata of aging is intuitive.  Everything gets looser and droops with age- and we can help that.  Foreheads/brows and upper eyelids both get loose and droop and give a tired/sad and heavy appearance to the face.  Guys get sick of people asking them if they didn’t sleep well.  Lower eyelids age a little bit differently because in that area, laxity it the internal tissues generally leads to bulging of fat or lower lid “bags” and corresponding dark circles.

These also add to the tired, sad, or ill appearance.  In reality, all of these changes around the eyes tend to occur together and are therefore usually fixed at the same time with upper and lower blepharoplasties (eye lifts) and sometimes brow (forehead) lifts.  The neck and lower face also droop.  In addition to jowls obscuring the masculine jawline contour, the accompanying neck laxity usually folds over a shirt and tie and is impossible to hide.

Neck lifts tighten the loose skin in the neck, while facelifts do that as well as rejuvenating the jawline and lower face.

As we continue to consider skin laxity during aging and move down from the face, we realize that tummy skin gets loose in almost everyone.  Some people are unluckier than others and have enough loose skin (even if they are thin and work hard to say in shape) that the skin folds over their pants or their bathing suits.

This is a cruel punishment for all that working out and cardio that it took to have that lean, athletic build.  These gentlemen benefit from a limited tummy tuck in which the loose hanging skin is removed, generally leaving a scar that is covered by a bathing suit.  To round-out our list of common surgeries for male aging, male breast reduction should be mentioned.

Although this procedure is more common in young men with extra fat or breast tissue, there are many older men whose skin laxity is enough to cause the breast skin to actually fold over and the bottom of the breasts and cause the same kind of drooping that women have in their breasts.

You might think that this is just a problem in a bathing suit, but most guys actually complain that it is even visible through T-shirts.

After massive weight loss, skin gets loose just like it does with aging.  When the body deflates as fat shrinks, the overlying skin generally doesn’t spring back to where it started.

That’s why tummy tucks and male breast reductions are popular after weight loss.  Sometimes male tummy tucks in these men should include muscle tightening to get the flattest abs.  As for what type of male breast reduction is best for a certain patient after massive weight loss, it really depends on the patient’s anatomy.

Therefore, the final scar locations vary, but often the final locations are in the crease below the pecs and sometimes around the areola (pigmented skin around the nipple).

Finally, let’s move on to younger guys or males who want to improve contours that are unrelated to age.  The classic surgery here is rhinoplasty (nose job).  Usually people want to do this as soon as the nose develops in the mid- to late-teens.  The same is true with prominent ears that parents didn’t address while they were kids.

After being made fun of, or once they are concerned about their appearance for dating or just for self-esteem, males like to address this early.  Also, chin augmentation with chin implants becomes popular at that time, as guys desire a more masculine, powerful jawline that makes them look stronger, thinner, and more “cut”.   Liposuction is also very popular younger men, but I don’t like to do men under 21 or so usually until I’m sure they aren’t growing, and we can be confident what their fat distribution will be in adulthood.

Breast reduction in most young males can usually be limited to just liposuction to remove too much fat or breast tissue, since the skin is usually elastic enough to recoil back to the correct position without drooping.

So, there it is- my take on male plastic surgery: who gets it and what they’re fixing.  It’s only going to get more popular…