Just a handful of years ago, it was unheard of to get online to check out your plastic surgeon before making an appointment. That detail was reserved for coffee klatches or girls night out and even that was affected by regional influences, says Jeffrey R. Raval, M.D., F.A.C.S., triple board certified American Board in head/neck surgery, otolaryngology and facial plastic surgery.

That’s changing today as patients rely on the internet for volumes of information about every subject of interest to them, says Dr. Raval. Google.com or msn.com searches aren’t uncommon as a prospective patient begins to sort out the volumes of information about plastic surgery and other minimally invasive treatments they’ve heard about but not experienced yet.

“We get many hundreds of visitors to our website daily,” says Dr. Raval, who sees patients Monday through Friday and sometimes on Saturdays. “We know from the reports we get monthly that the inquiries are about specific products and treatments. People are searching for these topics by name, sometimes highly specific product names. They may have read about a treatment in a national magazine and then want to find a doctor locally that performs the treatments they’re interested in.”

The New York Times reported in April that roughly 5,700 plastic surgeons are certified with the American Board of Plastic Surgery and that roughly 113 million Americans have used the internet to get healthcare information, according to the 2006 Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Then again patients are very likely to go to the website to review it after they’ve heard from a friend or co-worker that they have been treated in Dr. Raval’s office. “They hear a personal testimonial, look our office up on the internet and then call to make an appointment. Or sometimes they hear a personal testimonial, call information for our phone number and after they’ve made their first appointment will cruise through the website to learn more about us before actually coming in for treatment,” Dr. Raval adds.

To that end, the design of one’s website is significant. Dr. Raval has chosen to run streaming videos of his frequent appearances on local TV channels during which he demonstrates a specific procedure. “Because I watched a video of Dr. Raval online on his website, it was almost as if I had met him previously when I went into his office for the first time,” reports one patient. Videos, especially, give viewers a better perspective of the doctor’s personality and presentation—qualities that are important to assess when selecting a doctor.

Obviously, one of the most motivating experiences to prompt calls for appointments is a personal endorsement. Says Dr. Raval’s receptionist: “We often hear from first-time callers that they are ‘friends with so-and-so’ or that ‘so-and-so referred them.’”

While many patients are talkative about their procedures and the outcome, some patients keep mum and want others to think they’ve got great DNA or luck. Patients in Miami, Florida or Los Angeles, California have historically been far more likely to open up about their plastic surgery and/or non-invasive treatments like BOTOX or Restylane injections, says Dr. Raval. In fact, it’s not unusual for the conversation between complete strangers to revolve around these topics in those areas of the country. In a curious way, you could almost overlay the regions of the country where patients are more inclined to discuss their physical surgical improvements with a weather map. The warmer the weather and the skimpier the clothing, the more patients are likely to reveal that they’ve been “improved.”

Another factor that impacts openness about the topic of plastic surgery (or any topic, for that matter) is cultural. Folks living in the bread-basket of America are known to be conservative and not likely to make fast friends. And sometimes it’s religious. And, of course, income levels have an especially profound impact on the decision to proceed with cosmetic surgery. Since most cosmetic surgery is elective and most insurance carriers won’t pay out on elective treatments, it means that the patient has to have the money to pay for the treatment. Considering that a syringe of the injectable Perlane is about $800, the limits on the credit cards these patients pull out to fund treatment generally are five-figures or six.

Dr. Raval practices in Cherry Creek North, the upscale neighborhood known for its fine spas and high end retail boutiques. It’s not unusual for a patient to pull up to Dr. Raval’s practice in a $60,000 car, wearing a $2500 suit showing off a glowing tan from an $8,000 vacation the week prior. By the same token, Dr. Raval has patients who prioritize their limited funds, making a choice between one luxury or another in order to have plastic surgery.

The tendency to prefer a lot of smaller, less-invasive treatments that don’t require down-time or at the very least require minimal down-time, is an increasing phenomenon, says Dr. Raval who has observed that the bulk of his patients lead highly active lives—with families and high powered jobs. That kind of thinking is directly in line with Dr. Raval’s preference for recommending and performing more frequent, less invasive treatments that allow the patient to enjoy immediate results and satisfaction while not keeping them from being productive otherwise.

The fact is, says Dr. Raval, that it’s the patients who are currently undergoing a treatment or say a series of treatments as in Sciton Laser microdermabrasion who are more inclined to talk up their treatment—in part because they’re so happy with the immediacy of the results, the return to looking younger that they can witness overnight. In some instances, says Dr. Raval, patients share their experience with friends and co-workers because they themselves are so amazed at how far medical technology has come in the last decade. Plus, they enjoy the compliments which typically include mention of them looking rested or young.  “Upon hearing that they look happy or rejuvenated, they’ll often jump in and offer the information about a simple procedure they’ve just had,” Dr. Raval says of the feedback he regularly hears from patients.

“When I get a new car, I tend to notice all the other cars on the road that are the same make and model as mine,” Dr. Raval admits with a chuckle. “When I have just returned from a vacation in a tropical place, I’m more likely to talk about that trip to people I know versus months later. Let’s face it, one of the favorite subjects most people have is themselves, so they tend to talk about what they’re doing and what they’re up to. If I remodel a room in my house, I’m more inclined to talk about the progress while I’m in the middle of it—good or bad—than I am months later after the remodel is complete and my focus has turned to another subject.”

Reach Dr. Jeffrey Raval at 303-744-2300 or visit his website at www.ravalmd.com.

Google Jennifer Aniston and 18,900,000 results pop up in less than 19 seconds, among them teasing headlines like “Aniston and John Mayer caught kissing again” to a report by Fox News in 2007 that Aniston has had a second nose job by Indian plastic surgeon Raj Kanodia, the second one to correct a first surgery for a deviated septum done a dozen years ago. The surgeon is also reportedly the plastic surgery solution to Jessica Simpson and Cameron Diaz, the article by Catherine Donaldson-Evans on the FX website, owned by News Corp. the parent company to FOX News.

Repeat rhinoplasty or nose jobs aren’t uncommon, reports Dr. Jeffrey Raval of Denver, CO, who is known as “The Nose Guy” for his exceptional surgical capabilities in repeat nose jobs. “The issue with a repeat nose surgery is always the scar tissue,” says Dr. Raval, F.A.C.S. and triple board certified facial plastic surgeon with American Board certifications in head and neck surgery, otolaryngology and plastic surgery.

Patients frequently seek out Dr. Raval for their repeat nose job when they’re not happy with the surgery performed by another plastic surgeon. Sometimes these patients come from states away, says Dr. Raval who is not afraid to tell a potential patient who wants unreasonable surgery that they’re not a good candidate for cosmetic surgery.

“I make a point of taking the time to discuss with the patient their concept of what the surgery will do for them,” says Dr. Raval. “If they’re scheduling surgery to please someone else or expect their lives to become altogether different, new and improved because of a surgical procedure, they will not be pleased with the outcome, even when the surgery is flawless.”

No surgical procedure makes everything about one’s life perfect, Dr. Raval adds.

Take, for instance, Jennifer Aniston. Even though she had a first nose surgery, she still ended up divorced from her husband, Brad Pitt. And although she underwent a subsequent corrective nose job to trim the wideness of her nose, she still suffered heartbreak, falling in and out of love. She was incessantly  pursued by the paparazzi. Reports about Jennifer’s every move, whether it was true or not, were widely circulated, particularly when she was expected to be at the same event as her ex, Brad, and his new wife Angelina Jolie.

Nose jobs are done for many reasons, not the least of which is to simply correct the appearance of the nose. Other reasons for nose surgery include restoring breathing function in the case of a patient whose breathing is limited because the inside of the nose is crooked (called a deviated septum). Many patients have noses that are outsized like their parent or other family member, consistent with their DNA of origin. Surgeries to minimize the size of a nose or to correct a bump on the nose are often performed on teens in their mid-teen years.

“The outcome for a teen patient who has been ridiculed or teased because of the size or shape of their nose is almost always highly positive,” says Dr. Raval. “A good nose job eliminates the object of this ridicule and torment. Now if a teen has a big nose and a repulsive attitude or other offensive behavior, chances are nose surgery won’t do a thing to endear others to him/her or to make the teen feel better about him or herself.”

“That would be a case where I would suggest to a parent that the child be seen by a counselor who could help the teen work through his or her emotional issues to better understand what is causing issues in interaction in the first place,” Dr. Raval says.

In his years in practice, Dr. Raval has had many, many patients who’ve had nose jobs tell him that the surgery has improved their lives.

Sometimes patients combine surgery to correct a deviated septum along with surgery to correct the appearance of the nose. When Dr. Raval is minimizing a nose or removing a bump, his overriding concern is that the nose be consistent with the rest of the patient’s facial characteristics. “In the ‘60s patients who came in wanting a nose job might want theirs to be made into a small pixie nose. But those days thankfully ended when the objective of cosmetic surgery became more focused on making a patient look natural as well as beautiful, absent exaggerated change or an over-surgerized noses,” says Dr. Raval.

The decision to opt for a nose job is one that requires a patient to take appropriate time off rigorous activities to recover. Following rhinoplasty, the nose is packed with dressings that must remain in place for several days. Then for about a week to 10 days, the patient is advised to not sniff their nose or blow their nose. Instead they’re instructed to gently dab at any discharge with a tissue. Once the nose has begun to heal, the mucous plug, that at first functions as a sort of protective cover, will naturally dry up and release from the inside walls of the nostrils. Follow-up visits to the doctor will check to confirm that the healing process is going as is expected and the swelling and tenderness that occurs will minimize as the nose heals completely.

“Just because you like the noses the celebrity twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen breathe out of, doesn’t make that same nose ideal for you,” cautions Dr. Raval. “By the same token, it can be tough on a child to have a nose that attracts attention for all the wrong reasons.”

Dr. Raval can be reached at 303-744-2300 or visit his website at www.ravalmd.com

DENVER, CO—One of the standard features of any physician’s office in the last half of the last century as a waiting room.  Yet waiting at all anymore isn’t what patients expect –even when it comes to the results from their treatment.

A lot of that has to with the rejuvenating cosmetic treatments that doctors like Dr. Jeffrey Raval are able to perform that make an immediate improvement—and require no downtime.

At the office of triple board certified Dr. Raval, some of those immediate treatments include the liquid facelift. Using filler materials, like Juvederm and Restylane plus BOTOX, Perlane and Restylane in different combinations, Dr. Raval is able to concoct a customized and immediate facelift of sorts for patients. Within 45 minutes to one hour, the patient leaves the doctor’s office looking years young. In most cases, Dr. Raval, a facial plastic surgeon who concentrates on the head and neck exclusively, doesn’t even have to numb the patient first, saving even more of the patient’s time. (When anesthesia is used on a patient, the patient is required to come early to the appointment to allow the numbing effect to take hold, that’s true even of topical numbing ointments.)

No two people receive exactly the same amount of filler in the same location in the same quantity. But two rules generally apply: BOTOX is used only in the top half of the face including the forehead, between the eyebrows and around the eyes; while fillers are generally used in the lower half of the face.

“It’s the grape to raisin theory,” explains Dr. Raval of the newly popular liquid facelift. “The face starts out on a young person as full and firm. Over time, the face loses its elasticity and its ability to produce collagen. The skin becomes lax and droops and wrinkles and creases begin to form as the jowl or jaw line drops too.

Instead of going under the knife, more patients are opting for non-invasive procedures like fillers and BOTOX to extend the years before a facelift would be the optimum recommendation that Dr. Raval would make.

In a recent liquid facelift performed in 45 minutes or less in the office, Dr. Raval used one syringe of Restylane around the eyes to and in the cheekbone area to plump up the area under the cheekbones that had become sunken. He used one syringe of Radiesse in the lower face along the jaw line to fill in where gravity had begun to pull downward on the face, making the jaw line uneven and aged looking. And he used 45 units of BOTOX around the eyes, forehead and frown area (10 units to the forehead, 10 around the eyes and 15 in the frown area) to smooth away wrinkles. In some cases, Dr. Raval says, these kind of frown wrinkles especially can leave a person looking angry; just a small amount of BOTOX smoothes away the years and the negative expression.

Immediately after a liquid facelift, the patient can reapply makeup and resume routine activities. “No waiting for results and no downtime make this a treatment that renders immediate gratification,” adds Dr. Raval, who has performed hundreds upon hundreds of liquid facelifts since fillers and BOTOX were approved by the FDA.

Patients are scheduled for a recall visit with the doctor two weeks after a liquid facelift at which time Dr. Raval touches up any areas that require more filler or BOTOX.

Dr. Raval finds that the fillers are optimum over a fat transfer which was the superior treatment only years ago. “Fillers have come such a long way in recent years plus they last longer than natural fat transferred from one area of the body to another. There is very little if any discomfort and the results are so impressive that patients leave their appointment looking refreshed and feeling younger.”

It used to be that surgeons removed the fat from around a woman’s eyes when performing a blepharoplasty (eyelid or under-eye surgery). Doctors reasoned that excess fat had to be eliminated in order to tighten the appearance of the eyes.

New techniques have changed all that, according to Jeffrey R. Raval, MD, FACS, triple-board certified facial plastic surgeon who has performed rejuvenating eye surgeries on hundreds of patients—men and women. Instead of removing the fat, Dr. Raval is doing more fat repositioning procedures, building up the wall of fat in the skin under the eyes and adjusting the fat cells in that area. The result is a more youthful appearance rather than the sunken, hollow-eyed look when the fat under the eye is removed.

“The eyes are the first area of the face to show one’s age,” says Dr. Raval. As people age, muscles weaken, skin stretches and fat accumulates around the eyes causing the appearance of fatigue and stress. More than 230,000 people a year undergo eyelid lifts to regain a younger, firmer looking eye area. The procedure can be performed on either the lower or upper eyelids or both and can be combined with other facial procedures.

Upper eyelid surgery is more likely to involve fat removal, explains Dr. Raval. That’s because the upper eyelid tends to droop as we age, and the accumulation of fat above the eyes needs to be reduced slightly to achieve a more sculpted, youthful shape that enhances the brow and makes the upper eyelid visible again.

One complaint that many women have prior to seeking a blepharoplasty is that they go to the effort of putting on eye make-up that no one can see because their eyelids are too puffy.

Patients with exceptionally droopy upper eyelids can find that their vision is impaired. A blepharoplasty to correct that condition is sometimes covered by medical insurance, as it’s not considered simply a cosmetic surgery.

Contact Dr. Jeffrey Raval for a consultation regarding blepharoplasty surgery or fat repositioning by calling 303-744-2300.

I recently had opportunity to be videotaped in a class and unlike other times I’ve been filmed, the class I enrolled in meant playback after playback of this particular tape. The thing that struck me was my neck and how much it’s thickened and wrinkled in the last few years. I’ve also noticed that I have a section of skin on my neck that’s paler than the lower neck, almost as if all that time I spent in the sun and in sunbeds years ago has caught up with me…it appears I must have had my neck tucked down while tanning! Rather than wear turtleneck shirts for the rest of my life to hide my aging neck, I’d like to know what I can do. I find myself craning my neck or elongating to hide the wrinkling, and that’s really doing nothing but making me look like a hamster. Help!

Dr. Jeffrey R. Raval, triple-board certified plastic surgeon who specializes in head and neck surgery, recommends that people who aren’t yet ready for a full-blown neck lift, which involves general anesthesia and several weeks of downtime, consider first the Sciton laser pulsed light photofacial treatment in companion with the Sciton SkinTyte treatment, a series of three to five laser treatments, depending on the severity of the laxity of one’s neck skin. SkinTyte is non-invasive and takes less than an hour per treatment using only a topical anesthesia to eliminate any discomfort while the SkinTyte laser is passed over the neck area in several repetitions.

An additional treatment of BOTOX injections can be recommended to smooth out the rings or lines that sometimes develop around the neck.

Dr. Raval does perform necklift surgery under general anesthesia, usually as part of a facelift but sometimes this procedure can be performed alone. The repair of the platysma muscles helps redefine the neck. The surgery of the neck is reached through incisions around the ears and through tiny incisions under the chin. When there is a good deal of extra skin, it needs to be removed as part of the lift. This placement of the incisions permits hiding the scars behind the ears. There is some degree of swelling and possibly bruising in most patients but usually very little in the way of pain or discomfort. Swelling is mostly resolved in two to three weeks, but some swelling will persist. Most patients are quite presentable within one to two weeks.

To make an appointment for a consultation with Dr. Jeffrey R. Raval, call 303.744.2300.

My mid-50s girlfriends got together last week for dinner—something we’ve been doing for nearly 30 years every couple of months. It had been half a year since I’d been able to join them and while this is a group of women that’s healthily interested in keeping up their looks, I could see a lot of difference—more wrinkles, deeper frown lines, dull complexions. It caused me to take a good hard look at myself in the mirror the next morning and while there’s plenty more I could elect to do for myself, I’m thoroughly pleased that four years ago I underwent a blepharoplasty in Dr. Raval’s care.

As Dr. Raval pointed out to me then, the eyes are the first place on the face to give up our age as a rule. My eyes had begun to have thicker lids, and when I smiled for family photographs, my eyes then looked more like narrow slits than the eyes I had as a much younger woman.

Besides the blepharoplasty for upper eyelid surgery, Dr. Raval performed an under-eye surgery to re-build the wall of fat under my eye that had in the course of aging drooped, allowing my lower eyelids to show slight bags on most mornings. Five years later, my eyes are the youngest looking part about me when I get up in the morning. I don’t have any of the “cat-eye” look that some of my acquaintances seem to have after their eye surgeries either, and I’m so glad for Dr. Raval’s skill as a surgeon. He explained to me prior to my lower eyelid surgery that the cat-eye look is a matter of technique versus more than anything else. One of my friends had surgery performed by an eye doctor who advised her to forego the under-eyelid surgery because the cat-eye look would be the result. She now says she’s disappointed that she didn’t go ahead with the under-eyelid surgery by Dr. Raval instead.

It’s amazing to me after five years time that the eyes-wide-open look that blepharoplasty can afford me is still as becoming as it was a month after surgery.

This is a procedure I would never regret and will recommend to anyone who asks!
–Mid-50s and seeing clearly.

To make a consultation appointment with Dr. Jeffrey R. Raval, triple-board certified facial plastic surgeon, call 303-744-2300. Dr. Raval has practices in Denver and Lone Tree, Colorado.

Okay, here’s the bad news. Not only does your skin wrinkle and sag as you age, but your nose drops too.

Here’s the good news: there is a solution in the case of a nose that drops significantly adding years to the appearance of one’s face.

Dr. Jeffrey Raval, board certified facial plastic surgeon, has raised the noses of aging patients surgically and in doing so has eliminated years from their appearance. Often this type of surgery is in companion with other facial surgery, i.e. facelift or brow lift, addressing all at the same time.

“The nose ages, dropping as we gain years,” explains Dr. Raval, who is also a board certified facial plastic surgeon. For patients who have a particularly elongated nose, the advancement in years means their nose grows disproportionately long for their faces, aging their appearance unnecessarily.

Known as The Nose Guy, a credit given to him by fellow surgeons who apprise his nose jobs as being exemplary, Dr. Raval is able to turn back the clock in a patient’s appearance by elevating the nose just enough to look more attractive and youthful while retaining its full and necessary function for breathing.

That’s another plus to Dr. Raval’s capabilities: he’s board certified in both ENT and facial plastic surgery so that he understands both the aesthetics and function of the nose inside and out and can perform surgery to address both aspects—both very necessary aspects—of the nose.

“He’s got your eyes,” joyful grandparents coo at the infant they cradle in their arms while seeing in their memory their own son, father to this baby. While an infant may resemble his mother’s or father’s baby pictures at birth, the likelihood of the child manifesting other inherent traits, like a large nose, are likely to show up as the child gets older.

That inherent propensity along with the fact that the first thing that’s noticeable when you see someone’s face is usually their nose when they’re younger and their eyes when they’re older, make nose jobs a real consideration today for young people with outsized noses.

Dr. Jeffrey Raval prefers to postpone nose surgery on a child until they are past puberty and their nose has reached the size it will remain.

But some unique cases call for surgery before that time.

Take for example the case of the young teenage girl who had a natural stage presence and loved to act. In elementary school and junior high, she’d found her niche. But when she got to high school and was as anxious to star in the school play, a thoughtless boy had ridiculed the size of her nose. It was humiliating enough to the girl that she withdrew from acting and increasingly retreated to being a solitary child, keeping to herself.

Her parents were aware of the ridicule their daughter had suffered by her classmate and sought out Dr. Raval to assess their daughter’s candidacy for a nose job. She was a fit for surgery, Dr. Raval determined.

“This was a case that surgery totally changed a life,” says Dr. Raval. “I could see an entire revision of her self-esteem and personality.”

The young lady regained her confidence and reinvested herself in participating in stage plays, regaining her stage presence because of her innate talent, only now without the embarrassment of having a naturally outsized nose. Hollywood will likely chronicle her story years from now.

“It’s this kind of surgery that is so rewarding,” adds Dr. Raval.

Sometimes a first-time nose job does not result in the nose a patient wants.

That’s where Dr. Jeffrey Raval has gained his stature among fellow physicians in Colorado and the entire western region in revision rhinoplasty. He’s even known as The Nose Guy among surgeons.

The revision rhinoplasty is the toughest nose surgery of all to perform, explains Dr. Raval. “There is a lot of scaring after the first nose surgery. You [the surgeon] never know quite what was done in the initial surgery. Oftentimes, the nose needs to be rebuilt because the biggest problem the second surgeon encounters is that too much of the nose—bone and cartilage—was removed the first time.”

One doctor who sought out Dr. Raval for his repeat nose surgery actually shed tears upon completion of the second surgery. Tears of happiness, because the nose job that had gone so wrong at the hands of a different doctor previously, was corrected to exactly the look the he wanted with his revision rhinoplasty by Dr. Raval.

In the years he’s been in practice in Denver, Dr. Raval has seen his patient base for nose jobs extend to cover many states in the western region. Patients have come to him from as far away as Wyoming, Idaho and Nebraska, having heard he’s the go-to surgeon for the most well done first-time and repeat rhinoplasty surgeries.

Maybe you know someone who has had surgery for a deviated septum. Their nose, they tell you, was crooked on the inside.

The thing is everyone has some level of deviation of their septum. Whether that deviation is big enough to warrant surgery versus not, is largely dependant on the functionality of their nose.  If the patient has a difficult time breathing through their nose from a deviated septum then their septum may need to be straightened.

“No one has a perfectly shaped nose,” explains Dr. Raval. “When the shape of the nose creates a functional breathing problem is when the nose may require surgery.”

Many times evidence of a deviated septum on the inside of the nose is reiterated by the poor shape of the outside of the nose—with the patient having suffered an injury or just by the genetics he or she inherited.

Dr. Jeffrey Raval is board certified in ENT (ear, nose and throat) and in facial plastic surgery and reconstructive head/neck surgery. The training he has in both the outward appearance of the nose and the inner functions give him an advantage surgically in understanding the necessary function as well as the beauty of how the nose works and looks.