Atlantic Plastic Surgery has been honored as “Best Cosmetic Surgeon” by readers of the Portsmouth Herald this Fall, 2017 Best of the Seacoast contest. Thank you to everyone who voted for us. We will continue to work hard to provide outstanding results, exceptional care, and the latest and best aesthetic treatments.
Dr. Lawrence Gray at Atlantic Plastic Surgery Center presented “Experience with MACS Facelift” at the 9th meeting of the American Brazilian Aesthetic meeting in Park City, Utah, held from February 24th to 27th, 2017. The professional educational conference was attended by 220 plastic surgeons from 22 countries.
A MACS facelift is also known as minimal access facelift or a short scar facelift. Dr. Gray’s presentation included an overview of his experience of 200 cases since 2005 along with the details of his modifications to the procedure which made the MACS facelift a more reliable, safer procedure than conventional techniques which produced longer scars. Dr. Gray’s experience showed that his results were similar to more invasive procedures, but with the quicker recovery and much lower risk of complications.
A short scar facelift includes shorter incisions placed in front of the ears along natural skin lines and creases. Incisions made at the front of the ears can be easily hidden with camouflage make-up and only very minimal incisions are needed. There is no alteration in hairline. The short scar facelift is a quick procedure which allows other surgeries to be done at the same time, such as a blepharoplasty, which is a correction of sagging eyelids.
The benefits of a Short Scar facelift include less bruising and swelling than with other methods of performing a facelift and less risk of nerve injury. Results are long lasting, often a decade or more. The MACS facelift also produces a better result for the neck, correcting the neck in a vertical direction instead of an unnatural lateral pull. Recovery time is shorter and there is less risk of complications. There are no drains and patients are back to normal in one week.
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About Atlantic Plastic Surgery Center:
Atlantic Plastic Surgery Center is the practice of New Hampshire plastic surgeon, Dr. Lawrence Gray, since 1985. Dr. Gray is nationally and internationally recognized as the inventor of the scarless breast reduction, a revolutionary procedure that eliminates scars associated with the older, traditional method of breast reduction. He has a large following of satisfied patients from across New Hampshire, the United States and a number of foreign countries, who have sought him out for breast augmentation and scarless breast reduction. Dr. Gray has taught at educational conferences for the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons and is the only member of the International Society of Plastic Surgeons from New Hampshire.
Today, men of all ages and walks of life are seeking treatment for achieving a more youthful, rejuvenated appearance. According to the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery the number of cosmetic procedures for men has increased 112% since 2000.
The top cosmetic procedures men are having are blepharoplasty (eyelid lift), gynecomastia (correction of male breast size or shape), facial injections and skincare including microdermabrasion.
Treatments that are most requested are those that are subtle in reducing wrinkles and don’t leave you looking like you just had something done. Fillers such as Juvaderm, “fill in” deeper wrinkles around the nose and the corners of the mouth. Fillers are used to reduce wrinkles around the eyes and smooth out furrows between the eyebrows. The overall effect of fillers gives the face a youthful, rested appearance.
A good skincare regime is crucial to achieve and maintain healthy skin. At our Skin Wellness Center, we carry the leading and most effective skincare brands including Obagi and Skin Medica. We have products that target hyperpigmentation (age spots), pore tightening as well as products that will refine and brighten your skin tone. If you can’t see using a skin care regime, Retin A is recommended as the best “over all” product that prevents fine lines, improves skin texture, and addresses those annoying brown spots.
Signs of aging around the eyes bother many men are easily corrected. Puffiness around the eyes, sagging of eyelid skin, bags and bulges around the eyes and deep grooves or wrinkles under the eye can make you look tired and older than you are or want to look. Blepharoplasty corrects sagging and excess skin covering the natural fold of the eyelids and can be done comfortably under local anesthesia. An upper eyelid lift corrects the upper lid while a lower blepharoplasty corrects deep wrinkles or protruding fat under the eyes.
Gynecomastia is a procedure men consider when they have excess volume in breast tissue often referred to as “man boobs”. Some men experience a feeling of embarrassment as it affects posture and the way their clothes fit. Correction can be achieved almost 100% of the time with liposuction alone. The goal is to reduce breast size and bring the body back into proportion. Liposuction is a quick and easy procedure with recovery time for most patients one week, sometimes less.
Our board certified plastic surgeons Dr. Lawrence Gray and Dr. Heidi Harrington work with each person to determine which procedure or combination of procedures will achieve your goals. These procedures can be affordable and virtually pain free.
You work hard on staying healthy and in shape, yet you have that area of fat that you just can?t get rid of. Maybe it?s that small bulge in your abdomen or the sides of your abdomen or perhaps your have always wanted less volume in the buttocks or your thighs. The pockets of fat that you have may actually be quite small, but they bother you. And they bother you enough to do something about it, but not surgery. You just don?t feel ready for the ?S? word yet.
Coolsculpting is proving to be a powerful new tool in plastic surgery?s body contouring arsenal which includes liposuction, abdominoplasty, and various technologies such as radio frequency, low level laser energy or ultrasound. Coolscupting is anout patient method of reducing localized fat is easy, painless and cost effective. And it works.
Coolsculpting freezes fat in a process called cryolipolysis, which uses controlled cooling to kill the targeted fat cells. We have learned from the Harvard scientists who invented it that fat is more sensitive to cold than skin, muscle, nerve or bone. Fat will die when exposed to specific levels of cooling but the skin, bone, muscles and nerve are left unharmed. Within a few weeks, targeted fat is eliminated naturally through the lymphatic system. Treated fat cells are gone permanently because you are born with a specific number of fat cells which do not grow back.
Over a period or 2 to 3 months, 25 to 30% of the fat in the treated area is gone. Further treatments eliminate increasing amounts of fat until you feel fully satisfied with your results, giving you liposuction-like results without the surgery and at a lower price point.
In August, 2013, the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons published results of a formal study, ?Freezing the Fat Away: Study Suggests Cryolipolysis is Safe and Effective? which focused on the trends in fat removal, whether the same safety and efficacy is found in actual practice as in studies in clinical trials and how in-demand coolsculpting has been as a body contouring option.
Among the findings by the Southern California plastic surgeons who conducted this study were that ?cryolipolysis was highly effective at reducing subcutaneous fat volume and was associated with few adverse events: only three cases (out of 528 cases in the study) of mild or moderate pain/neuralgia were noted in the retrospective chart review, all of which rapidly resolved.?
The interest and demand for this procedure has outstripped expectations. The study also showed that the popularity of Coolsculpting grew dramatically over the two years of the study, (over 800%) with a growing demand among men.?Our review showed that cryolipolysis is not only safe and effective for nonsurgical, localized fat removal, but also provides high patient satisfaction levels,? said lead author and plastic surgeon Grant Stevens, MD. ?With careful treatment planning, proper applicator placement, and multiple treatment cycles, cryolipolysis can produce results comparable to those of liposuction.
Eventually everyone?s face shows signs of aging, such as volume loss, wrinkling,and sagging skin. Dr. Heidi Harrington of Atlantic Plastic Surgery Center offers fat grafting for correction of the effects of facial aging and gravitational pull. Fat grafting is highly successful for restoring a youthful contour to the face, which can correct deep facial lines, nasolabial folds, sunken eyes, sagging of the brow and jowling of the jawline. Facial descent or sagging can be often corrected by a facelift, while fat that is lost from the surrounding tissue is replaced by fat grafting or transfer to create a natural and youthful look.
Facial fat transfer is a minimally invasive rejuvenation procedure, which allows Dr. Harrington to reshape and restore the face to a more youthful profile. Fat grafting can be used alone or in combination with other procedures such as a facelift, rhinoplasty or blepharoplasty. Early signs of aging, such as fat migration or shifting, fat descent or fat loss can often be corrected with fat injections, alone.
Using the patient’s own fat for augmentation after facial sagging and hollowing can rejuvenate and elevate the local tissue. The fat is removed from an area of the body such as the love handles or buttocks with a small needle after the area has been numbed. The fat is purified and filtered to retain the highest quality fat for grafting. The fat is then injected into the facial area to be cosmetically improved.
Facial reshaping can be used to correct a thin or gaunt face, a long face, a bottom heavy or jowly face, or a face with flatness of the mid-face, or an asymmetrical facial shape. By using this minimally invasive technique, the patient’s face can be reshaped without the extensive downtime which accompanies more invasive techniques or longer procedures. Facial reshaping can also be used with a rhinoplasty procedure (correction of the nose) and other facial procedures to create better results by shaping the face to blend with the corrected nose.
While this technique has been used for facial rejuvenation, this new development of transferring fat from one part of the body to other areas of the body is also under going advances. For example, there is now fat grafting to the breast for both cosmetic and reconstructive purposes and fat grafting to the buttocks for lifting or volumizing. If you have any questions or would like more information, please call our office to talk with our knowledgeable staff to schedule a consultation with Dr. Heidi Harrington.