Summertime Plastic Surgery Procedures With Short Downtimes, Big Results!

Summer can be a great time to have cosmetic surgery! With the more relaxed pace of the season, it can be the perfect time to have procedures that have a short recovery time but make a big impact on how you look and feel!

“We’re very busy here in the summer,” says plastic surgeon Dr. Robert Sigal. “The only time we’re busier is around Christmas and the winter holidays! Summertime is a great time to heal. People have time off to have cosmetic surgery procedures or to be support people for those having procedures.”

Says plastic surgeon Dr. Byron Poindexter, “Because summer can be the ideal time for mothers to have cosmetic surgery procedures—time off from work, plus kids away at camp or visiting with grandparents—we do even more Mommy Makeovers than usual. The combination of breast augmentation--with or without breast lift--liposuction, and tummy tuck is a great way to have several procedures that add up to one fantastic result! Recovery time is about two weeks, and my patients tell me the way they look and feel after this post-baby makeover makes them so glad they chose it over time at a spa!”

“I’ve noticed that ‘staycations’—when you take vacation time but stay at home to relax—are very popular,” notes Dr. Sigal. “If you’ve been thinking of having something done, ‘staycation plastic surgery’ could be a great option. For procedures with shorter recovery times, you could take three days off work plus a weekend, and you could go back to work looking even better than if you’d relaxed on a tropical beach for two weeks!”

Cosmetic surgery procedures with relatively short recovery periods include breast augmentation (the single most popular procedure for women in the United States, with over 330,000 procedures performed in 2012), liposuction, the second most popular cosmetic procedure with over 271,000 procedures performed, and even eyelid surgery, the fourth most popular procedure with almost 130,000 procedures performed (tummy tucks came in at number 3 and breast lift at number 5, with almost 149,000 and 128,000 procedures performed, respectively.) Statistics are from The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

“Everyone has busy lives they need to get back to,” says plastic surgeon Dr. George Weston. “There are some fantastic procedures that offer stunning results with a relatively short recovery time! With liposuction, you’ll be pretty swollen for a week, but you’ll start to see the results by the second week. You’ll wear compression garments for two weeks, and be bruised for about the same length of time, but after that you’ll be ready to hit the beach.”

“After liposuction, as well as after breast augmentation, you’ll be up and around and showering the very next day,” adds Dr. Weston. “For example, I had liposuction on a Thursday, and I was back to work in the operating room performing facelift surgery on Monday! And most women, after breast augmentation surgery, take a week off, but they don’t have to spend that time recovering in bed. It’s important to take it easy and to follow our post-operative instructions, of course, but our patients are pleasantly surprised at how good they feel right after breast surgery, and how good they look in a week!”

Adds Dr. Weston, “Face procedures have longer recovery periods. For example, if you have your eyelids done, you won’t be able to fool your friends while you’re recovering! But in about two weeks after lower eyelid surgery a significant portion of the swelling will be resolved, and a week after upper eyelid surgery a significant portion of that swelling will be resolved.”

Says Dr. Poindexter, “We do everything through the summer, with the exception of some laser procedures, since the sun should be avoided immediately after laser treatments. But in the summer, we see lots of teachers and students who have the time off to have liposuction, breast augmentations—we do quite a lot of those—and facial plastic surgery that doesn’t have a lot of downtime like rhinoplasty, chin implants, and direct neck sculpting. The bottom line is that there’s still time to get your beach body and a chiseled face this summer!”

Take the first step to looking and feeling fantastic this summer at the beach, at the pool, on vacation or anywhere you’re enjoying more sun (and applying appropriate sunscreen, of course) and wearing the lighter, more revealing fashions that announce hot weather is here! Call 703-893-6168 for your free cosmetic surgery consultation with our plastic surgeons.