If you are one of the 35 million American who suffers from nasal allergies, you might soon start hearing that a botox injection is one of the better treatment options for allergies.

Turns out a recent study was completed in Korea that compared patients with allergies who were either injected with botox, steroids, or normal saline into their nasal turbinates.

The study found that those injected with botox had both better overall improvement as well as longer lasting improvement than those who received steroid injections when they compared runny nose symptoms, nasal obstruction symptoms, and itching symptoms.

Stay tuned and we’ll let you know more as information becomes available, but this was an interesting preliminary study.

Apparently, for some there is. At least that’s what 20/20 says. According to a recent spot on the show a couple of nights ago, a plastic surgeon in New York is offering unlimited plastic surgery to the ultra-rich for the summer while they recover in the lap of luxury in a fully-stocked Hamptons mansion, and all for the low, low price of half a million dollars. Yes…you read that right…we said unlimited plastic surgery.

Well, what do you get for someone who has everything? It seems you get one of every type of cosmetic procedure available. Does anyone else see any problem with this? For one, with that price tag, we think you should be entitled to cosmetic surgery for life! But, seriously, should cosmetic surgery really be reduced to a buffet? It is perhaps not the best idea to cram as many surgical procedures as possible into a two-month period. When we brush off the fact that these are real medical procedures, we slip into dangerous waters.

Not to mention the fact that most people don’t actually need every cosmetic procedure under the sun. This is not a pick-what-you-want-off-the-shelf type of service. Our whole philosophy of plastic surgery is that the relationship relies completely on an involved discussion so that the surgeon can recommend the procedure most appropriate to achieve your goals in a reliable and safe manner. That way, you should come out feeling like a more pleasing version of yourself…not a completely different person.

Cosmetic surgery may be elective, but it is not like a salad bar or a box of chocolates. The all-you-can-eat offer can leave you with so much more than just an upset stomach.

Sorry we haven’t blogged in a while. We have just finished a tour of Las Vegas and New Mexico including a conference and consultations with patients. What was interesting to us was the similarities we see among patients’ desires and fears related to surgery. We have both practiced in big cities on both coasts but we have never had the pleasure of consulting with patients in the smaller cities of this beautiful desert country.

We talked to people who were generally well-informed and who had a great deal of interest in the latest and greatest in plastic surgery. Like our patients here in LA, they have justifiable doubts about some of the less invasive procedures that make over-the-top claims in the media. Some have had a Lifestyle Lift elsewhere and have been sorely disappointed. Most all spoke of wanting to look natural and of fearing an overdone appearance. All of them were very willing to consider surgical procedures to achieve their goals. Mostly, they were in need of doctors who would tell the truth about what they could expect from today’s surgical anti-aging procedures.

What we did not expect was the level of sun damage that a majority of patients exhibited. We probably shouldn’t have been surprised since many people in these areas spend much of their work and leisure time in the great outdoors. But, most also confessed that they did not use sunscreen at all, let alone effectively. As a result, we saw a lot of premature skin aging and most patients had had early precancerous lesions scraped or burned off. Many of these sun-related changes such as fine wrinkling, brown spots, and thickening can be treated really well with a series of peels, such as the ViPeel or Blue Peel, along with lifting and volume enhancing procedures such as our new Hybrid Lift to treat sagging skin.

But, the most important thing you can do is to protect your skin from the sun in the first place. We’re good about sun protection, yet UV-filtered photos of ourselves still show a fair bit of accumulated sun damage. So, we spent a lot of our time lecturing about sun protection. Avoidance of sun in the mid-day hours, wearing protective layers, and using a SPF 30 or greater sunscreen liberally and often (especially after water exposure) are all sensible things everyone should do, regardless of skin type. If you want to take skin anti-aging to the next level, then use of a good skin care regimen that incorporates antioxidants and bleaching agents can give your skin a healthy glow that you haven’t seen since grade school. Check out our website for more details.