Acne scar treatment blog posts and news

RealSelf Teams Up With The American Academy Of Facial Plastic And Recontructive Surgery

Today we're excited to announce an agreement we've made with the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (AAFPRS) to provide our community with access to the 2,700 surgeons who are members of the organization. All AAFPRS members are board certified with a focus on surgery of the face, head and neck. 

As many of our community members know, primarily only board-certified doctors can participate on RealSelf, to ensure the answers you receive to your questions come from only the best.  Today's annoucement solidifies the idea that surgeons who are members of the AAFPRS are some of the best in the business. 

As of today, over 10,000 questions have been asked by the community on topics ranging from how much does a facelift cost to what are my options for teeth whitening.  We believe that asking these questions and getting answers from a variety of physicians will help those considering a cosmetic procedure, or those who have already had one, make better decisions. 

Have a question you want answered?  What are you waiting for - ask away!

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35,000 Years Ago, Beauty Was A Full Figure And Curves

At first it may look like a chicken that got overcooked (that's what we saw), but this ancient figurine of a woman discovered in Germany sheds light on early human perception of beauty and sexuality. 

The finding reported in Nature and described by the Science section of the New York Times indicates that 35,000 calendar years ago, people were inspired by large bosoms and curvy proportions.

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20,000 Doctor Answers, And Counting

Today RealSelf.com received its 20,000th answer from a doctor. Congrats to Dallas plastic surgeon Dr. Rod Rohrich for posting #20,000!

In less than a year's time, the doctors on RealSelf.com composed over 20,000 responses to consumer questions about everything from the best ways to get rid of forehead wrinkles to how to whiten teeth.

While very serious questions are being addressed by these professionals, every so often the community poses a somewhat unusual question. Despite being time starved, the doctors on RealSelf.com stepped up to lend their medical opinion.  Here are 3 examples that capture the diversity of our inquisitive community:

 o What can be done about injections placed in the foot pads, done to give the feeling of walking on pillows?

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Slick Doctor Offices And Medspas Feel Good, But Do They Deliver Quality Care?

The Mayo Clinic is famous for its cancer care as well as the architectural splendor of its 20 story Gonda Building. 

Why spend so much on the building vs. patient care and cancer research?  In the case of the Mayo Clinic, the architect's motive was for "the patients to feel a little better before they see their doctors."

A Harvard study found that indeed design matters to reducing patient stress—with one patient explaining, "It did not seem like a doctor's office when we went to Mayo. There was no tension."  In fact, there is a lot of science that goes into the design of medical offices.

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Latisse May Cause Hair To Grow Anywhere

ABC 13 in Houston, Texas reports that Latisse, while working as expected for eyelash lengthening, caused unwanted hair to grow on the face for one woman who didn't wipe off the excess solution after application.

Other reported Latisse side effects include darkening of eyelid skin and a transformation of the eye color.  Houston ophthalmologist, Dr. Linda Pope, tells ABC that "a hazel-colored eye will turn dark brown, and it's not reversible" should Latisse enter the eye. The medical experts posting on RealSelf.com point out that there is no clinical evidence suggesting Latisse has systemic side effects such as vision damage.

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Orange County Boob Job Bandit Surrenders To Police

A 30-year-old California woman turned herself into Huntington Beach police on Tuesday afternoon on charges of commercial burglary, grand theft, and identity theft after using another woman's name to establish a line of credit at the Pacific Center for Plastic Surgery.

Yvonne Pampellone, known in the area as the "Boob Job Bandit," had a breast implant replacement and liposuction at the Pacific Center totaling $12,000 in September of 2008. Pacific Center staff became suspicious when Pampellone failed to show up for two follow-up appointments.

She was caught by detectives who identified her through the tracking numbers in her old breast implants.

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Doctors Should Invest In Building Trust, Not Advertising

Eric Clemons from Wharton guest writes in TechCrunch that the "Internet shatters all forms of advertising." This has important implications for doctors who continue to spend precious marketing dollars on magazines, yellow pages, and other forms of advertising.

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Priceline For Plastic Surgery Is A Bad Idea

When one of our medical experts mentioned receiving a solicitation to advertise with a startup called PriceDoc.com -- think Priceline for elective medical services-- I was surprised to discover that doctors worked with the PriceDoc team. I wondered how they rectified the daunting ethical implications of their model, which matches consumers with low price providers of medical services.

Coming from the online travel industry and a key competitor to Priceline, I hold great respect for the way Priceline brings value to cost-conscious consumers and revenue optimizing suppliers. They've changed travel in a positive way for all parties. While commoditizing hotel rooms may present marketing challenges to brand managers, it has no implication on a person's long-term health and safety (unless you've stayed at one of these hotels).

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Consumers Value Doctor Answers When Researching Plastic Surgery

Like other small businesses, we rely upon customer feedback to gauge whether we're headed in the right direction with our product, features and content.

I'm heartened that a favorite feature turns out to be where we spend most of our time (that doesn't always happen!).

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Why We Removed 3,000 Doctors From RealSelf.com

3,000 doctors were recently removed from the RealSelf.com Find a Doctor listings and Ask a Doctor feature in order to improve the site consistency and experience for our community members.

Among those removed are doctors featured as "cosmetic surgeons" on popular TV makeover shows. We're proud to point out that our standards are higher than these media outlets. 

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