{"id":13781,"date":"2020-03-06T13:36:04","date_gmt":"2020-03-06T21:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https://www.realself.com\/news\/?p=13781"},"modified":"2023-10-18T11:34:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T18:34:06","slug":"rib-removal-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https://www.realself.com\/news\/rib-removal-surgery","title":{"rendered":"Why Is Rib Removal Surgery so Controversial?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Extreme<\/em> isn’t a word Dr. Barry Eppley<\/a> likes to use. Instead, the board-certified plastic surgeon calls the patients who travel from around the world to Carmel, Indiana, to see him “ultra-motivated.” They want procedures that other doctors refuse to perform—skull augmentation<\/a>, testicle implants<\/a>, shoulder widening—but that are the bread and butter of Dr. Eppley’s practice.<\/p>

Rib removal is one of those taboo body modification surgeries, and it made headlines<\/a> (local and tabloid headlines, at least) four years ago, when Dr. Eppley removed portions of rib pairs 10, 11, and 12 from Pixee Fox, a Swedish woman who has modeled herself into a “living cartoon.” The fact-checking site Snopes<\/a> questioned whether the surgery was real or just a publicity stunt; plenty of outlets have long written off celebrity rib removal rumors as urban legend. But while it’s true that there is no medical literature on the procedure or knowledge of when it was first performed and by whom, “it’s “absolutely not a myth,” assures Dr. Eppley. He estimates he does 15 to 20 of the surgeries a year.<\/p>

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Who is getting their ribs removed?<\/h2>

Based on his own observations, there are three types of people who request rib removal: One, those who have a medical condition, such as rib asymmetry or iliocostalis syndrome, in which the lower ribs cause friction against the iliac crest and irritate the soft tissue; two, those transitioning from male to female and looking to feminize their waistline; and three, women, like Pixee, who want the ultimate hourglass figure. In other words: “cisgender females who are very thin and have already done everything that is conventionally possible, including liposuction<\/a>, diet, exercise, and waist trainers or corsets.” These are the patients Dr. Eppley means when he says “ultra-motivated”—and he aims to give them an “ultra result” through a floating rib removal by taking away the last anatomic barrier to a smaller waist. For most, that barrier is ribs 11 and 12 (also called the floating ribs because they don’t attach to the sternum or breastbone), but he’s gone up to 10. (There’s no benefit of going up to 9, he says, “since the point is for the waistline.”)<\/p>

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