To begin with, I’d like to share my view on gluteal implants.The great majority of plastic surgeons in the United States, do not offer gluteal implants.If you look at most plastic surgeon websites they typically list all the standard procedures.Whether they have a lot of experience or not, they typically offer, tummy tucks, breast lift, arm lift, facelift, eyelid surgery, etc. etc. but very very few include gluteal implants in the procedures they offer. There’s a good reason for this.The procedure has an exceptionally high complication rate, high rate of undesirable outcomes, high revision rate, and high failure rate. The ultimate testament to gluteal implants is that I’ve never seen, heard of, or met a patient who had equal long-term outcome with this procedure.I’ve literally never met seen, or heard of somebody who had implants and was happy with the outcome for years and years. Even if patients get through the initial operation without having disastrous consequences, the long-term satisfaction is dismal.My other issue with this procedure is how limiting it is.The beauty of a BBL is in the ability to sculpted the body.From my perspective in many patients, the Liposuction represents at least half and sometimes more of the final outcome.Of course, there are individuals who have no Gluteal fat and for these people grafting is everything.Still, the reduction of the love handles and waste and creating the perfect ask curve a.k.a. Coke bottle a.k.a. hourglass is not part of the gluteal implant augmentation.Let me mention my recommended way of selecting a provider.Before I start, I’m a little curious of which provider had The 2000 procedures.2000 BBL‘s is a pretty mighty claim.Let’s say somebody does one BBL per day.It’s unlikely plastic surgeons are going to work seven days a week. Most people take two days off.On top of that most plastic surgeons are only in the operating room two or three days a week and spend Two days in office seeing patients.Let’s say the surgeon works five days a week doing one BBL a day.Doing 2000 of these would be doing only BBL‘s every working day for eight years.That means the provider didn’t do any other operations during that time.It is a boastful number.Of course it’s possible to do two procedures in a day, and sometimes even three.That number makes sense for somebody who works in a BBL clinic and has been there for a decade doing only BBL surgery, and nothing else. For the Doctor Who claims to have done so many of these procedures, do they have other operations that they claim to perform on their website?It’s important to do a reality check and you want to be working with doctors who are inherently honest.Did you meet with these providers in person?If not, I suggest you go back to the drawing board and begin the process all over.I’m a big advocate of meeting plastic surgeons in person.I don’t think surgeons can make an accurate assessment regarding somebody’s candidacy and I don’t think patients can fit providers without meeting in person.Defined the right provider. I generally recommend patients make a list of providers in their local area who seem to have extensive experience with the procedure. They’re interested in.Next schedule in person consultations with each of those providers.I do not recommend patients have virtual consultations. I see a lot of misunderstanding, increased dissatisfaction long-term, when patients do not take the time to meet with their surgeons before the procedure. Bring pictures of yourself for each consultation.Take pictures the same way at plastic surgeons take before and after pictures for whatever procedure you are contemplating.Bring those pictures with you to each consultation, preferably in a printed format, and use those pictures as a reference during the consultation.Most people do not have a good accurate memory, or understanding of what their body looks like.Work with pictures.During each in person consultation, ask each provider to open up their portfolio And show you their entire collection of before, and after pictures of previous patients with similar body characteristics to your own.An experience provider should have no difficulty showing you the before and after pictures of at least 50 previous patients.In the case of the provider who claims to have done 2000 BBL‘s, that provider should have no difficulty showing you at least 1000 sets of before and after pictures. Being shown a handful of pre-selected images, representing only the very best results of a providers career may be insufficient to get a clear understanding of what average results look like in the hands of each provider.This is also not going to be likely to be a representative of what your results would look like and it doesn’t give you confirmation of how many procedures they’ve actually performed.Plastic surgeons are like all other people. People are tempted.People will exaggerate.People will be dishonest sometimes.When viewing BBL results, make sure you vet the provider for their Liposuction skill.This is probably more important than the actual BBL result.A BBL is always two procedures done at the same time.One is Liposuction and the other is fat transfer. For the provider who does gluteal implants ask the provider what their revision rate is and what their most common reason for revision surgery is.You should also ask them what their revision policy is.This is true for any plastic surgeon for any procedure. Do not consider scheduling surgery until you’ve completed all the consultations.The biggest mistake patients make is having only one consultation and then scheduling surgery.Doing this more or less eliminates the ability to choose a better provider.There’s no correct number of consultations needed to find the right provider.The more consultations you scheduled the more likely work to find the better provider for your needs. Delivering consistent quality surgical outcomes, for both of these procedures is not nearly as easy as people think.The number of plastic surgeons who mastered either the BBL or gluteal implants is pretty low.Most plastic surgeons think they’re better at Liposuction and fat transfer than they actually are.It goes for that saying that I do not recommend people scheduling surgery if they haven’t had an in person consultation.This is the number one greatest mistake I see patients making.Every time there is an issue in our practice it is universally patients who did not bother coming in to meet with one of the doctors before surgery.I personally insist on having in person consultations.There is a lot to review and equality consultation typically takes 45 minutes.You’ll be reminded of the outcome of these procedures every day for the rest of your life.The time to be critical of plastic surgeons is before you have surgery.Being board-certified in plastic surgery with years of experience, and a number of good reviews does not mean somebody has mastered any one single procedure.in my opinion, having high numbers of reviews is, if anything, probably inversely correlated to surgical skill. The best plastic surgeons, I know do not really engage in self promotion. They’re busy taking care of patients and don’t need to do marketing.Practices, businesses, or doctors who have a lot of reviews are generally encouraging people to write them.Organic reviews typically don’t happen unless people are told or Incentivized to write them.My dentist has been in practice for 30 years.He is one of the best dentist in the area.He has an academic background and has people travel from across the world to do complex dental work.He is universally loved by his patience.He has seven reviews on yelp. He does not ask people to write reviews.Reading negative reviews is probably far more important and far more accurate than the other way around.Plastic surgeons who are famous seem to be inversely correlated to being talented.Personally, considering how much mediocre work is being done and the consequence of these procedures, I would consider having at least five or six in person, consultations before considering selecting a provider and scheduling surgery.I definitely do not believe you can make these decisions using your phone or computers.There is no substitute for meeting providers in person and there’s no substitute for surgeons meeting, their patients and examining them properly in person either.Historically this would’ve been considered inconceivable.Covid changed everything and some things never reverted back the way they should be.You don’t have to look very far on this website to realize the number of people who’ve had unpleasant outcomes from these procedures.Protect yourself, and maximize your chance of having quality outcome.The time to be critical of plastic surgeons is now before you schedule the procedure.Best,Mats Hagstrom, MD
