POSTED UNDER Forehead Reduction REVIEWS
I feel lucky that I had a good outcome
ORIGINAL POST
I Feel Lucky That I Had a Good Outcome
I met with a total of 4 plastic surgeons when deciding to go through with having hairline lowering surgery. I ultimately decided on Dr. Kabaker after emailing numerous plastic surgeons on the East Coast and asking who on the West Coast they would recommend -- literally all of them said Dr. Kabaker. That was enough for me.
Overall, I am happy with my results, though years later, I have some degree of permanent loss of feeling in my scalp, which means it will feel itchy but scratching doesn't do anything. This isn't a big deal.
I initially was going to have three procedures done by Dr. Kabaker. At my initial consultation, I expressed interest in a chin implant. He said he would do it and fished out an implant from a box of implants he had. At my pre-op, he casually mentioned that my chin would just out like a witch if I got an implant. He also got visibly irritated with me when I was asking some clarifying questions about another procedure I had booked -- I seemed to be taking up too much of his time, and, he said, he currently had "a patient unconscious on the operating table." That felt weird to me -- why would he have scheduled appointments during the same time a patient was being prepped for surgery? And why wouldn't he just nicely tell me to go ahead and schedule another appointment to chat with him?
I had been 100% sure I wanted all three procedures, but after that experience, I felt uneasy and sick at moving forward with anything other than the hairline lowering. I emailed him to back out of the other two procedures (he never emailed back). But literally every other doctor recommended him, so I moved forward with the hairline lowering.
Dr. Kabaker seemed to take the approach that the best option is always to lower the hairline as low as he possibly can. This is evident in some of the photos on his website. If I had let him lower my hairline as much as he wanted to, it would have looked horrible and made my face totally out of balance. I did a lot of research and, in the end, had him lower it only 1 cm. It looks great and my mid-face and lower-face look balanced as well. If you are considering hairline lowering, do your research and decide for yourself how low you want your hairline. If you think a high forehead looks bad, just look at a hairline that's too low (patient #13972 in his gallery, for example).
Prior to the surgery, I learned that a doctor training under Dr. Kabaker would be stitching me up afterwards. I wish I had pressed on this more to learn exactly WHO would be doing the surgery. To this day, I am not even sure who did my surgery -- if it was Dr. Kabaker or someone who was training under him and only had a few months to a year or two of experience versus Dr. Kabaker's decades. The fact that it was not clearly disclosed to me that someone else would be doing at least a portion of my surgery feels quite alarming, especially since the other doctor was not present for my consultation nor my pre-op.
The operating suite in his Oakland office made me quite uncomfortable. It did not seem clean. There were messy stacks of papers and an old radio that was playing. The nurse was supposed to give me an antibiotic to take prior to surgery, but she didn't. Anesthesia was administered by a nurse rather than an anesthesiologist. During surgery, I felt some pain (cutting, I think) and remember saying, "That hurts." After surgery, when I was in recovery, I asked if I could see Dr. Kabaker -- I wanted to ask how the surgery went. My mother, who was also present, was clearly irritated when he came into the room and basically just said, "What?"
Dr. Kabaker said that most patients typically sleep flat on their back. I tried this. It was excruciating and the only relief I got from pain was sleeping with my head elevated. When I went back the next morning, the nurse poured hydrogen peroxide over the incision and through my hair. I wish I had known what she was doing: it is common knowledge that you NEVER use hydrogen peroxide on wounds now, as it damages healthy tissue and impedes healing. They also instructed me to keep the incision dry -- again, this is an outdated practice. Moist wound healing, in which you use ointment to keep the incision from scabbing over, speeds up healing and confers a more favorable appearance. I had been so anxious and lacked confidence that I would have a good result, that when they took the bandage off and I got to see my forehead for the first time, I started crying with relief. (I've had surgery before, but this was the first time I was legitimately worried that the results would be poor.)
Some plastic surgeons, including Dr. Kabaker, seem to be desensitized and to not understand the impact surgery has on a person -- and how important the decision to have surgery (and what surgery to have!) is to the individual. I think about the surgeries I have had nearly every single day of my life. If I am considering drastically changing my face, I want a doctor who will look at me, understand the gravity of what I am about to have done, and take the time to talk about my actual face. I felt like Dr. Kabaker would have done anything I asked him to, regardless of whether or not it was the best choice in his professional opinion. And he would have lowered my hairline so far that it would have horrifically skewed the proportions of my face had I not spoken up. That is concerning.
Overall, I am lucky. I am lucky that I didn't move forward with the other procedures and risk them turning out badly. I am lucky that I didn't get an infection even though the nurse failed to give me the antibiotic before surgery (and even though the surgical suite did not look sterile to me). I am lucky that I knew how far I wanted my hairline lowered and that I communicated that so that I didn't end up looking like a caveman. I am lucky that I healed well despite the peroxide being poured over my incision. I am lucky that I knew to apply ointment for moist healing. I am lucky that everything turned out ok, even though I don't actually know who did my surgery.
Were I to do it all over again, I'm not sure which surgeon I would choose. I feel that I got very lucky that everything turned out ok in the end -- but luck is NOT something you want to be banking on when going into surgery and, for that reason, I cannot recommend Dr. Kabaker.
Overall, I am happy with my results, though years later, I have some degree of permanent loss of feeling in my scalp, which means it will feel itchy but scratching doesn't do anything. This isn't a big deal.
I initially was going to have three procedures done by Dr. Kabaker. At my initial consultation, I expressed interest in a chin implant. He said he would do it and fished out an implant from a box of implants he had. At my pre-op, he casually mentioned that my chin would just out like a witch if I got an implant. He also got visibly irritated with me when I was asking some clarifying questions about another procedure I had booked -- I seemed to be taking up too much of his time, and, he said, he currently had "a patient unconscious on the operating table." That felt weird to me -- why would he have scheduled appointments during the same time a patient was being prepped for surgery? And why wouldn't he just nicely tell me to go ahead and schedule another appointment to chat with him?
I had been 100% sure I wanted all three procedures, but after that experience, I felt uneasy and sick at moving forward with anything other than the hairline lowering. I emailed him to back out of the other two procedures (he never emailed back). But literally every other doctor recommended him, so I moved forward with the hairline lowering.
Dr. Kabaker seemed to take the approach that the best option is always to lower the hairline as low as he possibly can. This is evident in some of the photos on his website. If I had let him lower my hairline as much as he wanted to, it would have looked horrible and made my face totally out of balance. I did a lot of research and, in the end, had him lower it only 1 cm. It looks great and my mid-face and lower-face look balanced as well. If you are considering hairline lowering, do your research and decide for yourself how low you want your hairline. If you think a high forehead looks bad, just look at a hairline that's too low (patient #13972 in his gallery, for example).
Prior to the surgery, I learned that a doctor training under Dr. Kabaker would be stitching me up afterwards. I wish I had pressed on this more to learn exactly WHO would be doing the surgery. To this day, I am not even sure who did my surgery -- if it was Dr. Kabaker or someone who was training under him and only had a few months to a year or two of experience versus Dr. Kabaker's decades. The fact that it was not clearly disclosed to me that someone else would be doing at least a portion of my surgery feels quite alarming, especially since the other doctor was not present for my consultation nor my pre-op.
The operating suite in his Oakland office made me quite uncomfortable. It did not seem clean. There were messy stacks of papers and an old radio that was playing. The nurse was supposed to give me an antibiotic to take prior to surgery, but she didn't. Anesthesia was administered by a nurse rather than an anesthesiologist. During surgery, I felt some pain (cutting, I think) and remember saying, "That hurts." After surgery, when I was in recovery, I asked if I could see Dr. Kabaker -- I wanted to ask how the surgery went. My mother, who was also present, was clearly irritated when he came into the room and basically just said, "What?"
Dr. Kabaker said that most patients typically sleep flat on their back. I tried this. It was excruciating and the only relief I got from pain was sleeping with my head elevated. When I went back the next morning, the nurse poured hydrogen peroxide over the incision and through my hair. I wish I had known what she was doing: it is common knowledge that you NEVER use hydrogen peroxide on wounds now, as it damages healthy tissue and impedes healing. They also instructed me to keep the incision dry -- again, this is an outdated practice. Moist wound healing, in which you use ointment to keep the incision from scabbing over, speeds up healing and confers a more favorable appearance. I had been so anxious and lacked confidence that I would have a good result, that when they took the bandage off and I got to see my forehead for the first time, I started crying with relief. (I've had surgery before, but this was the first time I was legitimately worried that the results would be poor.)
Some plastic surgeons, including Dr. Kabaker, seem to be desensitized and to not understand the impact surgery has on a person -- and how important the decision to have surgery (and what surgery to have!) is to the individual. I think about the surgeries I have had nearly every single day of my life. If I am considering drastically changing my face, I want a doctor who will look at me, understand the gravity of what I am about to have done, and take the time to talk about my actual face. I felt like Dr. Kabaker would have done anything I asked him to, regardless of whether or not it was the best choice in his professional opinion. And he would have lowered my hairline so far that it would have horrifically skewed the proportions of my face had I not spoken up. That is concerning.
Overall, I am lucky. I am lucky that I didn't move forward with the other procedures and risk them turning out badly. I am lucky that I didn't get an infection even though the nurse failed to give me the antibiotic before surgery (and even though the surgical suite did not look sterile to me). I am lucky that I knew how far I wanted my hairline lowered and that I communicated that so that I didn't end up looking like a caveman. I am lucky that I healed well despite the peroxide being poured over my incision. I am lucky that I knew to apply ointment for moist healing. I am lucky that everything turned out ok, even though I don't actually know who did my surgery.
Were I to do it all over again, I'm not sure which surgeon I would choose. I feel that I got very lucky that everything turned out ok in the end -- but luck is NOT something you want to be banking on when going into surgery and, for that reason, I cannot recommend Dr. Kabaker.
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