Can Botox Make You Happier?

Eliminate wrinkles, smooth the skin, and erase the traces that years leave on every face — Botox injections can work miracles in one’s appearance.  That’s why Botox is one of the most popular aesthetic treatments going.  But did you know that there’s another positive benefit of Botox — one that gets relatively little attention?

According to researchers from the University of Cardiff, injectible Botox can have a positive effect on the patient’s overall mood and state of mind.  While the study falls short of calling Botox injectible happiness, it does point out that patients who had had Botox treatment (as compared to other aesthic procedures) reported significantly less depression, anxiety, or other negative emotions than those patients in the control group.

Botulinum Toxin A — the official name for Botox — when used in  injections for frown lines paralyse the forehead muscles. This prevents frowning, one of the most common expressions associated with negativity, depression, and anxiety.  The finding that these people are also happier supports the theory that our expressions feed back and impact on our emotions. By preventing you from frowning, the logic goes, Botox injections prevent the expression of negative emotions, resulting in a happier mood.

At this point, Botox injections are not being considered as a primary treatment for clinical depression or serious psychiatric disorders. However, one’s appearance plays a fundamental role in forming one’s self image: the old truism that when you look good, you feel good appears to have some basis in fact.  It’s important to remember that just as the appearance altering effect of Botox is temporary, so is the mood altering effect.  However, the relatively affordability of Botox treatments — particularly when coupled with other procedures during medical tourism trips to Thailand — makes this a relatively minor concern.

The Top Five Reasons To Consider Weight Loss Surgery

Are you considering Gastric Bypass Surgery? Perhaps you’ve got a Lap Band procedure on your agenda, or extensive liposuction planned. Many times, patients considering these procedures get a lot of ‘flak’ from family and friends who assume these procedures have only aesthetic value.  Weight loss surgery can make you look better, it’s true, but there are some very compelling health reasons on the table as well.

According to doctors at the Baylor Regional Medical Center, the top five reasons to consider weight loss surgery are:

Reason Number One: Reverse Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 Diabetes numbers are reaching epidemic proportions in this country, and weight is a direct contributing factor.  Obesity is the prime contributing factor to this devastating, life altering condition: weight loss surgery can effect the dramatic weight loss required to reverse the disease.  In fact, 82% of patients with Type 2 Diabetes who had weight loss surgery reversed the condition within two years.

Reason Number Two: Increase Fertility

Obesity does not equal infertility; obese women can and do conceive and have healthy babies.  However,  obese women who do have weight reduction surgery do experience significantly enhanced ovulatory function, and have a higher rate of successful pregnancies than their obese counterparts.

Reason Number Three: Improve or Eliminate Hypertension

Weight loss surgery can dramatically and rapidly address hypertension. A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004 stated that hypertension was eliminated in 61.7 percent of weight-loss surgery patients and significantly improved in 78.5 percent of patients.

Reason Number Four: Ease Joint Pain

Joint pain can manifest in knees, hips, ankles, shoulders, elbows, wrists — anywhere where excessive weight puts undue strain on the joints.  Weight loss surgery reduces the amount of strain placed upon those joints, resulting in an enhanced quality of life and reduction or even elimination of pain!

Reason Number Five: Increase Longevity

If you want to live longer, lose weight.  Obesity can shorten your lifespan by up to twenty years.  That’s twenty years you could spend with your children or grandchildren, twenty years exploring the world, twenty  years doing the work you love, twenty years being you!

Flagging US Economy Makes Medical Tourism More Attractive

In a report issued late last  month, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons states that the US recession has led to fewer patients opting to have cosmetic work done.  What the report doesn’t address is the steadily increasing number of patients who opt to have cosmetic and aesthetic procedures done overseas, particularly in medical tourism destinations like Thailand.

Many patients, having found that a wide range of cosmetic and aesthetic procedures are available overseas for a fraction of the price they command in the US, are choosing to make the best use of their money.  Traveling to Thailand allows the patient to have the same — or even more — work done for far less money: a wise economic decision.

The top five surgical procedures done in the US over the past year include breast augmentation, nose re-shaping or rhynoplasty, liposuction, eyelid reshaping, and tummy tucks.   For non-invasive procedures, the five most popular are Botox treatments, hyaluronic acid fillers, chemical peel, laser hair removal, and microdermabrasion.

All of these procedures, both surgical and non-invasive, are available in Thailand and other medical tourism destination locations.  Increasing in popularity here in the US are reconstructive procedures, which are increasingly covered by health insurance.  This provides new opportunities for the patient; remain in the US and have insurance foot the bill for reconstructive procedures, and make the most out of one’s own out-of-pocket spending by traveling to Thailand for cosmetic and aesthetic procedures.  The most popular reconstructive procedures includes tumor removal, laceration repair, scar revision, hand surgery, and breast reduction.  Two of these procedures — scar revision and breast reduction — are readily available in Thailand.