Beauty Doc Blog

September 18.2008

No matter what your beauty goals - safety should always be the number one priority for you, and your plastic surgeon. This is especially true when you have a medical condition or disease such as diabetes.

When considering plastic surgery a patient must decide if he or she is a good candidate for the procedure. That includes having a healthy lifestyle, getting regular exercise, being a non-smoker, not over weight, emotionally stable, having friends who provide support, able to limit alcohol and caffeine intake and able to accept the disadvantages of cosmetic surgery including inconvenience, cost, discomfort and medial risk. And the candidate must have realistic expectations.

If you are a diabetic then you may not be a good candidate and if you have the procedure the risk changes may be higher. Diabetics tend to have poorer circulation than the rest of the population  and  heal slower. If you are diabetic you’ve noticed during routine exams that the doctors check your feet. The reason for this is the circulatory problems. Outer extremities tend to get less blood flow than they should with many diabetics, one of the reasons for amputations being so common with many seriously ill diabetics. Cosmetic surgery requires a time to heal and a healthy system to undertake that healing. Diabetes complicates things and makes the healing harder and makes it take longer.

Diabetes can cause many complications including hypoglycemia, ketoacidosis and nonketotic hyerosmolar coma. Complications can also include cardiovascular disease, chronic renal failure, retinal damage which can lead to blindness, and microvasculature damage which can cause impotence as well as problems in healing. Diabetes, especially Type 2 or adult onset diabetes is becoming increasingly common in the US, partially due to sedentary lifestyles, lack of exercise and poor eating habits. Loosing weight, getting regular exercise and improving diets can help many to reverse or control diabetes without medication. So many people today have diabetes however, that it is almost considered an epidemic. Reducing intake of sugar and carbohydrates helps many, and others utilize oral medications. Those with more serous and advanced diabetes take insulin daily.

Other factors that can make a person think twice about having cosmetic surgery are hypertension, a bleeding disorder, heart or lung disease, obesity, severe allergies, elevated cholesterol, arthritis and depression.

If you suffer from any of these health problems, if you drink alcohol or if you smoke then you will face a higher risk of complications including infection, skin loss, bleeding and anesthesia problems. Be sure to share your total medical history with your surgeon to determine if cosmetic surgery is right for you.