For those of us who wish to get rid of unwanted wrinkles to make our skin look a little younger there are other alternatives to going under the surgeon’s knife, the alternatives are a relatively pain free way of helping you feel better about yourself and also requires less recovery time than traditional cosmetic surgery. Most of them however do need to be used on a regular basis and a lot of them are expensive with some of the creams costing £170 and of course they need to be used on a regular basis to see results, which can work out very expensive.

Due to many reasons, a woman’s breasts can lose their firmness, elasticity and then they start to sag, the more common reasons why this happens is age, the force of gravity, nursing and pregnancy. The breast lift or mastopexy is cosmetic surgery which can help to raise and lift women’s breasts for a period of time, although nothing can beat the effects gravity have indefinitely.

Sometimes after pregnancy the women’s breasts can lose volume, if this is the case the surgeon might suggest implants along with the mastopexy as a way of increasing size or volume and also firmness.

While many of the procedures listed below are used purely for cosmetic reasons they are also used for a variety of medical reasons too, however, whenever you are thinking about any kind of cosmetic surgery for whatever reasons you should always give it a lot of thought beforehand and not go rushing into anything.

You should always talk it over with the surgeon at the initial consultation and they should make you fully aware of how the surgery could affect you and give you realistic expectations that the procedure could bring.

Dermabrasion and dermaplaning or skin refinishing as it is sometimes called is surgery which is used to refine areas of troublesome skin which gives the skin a smoother appearance. It is a type of surgery which is most often used on people who have suffered facial scarring after accidents or previous surgery and also helps to smooth out very fine facial wrinkles.

It is also sometimes used to remove pre-cancerous growths and is more commonly used in the treatment of deep acne scars. This type of surgery can be done on single areas of the skin or larger areas and used in conjunction with various other forms of cosmetic surgery such as face-lifts and chemical peels.

Cosmetic surgery is very expensive and if you are thinking of having it for purely cosmetic reasons then once you have had one procedure you could then see something else you don’t like and be tempted to go for another surgery. When this happens where do you stop?

However if you are having the surgery due to medical reasons this is another story and while the decision will be a little easier to make you will probably still wonder if you are doing the right thing by having it. Anyone who is thinking of having cosmetic surgery should ask themselves a few questions before taking the drastic step.

Does all cosmetic surgery cost the same?

The prices of cosmetic surgery vary from procedure to procedure and from clinic to clinic which will offers the surgery, what you will pay will depend on several things such as:

• The surgeons fee – charges for the surgeons fee will vary considerable depending upon factors such as their experience and the facility in which they work.
• The hospital of facilities fee – it doesn’t matter if you have your surgery in the surgeons clinic or a hospital you will still have to pay a fee and depending on whether the surgery requires a stay in the facility or hospital there may be an additional fee for that.
• The aesthesia fee – if you have to have a general or local anaesthetic then you will be required to pay the fee for the aesthesia.

Intense pulse light therapy is a non evasive type of surgery that uses a beam of pulsed light to improve the appearance of rosy cheeks, thread veins in the legs, port wine stains, facial veins and facial lines and wrinkles. The procedure is often called photo rejuvenation and usually consists of a series of intense pulse light therapies over a set period of weeks in order to gain the maximum benefit.

Liposuction or lipoplasty is a form of cosmetic surgery which can be performed on the entire body with the aim of removing fat from areas of the body such as the stomach, buttocks, hips, thighs, upper arms, chin, the cheeks and neck. Liposuction has come a long way in its advancement with many techniques now being performed such as the ultrasound assisted, the super wet technique and the tumescent technique. Using these techniques the surgeon can deliver results that are more precise and they also aid in a speedier recovery.

This is one of the latest forms of cosmetic surgery although radio frequencies have been used for over 60 years in surgery; it is a new advancement in cosmetic surgery due to the surgery being able to protect the epidermis while only working on the deep dermis and subdermal layers of skin. Radio frequency surgery differs from laser surgery in that the laser treatment tends to scatter or absorb in the upper layers of skin which make it extremely difficult to work with deeper layers without totally doing harm to the skins surface layer.

Although cosmetic surgery has a very low risk of complications every type of surgery does have risks and complications can arise especially where anaesthesia is involved, in fact most complications are due to general anaesthetic. The most common complications are: