Vasily Pinchuk: “From what age can plastic surgery be done”

Material taken from Обозреватель website

Changing an unfortunate flaw in one’s appearance in just a couple of hours seems like a very attractive prospect. Indeed, modern surgery is honing more and more skills and becoming more accessible. But still, not everyone can take advantage of the wonders of an almost instantaneous transformation.

Plastic surgery, like any other, has a list of well-founded medical contraindications. They are absolute and relative. The absolute ones include general diseases of the body that threaten the patient’s life. Relative ones include diabetes mellitus, skin diseases, a slight increase in blood pressure, and so on.

But some procedures also have age restrictions. I am often asked: at what age can I get plastic surgery? My answer is always the following: it all depends on the situation in each particular case and the indications for plastic surgery for an individual patient. First of all, surgeries should be divided into those performed for aesthetic improvement and those performed for medical reasons. In the first case, as a rule, patients resort to improving their appearance in adulthood, that is, upon reaching the age of majority. But there are exceptions. Take, for example, lop-earedness. This problem occurs in about 5% of the world’s population. It is advisable to perform plastic surgery of the ears in preschool, before the child sits down at the desk and possibly becomes the object of ridicule by classmates. In my practice, this is the most common reason for aesthetic plastic surgery before adulthood. However, you can’t do without parental permission, because a person can make a decision about surgical intervention only from the age of 18. It is also important to remember the downside of this procedure: children are not always mentally ready to undergo surgery. Therefore, parents should discuss this issue with their child so that the surgery is not some kind of psychologically imposed procedure that the little person is not yet ready for. And here’s another counterargument: children themselves are calm about flaws at an early age, and they begin to worry about their appearance at puberty, around the age of 12-14.

It’s a different story if plastic surgery is needed for reconstruction purposes. In this case, it can be performed even in early childhood. From my experience, I can say that a popular reason to resort to the services of plastic surgeons in childhood is a drooping upper eyelid. As a rule, this is a bilateral pathology, but it can also be unilateral. With this pathology, the eyes are actually closed, so to see something, the children have to raise their head up and try to see the world around them through a narrow eye slit. Of course, in this situation, the operation is performed in early childhood. Depending on the degree of drooping of the upper eyelids, it can be a year or two. After all, if the problem is not eliminated in time, there is a risk of blindness. The issue can be postponed if the situation is not critical and there is only a partial drooping of the eyelids. In this case, the operation can be performed at the age of 12-16, when it is easier to establish contact with the child and he or she perceives the process more easily.

As for the upper age limit, restrictions exist primarily for breast augmentation. So, after the age of 50-60, I do not advise doing this operation, because the tissues have already lost their elasticity. The second problem is that menopause occurs at this age and various breast diseases can develop against the background of hormonal imbalance. Therefore, it is better not to provoke this process and refrain from surgical intervention.

As for anti-aging operations, the presence of restrictions is determined primarily by the patient’s health status. Someone cannot undergo the same procedure even at the age of 50, and someone can do it at 80. It all depends on blood pressure, tests, and other factors. I want to say that if a person is relatively healthy, there is no age barrier.

Another important point: let’s not forget about the psychological state of a person. There are patients who make unreasonable claims about their appearance. For example, they ask for cat eyes or Mongoloid eyelid surgery. This suggests that such a person has some mental peculiarities. It is necessary to work with such a patient and refer him or her to a psychologist to perform psychological correction instead of plastic surgery. After all, most likely, after the operation, they will remain dissatisfied and will take further steps to change themself. So if I see something like this, I refuse. This is an ethical issue, there are no prohibitions as such.

So I want to summarize with the main advice I give to all my patients: before you decide to have plastic surgery, weigh the pros and cons. Treat this event in your life responsibly, and then the result will only make you happy!