Even men, increasingly driven to keep up appearances in a corporate world getting younger and leaner by the quarter, are joining the beauty pageant in record numbers. This is a crowd whose self-image does not include a turkey neck. When reality hits, they're there with their credit cards and willing to dip into retirement savings to stop the clock. But surgery is surgery. There is pain.
Recovery can be lengthy and uncomfortable.
Calif. The hazards are not trivial. Rudolph, editor of Problems in Aesthetic Surgery, a standard text, says the risk of serious complications for most cosmetic procedures is as high as 2 percent, and some procedures are far more problematic. Some 15 percent of patients who have a tummy tuck develop temporary bowel paralysis after surgery that can lead to serious intestinal complications, according to a report last year in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. The odds, moreover, that wide, thick scars will follow procedures ranging from hair restoration to facelifts and tummy tucks are unknown. Potentially dangerous allergic reactions to hardening solutions are well-known risks of vein removal and collagen injections.