Facial Plastic Surgery Leading to Clones? Scandal? Divorce? Lawsuits?

Earlier this year, pictures of the 20 finalists for Miss Korea 2013 went viral due to the clone-like appearance of the women. Such clone-like appearance is due to suspected plastic surgery undergone by many if not all of the contestants towards the idealized "Korean plastic face look." Fueling plastic surgery in Korea is the acceptance and popularization of plastic surgery encouraged by celebrity worship culture. Check it out:

Image Taken from MailOnline

Of course, it could be all the makeup and photoshopping that made these contestants all look alike. The reality is a bit more disappointing as shown in pre-makeup pictures published in KoreaBang.

In any case, a scandal of sorts occurred when before and after pictures of Miss Korea 2012 Kim Yu-Mi  surfaced. Note the complete lack of resemblance between her natural looks and her winning appearance (see pics below):

Image Taken From KoreAm

It is perhaps little wonder that with such high prevalence of plastic surgery, that it was only a matter of time before marital strife and even divorce would occur by men who have been "deceived" by a woman's "natural" beauty which was anything but.

Indeed, a Chinese man divorced and sued his wife in 2012 for being ugly... and won [link]. Apparently his wife's appearance became an issue when his daughter was born and resembled nothing like either parent (and allegedly was "incredibly ugly" to boot). After initially thinking his wife cheated on him, the wife admitted spending $100,000 on plastic surgery to become beautiful, and never disclosed this information before marrying him. The lawsuit was based on his belief that he married her under false pretenses of her being beautiful. See pics below.

Image taken from KDVR

I wonder if potential marriages in Asia are now preceded by full disclosure of any plastic surgery done along with the more usual disclosures of educational, family, and financial background.

Sources:

Chinese man sues wife for being ugly, wins $120,000. KDVR 10/26/12

Has plastic surgery made these beauty queens all look the same? Koreans complain about pageant 'clones'.  MailOnline 4/25/13

Miss Korea’s Plastic Surgery Scandal After Photos Surface. KoreAm 7/20/12

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Singer Carnie Phillips Suffered from Bell's Palsy

Image by InSapphoWeTrust from Wikipedia

In March 2013, singer Carnie Phillips (of the Wilson Phillips) revealed that she suffered from a sudden left facial paralysis due to a condition known as Bell's Palsy.

Through a series of tweets, it was apparent that it came fast and started improving within a week.

Thought to be due to a viral infection of the facial nerve, it is commonly treated with prednisone with or without an anti-viral antibiotic (ie, valtrex). For most patients, full recovery occurs, but in some, normal facial movement is never regained.

For more info on facial paralysis, click here.

Source:
Carnie Wilson of Wilson Phillips reveals she has Bell's palsy. LA Times 3/19/13

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Celebrity Actors Who Have Received a Trach (Catherine Zeta Jones Included)

Image Taken From www.TopScarCream.com

Tracheostomy (also known as trach) is when a hole is made in the midline neck directly into a person's windpipe (watch video). Although many people may shy away from this deforming procedure, it can be life-saving.

On that note, here is a short list of famous celebrity actors who have undergone an emergency trach for one reason or another:

Catherine Zeta-Jones
Apparently, when she was a child, she had an emergency trach done. She still has a 1.5 inch scar from this procedure which she elected to not have removed [link].

Gary Coleman
He was hospitalized for 3 months due to complications from thyroid surgery for which he underwent an emergency trach [link].

Watch video of thyroid surgery.

Elizabeth Taylor
In spring of 1961, she developed a case of pneumonia which led to an emergency trach [link].

Christopher Reeve
Of the original Superman fame, he became paralyzed from the neck down after a horse-riding accident. A tracheostomy was required for him to breath due to ventilator dependence. [link]

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Celebrity Chef Grant Achatz With Stage 4 Tongue Cancer

Chicago news recently published a story about their very own celebrity chef Grant Achatz who suffered from Stage 4B squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue.

Grant Achatz, chef and co-owner of Alinea/Next/Aviary, approached multiple physicians throughout the country who essentially told him the oral cancer was terminal. In the end, he underwent treatment at University of Chicago successfully, though he certainly is not out of the woods yet.

There are several approaches in the treatment of tongue cancer, especially one as advanced as Mr. Achatz's, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

In one approach is surgery first to remove all visible disease followed by radiation and chemotherapy to get rid of microscopic tumor cells. Surgery is huge... it entails removal of most of the tongue, involved jawbone, and removal of lymph nodes in the neck (neck dissection). Given how much tissue is removed, reconstruction of the defect is typically performed using bone, skin, and muscle typically taken from the arm (radial forearm free flap). Given how massive the surgery is, a tracheostomy as well as stomach feeding tube is placed. Hospitalization is typically 1-2 weeks long.

An alternative approach is surgery second. Radiation and chemotherapy is done first to shrink the tumor. Once this course is completed, surgery is performed to remove residual disease. The amount of surgery depends on the degree of residual cancer that is left. This course of action is what Mr. Achatz chose to pursue.

Regardless of what step is pursued, there are lots of side effects from cancer treatment including:

• loss/alteration in taste and smell
• dry mouth
• difficulty with swallowing
• stiff neck
• poor teeth (often they get removed prior to cancer treatment)
• leathery skin

Unfortunately, cancer being cancer, risk of recurrence is VERY high especially for stage 4 tongue cancer no matter how well the initial response appears to be. Regularly monitoring over the next 5 years is absolutely essential starting with an exam every 2-3 months for the first two years as that's when the risk of cancer recurrence is highest.

Source:

Celebrated chef gives back. WGN 3/22/12

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Healthcare Blogging a Losing Proposition?

An interesting blog article from the folks at Compete came to my attention recently. Compete for those who don't know is a fantastic analytics site to see how ANY website is doing in terms of popularity (number of visitors in a given time period). The basic data is free. For more in depth information, there's a charge.

For example, for our practice's website, here is the Compete data I pulled which is "relatively" accurate based on my own analytics information:

My nearest local competitor in terms of website popularity is the hospital, Fauquier Health System:

Though I may smile that my solo private practice website is getting nearly 30X the number of visitors as a community hospital, such numbers PALE in comparison to what truly is driving website searches by the lay-population... celebrity, entertainment, and political topics which collectively garner more than 80X the search volume compared to searches related to healthcare. Here is the graph by Compete.

Healthcare is the purple line WAY down at the bottom.

Assuming people ARE searching for healthcare topics, what might those topics be?

They are pregnancy and cancer related by a vast margin (chart taken from here).

What is the take-home message?

Healthcare blogging is truly a niche market... and a small one at that...

BUT, if one wants to become a successful healthcare blogger, it should be slanted towards pregnancy and cancer topics.

"Thyroid" made the top 20 list, but beyond that, ENT healthcare topics are left out in the dust... perhaps  even smaller than dust.

Take a look at the stats for perezhilton.com, a website dedicated to celebrity and entertainment news:

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