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While plastic surgery has become more accepted in everyday life, there are still some people may have regrets about their decisions. It may be because they opted for plastic surgery early on in life and the changes to their body, as they age, have caused the surgical results to change. It could be because of other health issues that have arose since their surgery, or it could just be for overall personal reasons.

Whatever reason a person has for deciding to have their plastic surgery reversed is their own decision and should not be looked down upon. People change, priorities change, and as we age our bodies don’t hold up like they used to.

And while some plastic surgery procedures can be reversed, there are others that are more permanent. These procedures can’t necessarily be reversed, in the traditional sense, but may require additional surgery to try and return to a more natural look.

Reversing a Plastic Surgery Procedure

As we mentioned above, plastic surgery procedures are typically a more permanent solution rather than a temporary fix. Any time you undergo plastic surgery you are altering your body in a way that it wasn’t meant to be, naturally. That’s obviously not a bad thing, but it will make things harder to reverse if you decide you don’t like the results.

Injectables and Non-Surgical

If you’ve undergone non-surgical procedures or had injectables like Botox or dermal fillers, then you typically don’t have to worry about reversal if you don’t like the results.

These procedures are considered temporary, and the results usually begin to fade over time, in most cases, leaving you with your original look.

There can be instances where things were done incorrectly which can lead to trouble healing and possible issues in the future, but as long as you’re going to a credible doctor, these shouldn’t be issues.

Other non-surgical procedures like CoolSculpting, skin tightening, and resurfacing are also considered temporary in that they will not last forever. If you don’t continue to make regular appointments, then your body will slowly go back to how it was.

So if you’re worried about how you look after a non-surgical procedure or injectable procedure, keep in mind that these procedures are almost always temporary and will fade over time.

If you notice that you’re having pain or swelling for an extended period after these procedures, be sure to make an appointment with your doctor to make sure you’re not having a reaction, or something else is going on.

Surgical Procedures – Breast Augmentation, Tummy Tuck, and More

When it comes to more traditional plastic surgery procedures it’s a little more difficult to fully reverse them.

Surgical procedures are typically deemed as permanent as they are restructuring the muscles and tissues of the body to achieve the desired results. A surgeon can’t go back and re-add areas of the body that they may have removed, so depending on what type of procedure you want to have reversed it may not be possible.

There are, however, ways to revise a previous surgery to gain a more natural look or return to as close to the original form factor as possible. These methods do require more plastic surgery and the results may not always return you back to what you remembered pre-surgery.

For example, if you have breast augmentation surgery and enhance your breasts up to a larger size, and then realize years later that bigger isn’t always better, you can opt to have the original implants removed and replaced with a smaller size. However, the tissue and skin around your breasts will have changed over the course of time that you had the implants, so if you choose to have them fully removed, there will need to be additional surgery done in order to reshape the original tissue. This reshaping, especially after an extended period of time, doesn’t always bring your body back to what you knew pre-surgery, but in most cases, it will make you feel better about yourself.

Other plastic surgery procedures, like tummy tucks and liposuction cannot be revised in the same way as breast implants.

With breast implants you’re introducing an outside element to help enhance the breasts. So if you don’t like the outcome, you can always opt to have that element removed from your body.

With a tummy tuck or liposuction, you’re removing skin, fat, and underlying tissue from your body, and restructuring the remaining areas to fit the new look. And since you’ve removed things from your body, you can’t go in and add them back in.

Thankfully, with these types of procedures, most of the time people are very happy with the elements they had removed from their bodies and, unless there was a mistake made during the surgery, there are not many requests to re-add them back in.

Facelifts, eyebrow lifts, and other facial cosmetic surgical procedures are a little less forgiving. Just like the tummy tuck and liposuction, typically patients are having skin and/or fat removed and stretched to make their skin look tighter or their eyes look larger. So, in these cases it’s also very hard to reverse the procedures.

Facial surgery revisions are possible, but it’s extremely important to find a skilled surgeon. Your face is the first thing people see and the more you try to change things, the more obvious it’s going to be.

We’ve all seen the pictures and heard the horror stories about plastic surgeries gone wrong, and sometimes that comes from the people that continuously try to fix something that they deem wrong or unfavorable.

The best thing you can do regarding plastic surgery is to make sure you find a quality surgeon with a great reputation. This will help prevent mistakes from happening and they will be able to advise you on the long-term outcomes of these procedures.

Nobody can know how they might feel about themselves in the distant future but knowing that you are in good hands can make all the difference in the world.

If you have any questions regarding plastic surgery revision, or plastic surgery procedures in general, please setup a consultation with us at Dr. Adams Plastic Surgery and we’d be happy to help.