COSMETIC TOWN JOURNAL



Plastic Surgery Obsession Almost Kills Model

Posted December 21, 2015

There are often stories in the news about celebrities (as well as everyday people) becoming obsessed with plastic surgery. Sometimes the obsession with beauty and good looks gets out of control for some people. Recently, a Brazilian beauty pageant contest admitted that her quest for beauty almost killed her.

Andressa Urach is 27-years-old and was a contestant in the Miss Bum Bum contest in 2012. Miss Bum Bum is an annual pageant in Brazil where the winner is determined to have the finest buttocks in the country. The event has 27 contestants and the winner receives around $22,000 in endorsements.

Urach placed second in the competition in 2012 but still received modeling contracts thanks to her time in the contest. She also became a reality TV star in Brazil. Since her career was built on her looks, Urach spent a good amount of time in the operating room. Urach has had more than 10 surgical procedures including work on her cheekbones, jaw, breasts (twice) and nose. She has undergone liposuction twice and received numerous lip injection treatments. The fact that the appearance of her body was making a living for Urach and her young son made Urach do her best to keep her body looking perfect at all times.

Andressa became a mom while she was still a teenager and even had the nickname “Beanpole” because of her looks. The surgeries changed her appearance over the years from a young and very thin mother to a woman with large breasts, lips with volume and pout and also the buttocks that she showcased in the pageant. She became so used to having plastic surgery that she compared her frequent trips to the operating room to shopping at the supermarket.

Unfortunately, all of the procedures began to take their toll on Urach. In November of 2014, Urach was taken to the hospital in septic shock.  She had taken large amounts of anabolic steroids in the hope of making her thighs more pleasing to the eye as well as curvaceous. When that didn’t give her the results she desired, Urach injected her thighs with PMMA (a plastic) as well as hydrogel. The injections resulted in her leg tissues rotting and the creation of gaping ulcers. She had to spend weeks in the intensive care unit thanks to these complications. It was discovered that Urach had ten times the normal amount of hydrogel injected into her thighs. Since it was injected into her fat, skin and muscles, the amount of hydrogel proved difficult to remove. Even after she was released from the hospital, Urach had to keep returning to the hospital to have the fluid drained from her legs. The publicity from her medical problems resulted in the license for the use of hydrogel in Brazil to not be renewed.

While Urach went overboard with her plastic surgeries, the country of Brazil is big on plastic surgery in general. In 2013, Brazil passed the United States as the country with the most surgical procedures. According to the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, there were 1.45-million cosmetic surgery procedures in Brazil that year. While Americans had a larger number of breast enhancement procedures, Brazil led the way in buttock augmentations.

One of the big problems with plastic surgery in any country is patients who search for doctors who don’t charge as much money for procedures. They also look for surgeons who are willing to bend the rules or look the other way when it comes to certain procedures that are seen as risky. Recent studies show that Brazil has over 5000 plastic surgeons recognized by the country while there are around 12,000 doctors doing cosmetic procedures on the public even though they lack proper training. This is according to numbers provided by the Federal Council of Medicine.

Unfortunately, there is no simple solution to the problem of patients who go overboard when it comes to plastic surgery. The desire to achieve a certain beauty ideal drives some people to have multiple procedures.  There are also some psychological issues (such as body dysmorphic disorder or BDD) that drive the need to change the way a person looks. The first step before having any kind of plastic surgery procedure is to consult with a board-certified doctor. An experienced doctor can determine if a patient is an ideal candidate (both physically and psychologically) for a plastic surgery procedure either now or in the future.

- MA

Comments

Please login to leave comments here >>
0 Comments
-- No Comment --