10 Moments You’ll Love From Our First 200 Episodes

Monique Ramsey (00:02):
Okay, everybody, welcome to The La Jolla Cosmetic Podcast. I'm your hostess, Monique Ramsey. And I have here with me today to celebrate our 200th episode, if you can believe it. Hannah Burkhart, she's our assistant producer. Am I right about your title, Hannah?

Hannah (00:18):
Yeah, that's one of the things I am. I do a lot.

Monique Ramsey (00:22):
Yeah, she does. She's awesome. And you've been with us I think, since almost the beginning, right?

Hannah (00:27):
The beginning of the podcast, yeah. I think it was in the twenties or something, the episodes. And now we're at the 200th. So I've been here for a long time and I've seen a lot of growth with the podcast, and it's so exciting to see that it's still going strong since I started in 2022, so yeah.

Monique Ramsey (00:48):
Yeah. So we are going to do 10 hot clips, things that really kind of caught fire and highlight a little bit of, we've got patients, we've got doctors, but we have 10 clips to share with you, sort of our podcast greatest hits so far. And you're really going to want to make sure to stick around for the end because our 10th clip is very special. We will get going with our first clip, and it's going to be with Janelle. And this is a hot topic, right, Hannah?

Hannah (01:23):
Oh yeah.

Monique Ramsey (01:24):
How does financing help with maybe you thought it was going to be one thing and then the doctor's saying, okay, we can do that one thing, but you could also maybe have a little more.

Janelle (01:36):
Yeah, definitely. And we even had one example of this, not body surgery you're kind of describing, but we had this with a woman in her sixties. She called, spoke to one of the coordinators and said she wanted to have her eyes done, had been saving up and came in. And at that point she was ready to do her eyes, but then thought, you know what? I'm going to ask about the full facial rejuvenation because now that I know what the recovery is and what to expect if it's all similar, if I do just a little bit more, then it might make sense to just do everything all at once. And so she did ask about some additional facial procedures, and it all kind of bundled under the same recovery as the eyes, and she knew that it would be a bit more obviously than the $8,000 for the eyes. But when she got her full quote, then she just used a payment plan for that remaining amount, and it worked so perfect because she thought, okay, I've already saved up for the eyes. I maybe wasn't financially ready at this time for those additional procedures, but it makes sense to do them all at once to have the same recovery and not have to go into surgery twice.

Hannah (03:05):
So Monique, what might the audience not know about payment plans that could help them move ahead with their dreams?

Monique Ramsey (03:13):
We have a preferred partner. We use several different lenders, but PatientFi, they are an amazing partner because they will do a soft credit check. So you can easily pre-app apply without any mark on your credit, and they can approve up to $50,000, which people may not know that. You might think, oh, maybe I can have 10,000, but you can be approved, you'll know right away. And then that helps people be able to say, oh, well, I don't have to have the one thing I want now and the other part that I want later. And you just bundle it into a payment every month. And they also have up to 24 months interest free. And that allows patients to say, oh, well, I was going to use part of the money for my savings, but I don't have to use that money because if I can do interest free and just do the payments, that is a really nice alternative for people.

Hannah (04:16):
And it just makes sense when you're someone like the patient that Janelle was talking about, if you need multiple procedures anyway, why go through multiple recoveries and everything like that when you can literally just finance and get it all done at once? It's just amazing.

Monique Ramsey (04:34):
Okay, our next clip is one of our patients, and let's hear from her now. So the 360 lipo, where were the areas that he tailored, let's call it?

Alexis (04:46):
So I've had a underlying really nice kind of curve shape, so I think he really worked to bring that out a lot. So that kind of bring in at the waist and then I flare at the hips, and then just kind all those just little bit of squishy bits in the back that you kind of poke.

Monique Ramsey (05:09):
Squishy bits, I'm going to keep that, Alexis. Squishy bits is good. Yeah, that you can grab and

Alexis (05:15):
Yeah, they're not like the end of the world, but you notice them. And I think a lot of that kind of stuff is stuff that you notice and you're unhappy with and maybe a lot of people wouldn't see it or they're just like, you just look like a person. You just look normal. I don't know what you're unhappy with. And so a lot of it is about things that you see and you want to kind of bring out of yourself.

Hannah (05:36):
Aw.

Monique Ramsey (05:38):
Isn't she so sweet.

Hannah (05:40):
Love the squishy bits.

Monique Ramsey (05:40):
The squishy bits. Well, it's true. You can have squishy bits after having kids or even before having kids, you can have squishy bits. But having a patient be super honest about her, she lost a lot of weight and then had her mommy makeover, and it was just so nice to have somebody who was willing to tell their story about her squishy bits and where were they and how she wanted to feel confident again. And it's really nice to have that episode. And we also have an episode with her mom because her mom had surgery also.

Hannah (06:25):
That one is so emotional because her mom was opening up about how she watched her daughter literally, she just became so much more confident, carried herself totally differently, and they both were kind of tearing up a little bit. So definitely recommend watching the mom and daughter version of this same episode. And I also just want to amplify the fact that Alexis is saying that we don't get surgery for other people. We get it to make ourselves happy that if there's something that bothers me and I see it every time I look in the mirror, okay, then I'm going to change that. It's not because I'm worried what other people think about it. So I love that she mentioned that she kind of snuck that in there because something that a lot of people need to realize.

Monique Ramsey (07:15):
Right. Well, and I think we have thousands and thousands probably. We're 37 years old in two weeks, and we've got probably just that many patients that we've served or at least or more. And to have people who are willing to share their story. So I invite all of you who are listening or watching because it would be wonderful to have you come and tell your story about how La Jolla Cosmetic Surgery Center gave you some confidence back. So if you don't know Dr. Brahme, you should. He's got some pretty strong opinions about facelifts and about male facelifts, and he's the kind of guy who's going to tell it. We can't get the exact number, but he's done over a thousand facelifts and a big percentage of them are on men. And so he's going to talk in this clip a little bit about how men are different. Now, speaking of men and men having facelifts, Dr. Brahme, you have a lot of male patients, and how are men different? How is their anatomy different? What are the things a man needs to look for when they're looking into doing a facial rejuvenation?

Dr. Brahme (08:31):
First of all, men have bigger faces, much bigger faces. I mean, probably 30% bigger than women. And men tend to have more hypertension, they bleed more, they swell more, they bruise more. So the recovery is a little bit longer for a man, but not much. You just basically have to look at the hair growth and see where you put the incisions because men are going to, in some cases, lose some hair, male pattern baldness. And so you don't want to put scars up in the hairline up here because eventually that may be visible. So you have to settle in for a longer operation. Male facelifts usually take four, four and a half hours. But anatomically, we all have the same nerves. We all have the same skin, we all have the same structures. It's just some considerations in men that you really want to be cognizant of and talk to your patients about it. Especially shaving, for example, when you tighten the neck, you may find yourself shaving behind the ear a little bit, so you may want to do laser hair removal just to cure that problem.

Hannah (09:59):
Okay. First of all, Monique, where were you? Because this doesn't look like your usual space, but the lighting is kind of fire, so tell us about it.

Monique Ramsey (10:09):
Thank you. I was in Chicago for the podcast movement conference, and so I had to run up to my hotel room. It was like the Hyatt McCormick Place or something is where the conference was. So I ran up to my room and I'm like, uh oh, how am I going to record this? Because the desk is a different size. And of course, I was trying to make the background look good, and then the lighting was sort of non-existent, and I wished I could have turned it towards the window, so I had to, if we have the picture, we can put it in the show notes.

Hannah (10:40):
Yeah, we do.

Monique Ramsey (10:42):
So I had to stack the trash can and the stack things to put the laptop on and move the lamps around. And so thanks. I didn't know it was going to come out okay. But I'm glad you liked it.

Hannah (10:55):
I love the process of podcast recording where you're just stacking everything you can find, every box or book and trying to get the perfect angle and doing that in that in a hotel room sounds like a lot, but I'm proud of you.

Monique Ramsey (11:08):
It's a little stressful.

Hannah (11:09):
It looked good.

Monique Ramsey (11:10):
Thank you. Thank you. I was learning about being a great podcaster and

Hannah (11:15):
Boom, used it on the spot.

Monique Ramsey (11:17):
Yep, exactly. Exactly.

Hannah (11:19):
And then my other question is how many facelifts has Dr. Brahme done roundabout?

Monique Ramsey (11:27):
Well, so we were talking about this because I think we're going to call him the man of a thousand faces because he's done probably way more than that, but at least a thousand. Yeah, he's the master.

Hannah (11:40):
And he knows how to tweak it for men, and he gets a little passionate about talking about doing it for men, as you can see in that.

Monique Ramsey (11:46):
Yes. But I think one of those things that I've heard through the years that men are more complicated to work on for a whole bunch of reasons. And so that episode really goes into, it's not just about men, but he talks about different kinds of facelifts, and then he also talks about the men. So I think that's a really valuable episode for anybody who's thinking about some facial rejuvenation. He gives a lot of good information there.

Hannah (12:19):
This one is one of my favorite patients who ever came on the podcast. This is patient Kaylee who had a skinny BBL with Dr. Brahme. And this quote from her, I literally teared up listening to her because I had so much empathy for her story. So we had to include this one in here.

Kaylie (12:39):
I never wanted to get married because of my body type. I never wanted a wedding. I'll cry talking about it, but no dresses don't look good on me, that top heavy like that. My legs are insane. They're gorgeous. I love my legs, covered up in every dress I wear with the biggest part of me accented in every dress I wear forever. That's all it's always been. So I never even wanted to get married. I never said yes to being in people's weddings as a bridesmaid, I hate wearing a gown. The thought of wearing a gown gives me extreme, cuz I can't show the best feature on my body, which is my legs. And so I'm in a wedding in October, and it's hard to pick a dress. I'm having a hard time picking my favorite.

Hannah (13:20):
There's so many great ones. It looks so good.

Kaylie (13:23):
It's so cool. It is so cool. Being in a bikini is totally different. Just putting on anything that I want to wear and knowing that it's going to look good. It used to be like I would try on a lot of things every morning to find something that looked okay, and now I try on too many things because everything looks so good. And I'm like, oh, well, I haven't worn that yet. So I feel like I've spent more money on my new closet.

Hannah (13:48):
You can definitely tell she's a hairdresser because her hair is perf and that, oh my gosh,

Monique Ramsey (13:54):
Gorgeous.

Hannah (13:55):
So love that quote. But did you even know that a skinny BBL was a thing before her story?

Monique Ramsey (14:02):
I didn't. I actually didn't. I think of BBL and I think of somebody who's got a way bigger backside than is normal and I didn't realize that it can be just something you're just adding a few curves. And especially for skinny people, sometimes they're worried that they don't have enough fat to actually move from one place to the other because right, you got to find the fat first and then move it to where you want it. So Dr. Swistun is really the expert on the skinny BBL, and he can find the fat in any little place you have it hiding and help you get that curve instead of being flat. And yeah, Kaylee's story, oh my gosh, she's a fun guest. I really recommend anybody watching the whole episode. She's super upfront about the whole process, and she documented it on TikTok at the Skinny BBL and on Instagram, and so she was on camera when she got home that day. It's wild.

Hannah (15:09):
Yeah, a lot of people aren't open about their experiences like that. So she definitely got a lot of attention on social media about that because she was helping so many people who are interested in doing what she did. And then who does it at LJC? I know Dr. Swistun does it, but Dr. Brahme did Kaylee's. Right?

Monique Ramsey (15:28):
Exactly. So Dr. Swistun does a lot of 360 lipo and skinny BBL's, and we had one of his patients, I think on the podcast also.

Hannah (15:37):
We've had a lot of his 360 lipo patients. I feel like at least two.

Monique Ramsey (15:43):
I'm thinking of the girl in the hot pink dress that she just looks amazing,

Hannah (15:47):
Gabriela. Yes.

Monique Ramsey (15:48):
Yeah, you have such a good memory. And Kaylee with Dr. Brahme. Absolutely. I mean, she just got sculpted beautifully and she owns a salon, a keratin salon, and I go see her. So this is why my hair's shiny and not weird looking because of Kaylee. Kaylee's my hair expert in keratin, and she is in one of our commercials too, on tv. So sometimes you might see her on tv. But it was really cool to have her tell the story of her experience, why she did it. And I think everybody can relate to that. It used to be that facelifts were something you did when you got to be of a certain age, and that's just not true. So here's Dr. Smoot to talk about facelifts.

Dr. Smoot (16:40):
The history of a short scar or a mini facelift goes back probably 20 years ago. It's called the max lift, but it is a way to do a mini facelift. You want to call it that. I hate to call it a facelift. It's more of a refresher. It's not meant to do what a face and neck lift would do, and it's for the gal who basically says, alright, I want to look a little better, but I don't want to go with expense and cost and major surgery of a full face and neck lift, particularly if they don't need anything done in their neck. But again, there's many names out there. I've heard 'em called everything from a mini lift, to a short scar facelift. That's the more common term for it to, I think La Jolla lift, lifestyle lift or all sorts of different fancy names.

Hannah (17:25):
This is for people, the mini facelift is for people who had, they're usually in their thirties or forties. These people are pretty young having these, can you tell the audience, have you had a facelift? And how old were you when you did?

Monique Ramsey (17:41):
Okay, yes, I'll spill the beans. I'll spill the beans for you, Hannah. No, I've talked about it before, but yes, I did. I had a facelift 20 years ago, so I was 37. I'm 57 now. And so that was really young, and now you see that all the time, not all the time, but you see it a lot where people in their late thirties, early forties are doing mini lifts. They're doing their eyes, they're doing a little temporal tuck. There's all kinds of things they might be doing. For me, I just had the whole shebang. I had

Hannah (18:19):
Why not?

Monique Ramsey (18:19):
Had a facelift, well, easy access to the master, right? I had Dr. Olesen had some free time the next day, and so it was my turn. And so we did facelift, neck lift, brow lift, and my lower eyes because the brow lift sort of took care of any extra skin, but 20 years ago, so now I've kind of been able to get by with Botox and some fillers here or there, some threads to just perk things up.

(18:53):
I had some Sculptra, so things that then sometimes people do it the reverse. They would start with those things and then have the face lift later. But just in my case, I was lucky that I work here. And then Dr. Olesen had some time. So yeah, that's why I did mine. And I like it because it's not so extreme because it's almost like you don't need it as much. If you're 65 and having your facelift, it's going to be a big difference between your before and your after, and that's great and no problem. But if you're younger, it's like, oh, you're barely aging. People just go, why are you not getting any older? And that's sort of doing it earlier. So I think that's become a big trend. And you've seen it a lot online.

Hannah (19:39):
For sure. And recovery might be a little bit easier when you're younger and you might heal a little bit faster when you're younger.

Monique Ramsey (19:46):
And in theory, your skin isn't as damaged too. I'm one of those people who loves to be in the sun, and over time, that takes a toll as well, and how much collagen you have left or not. So it's a really good episode.

Hannah (20:04):
Are you going to get a facelift again someday? Because currently looking at you right now, I don't think you need one anytime soon, but were you planning on it eventually?

Monique Ramsey (20:15):
Well, this is all the really good lighting and the camera, honestly, because I have some stuff under here. My neck is a little loose. I've lost some weight, and so then maybe some Renuvion or something. I don't know. I could do a mini, almost like a skin only little mini refresher, and my upper eyelids probably could use it. Yeah, so maybe some tweaks, but certainly I wouldn't need to do the whole thing again.

Hannah (20:48):
This next one, Monique, of course it's popular for a reason, but I mostly picked it because it popped off on YouTube. So let's just hear what Dr. Swistun had to say about breast implant removal.

Dr. Swistun (21:00):
Typically though, what happens after implants is that volume gets splayed out over a larger surface area, which is to say when a patient has an implant in or gained a little bit more weight, then the breast footprint grows in response to that. So then with the implant, the breast footprint is lower and maybe wider. So whatever tissue they do have is spread over a larger surface area and therefore less projected centrally. So what we end up doing once we remove the implant, obviously the lift is sort of the best way to gather up all that tissue into a smaller footprint, but therefore more projection. And then the part of that we talk about when we talk about auto augmentation is that we really want to optimize that opportunity and not waste any breast tissue that we possibly can. So classic lift techniques actually don't necessarily carefully consider how much breast tissue we can sort of salvage, so to speak, from different parts of the breast and order to bring it together. What an auto augmentation techniques do is they really look for anything that can be used and rearranged into an overall nice shape and preserved in order to give us as much volume as possible.

Hannah (22:11):
But this is actually a super recent, I feel like this was super recent, but time flies.

Dr. Swistun (22:15):
It was just a few months ago.

Hannah (22:17):
So Dr. Swistun specializes in auto augmentation, which is using as much whatever tissue he has to keep the breast looking as beautiful as possible after breast implant removal. So I see why it popped off on YouTube. A lot of people are removing their implants now, and they just wanted to know. They probably just wanted know what happens after. So does Dr. Swistun do a lot of removals? Isn't he known for that? He definitely is on YouTube, clearly.

Monique Ramsey (22:46):
Yeah, he is. In fact, there's a lot of breast implant groups, like women who want their implants out and who have different, there's private Facebook groups, and he's kind of really well known all around in all these spaces for removing breast implants. He's done thousands of them. I don't know how many, many. And part of that is right when people started talking about explanation, not all the doctors were like, why do you need that surgery? Why would I take them out if nothing's wrong with you? And Dr. Swistun firmly believes that if you want them out, you can have them out and whatever you're feeling is valid. And if you're not feeling well and you think that might be one of the reasons why not take them out. And so he's very early on of where women were in some places were just not getting with their surgeon, where they weren't feeling heard, they weren't feeling validated.

(23:50):
So he's done so many because he was so early on in that process of listening to women. And he does such a beautiful job too, because it is an art. Obviously, if you have breast implants, you were probably small to start with, you're going to take them out, then what are you left with? And this episode really talks about how you can have some volume without having to put in another implant. Obviously, you're getting them out for a reason, you're not going to put more in. So how to get that breast fullness that you're looking for either through fat or through this auto augmentation where you're using the existing breast tissue to create fullness.

Hannah (24:33):
Monique, Kris Jenner had a facelift recently. It was like a month ago or something, and it was kind of going crazy on Daily Mail, Instagram, TikTok, it was everywhere. Everyone was talking about Kris Jenner's facelift. And honestly, some people are claiming it's like AI or something because it looks too good to be real. So have you seen it or?

Monique Ramsey (24:59):
I haven't. I have to say I have not seen it. I've heard people say she had a facelift but I have not seen it.

Hannah (25:06):
You haven't went and Googled for yourself?

Monique Ramsey (25:07):
No, I haven't had time. I know I should make time. Right?

Hannah (25:12):
Take time to look into celebrity's business. Come on.

Monique Ramsey (25:15):
I have kittens. They keep me so entertained that I don't have time to learn about what Kris Jenner is doing.

Hannah (25:26):
There are more fulfilling things.

Monique Ramsey (25:26):
It's true.

Hannah (25:26):
Okay, I'll pull up the receipt.

Monique Ramsey (25:27):
Do you have it?

Hannah (25:27):
Yeah.

Monique Ramsey (25:29):
Alright. Alright. Right. Oh my, no way. Are you serious?

Hannah (25:38):
It's real.

Monique Ramsey (25:38):
She looks like her daughter. She looks like she's 28.

Hannah (25:38):
She looks like she looks like Kim.

Monique Ramsey (25:41):
She does look like Kim. Oh my gosh, that's crazy. The plastic surgeon responsible has been revealed. Who was it? I wonder. And what did she do? What do we know?

Hannah (25:55):
Wasn't this a guy in New York or something that did it? Some surgeon.

Monique Ramsey (25:59):
Oh, park Avenue.

Hannah (26:01):
Okay.

Monique Ramsey (26:03):
Well, she looks really good.

Hannah (26:06):
Not sure what that outfit is there, but

Monique Ramsey (26:09):
Yeah, I don't know either. But wow, she looks so good. Now I need to know about it because that's super interesting. Oh wow. It does look like AI. It's like somebody created this photo. You're right, it does look like AI. But I mean, she looked really good before, I think, I don't know how old she might like my age around.

Hannah (26:31):
Yeah, because she's probably had at least one other facelift before, so she aged a little slower than most people her age.

Monique Ramsey (26:38):
And all the Botox, fabulous skincare money can buy and facials and lasers and Wow. Beautiful. Beautiful. Okay, so our next clip is about life after facelift and what to expect. And I'm sure that Kris Jenner's enjoying it. She's loving it. I dunno if her daughters are going to be too happy about it. They're going to look older than she does.

Hannah (27:04):
Literally.

Monique Ramsey (27:05):
But seriously. Okay. And so Dr. Diana Breister in our practice, she does a lot of facelifts and so she's going to talk a little bit about what to expect after your facelift. And so do you find that people now are sort of coming in younger and wanting

Dr. Breister (27:21):
Absolutely.

Monique Ramsey (27:22):
Yeah.

Dr. Breister (27:22):
Times have really changed in that obviously. I mean, our society, we want to feel good about ourselves. So there's a lot of tools. The Botox, the fillers, the lasers we're inundated with creams, collagens, just go on TikTok, that's all you hear is the cream and the collagen. So very self-aware. So that ultimately brings more women into our office just saying, Hey, is it time? What do you think? I'm thinking about this or I don't, the filler's not really doing it what I want. Or they want to know is it a good time? And that absolutely can be a good time, even at 47 or 45, it just depends on the woman, her laxity, her skin, and what her goals are. So you definitely see it. And I think it's a thing to do earlier than later because like you said, you have many years to now enjoy it. Why wait another five or six years? It doesn't make sense.

Monique Ramsey (28:27):
There's no magic. Doesn't make sense. There's no magic age.

Dr. Breister (28:31):
The other thing is that it can even be kind of redone and tweaked in 10 years or five years, and that's not a big deal either. So I'm very supportive of women who actually need it. I am very honest with my patients about if I think they should wait a year or two or you're not quite there. I mean, I don't want to do any unnecessary surgery obviously. So I'm very frank about that. But many women can use that rejuvenation earlier than they may have planned.

Monique Ramsey (29:05):
Well, there it is. Talking again about the trend of the younger facelift.

Hannah (29:10):
I didn't realize I picked two clips about that, but it's, that's very trendy right now. Everyone's tired, they don't want to wait until they're older and then not even get to enjoy more years with a face that and neck that they're very confident with. So I'm glad Dr. Breister talked about that too. And can I just say how amazing her glasses are? I'm loving those big chunky black glasses. So cute.

Monique Ramsey (29:34):
They're so cool. She's a cool lady. Lemme tell you,

Hannah (29:38):
Fashionista. Okay,

Monique Ramsey (29:40):
She is, she is. She's tall and thin and it looks fabulous in all her clothes. And then her nurse, Nancy's tall, they're like this Amazon tall lady duo. They're so cute. Cute.

Hannah (29:52):
Who wouldn't trust her with a facelift when she looks that good herself?

Monique Ramsey (29:57):
I'm not allowed to say who, but I have people who have used her and are very happy, I can say from almost not firsthand experience, I haven't gotten to do that yet. But with her, she's very real. I think that's, people appreciate her candor. She's just really real. And she gets it. She's a mom. I think she's around my age and she looks great. I don't know if she's done anything, but she looks great and her patients are so happy. So happy. And that's really, at the end of the day, what you want to see is not just that you felt taken care of and you bonded with your doctor, but obviously that you love your results.

Hannah (30:47):
Dr. Breister is not the only incredible female plastic surgeon at LJC. So there are two here. And the other one would be Dr. Riedler, who is also known for facelifts and rhinoplasty. So here she is.

Monique Ramsey (31:02):
What would you say maybe what percentage of the time when you're doing facial rejuvenation, are you doing the fat grafting by itself or is it normally in conjunction with something else?

Dr. Riedler (31:14):
I'm normally, I'm, yeah, most often I'm doing it in conjunction with something else, whether it's a full face and neck lift and upper eyelid and brow surgery, or often, even if it's just lower eyelid surgery to get rid of the bags under your eyes, but then you still have hollows. So then we'll transfer a little bit of fat. And that has the added benefit again, of improving the skin quality. We all know that the lower eyelid skin gets crepey and not so nice as we age. So I would say maybe 90% of the time I am doing it in conjunction with other facial rejuvenation procedures. And that's nice because then it always costs less when you're doing more than one procedure. Right.

Hannah (32:04):
Okay. For one Love Dr. Riedler, but this is one of our older episodes from before even the hundredth episode. So can we talk about how much our video has improved since then?

Monique Ramsey (32:16):
I know, I was just thinking the same thing. Holy cow. Yeah, see when it happened, slowly over time, you don't notice. But yeah, we finally, as I know at the very beginning, we didn't have any video and then we saw how many people were watching.

Hannah (32:29):
This is one of the first episodes where we did.

Monique Ramsey (32:32):
Was it?

Hannah (32:32):
Yeah. Yeah. We've grown a lot since then.

Monique Ramsey (32:34):
Yeah, we have. And I've shrunk since then, so Wow. Like, oh gosh. Yeah. But that's okay. That's what GLP-1s are for.

Hannah (32:46):
Love that.

Monique Ramsey (32:47):
Yeah. Well, I think I bet you a million dollars, Kris Jenner, now, see, I don't know. I haven't read the article.

Hannah (32:54):
She probably had fat.

Monique Ramsey (32:55):
She must have had fat transfer that makes you so glowy. It's amazing. It's not just the structural part with a facelift and the muscles and all. It's that glow. And I think that comes from the fat transfer. That's what I've noticed is it takes it from great to fantastic.

Hannah (33:19):
And a lot of plastic surgeons have been kind of deconstructing her facelift results on Instagram reels and stuff. And they are in fact saying she probably had fat transfer along with a deep plane facelift.

Monique Ramsey (33:31):
Well, it's nice that doctors are more confident working with fat and experimenting because fillers are fine. Fillers are great, but they're not you. It's something that's artificial. Some people don't want to have something artificial put in them and it's going to stick around too. And the long-term side effects of your own fat, there aren't any, but the long-term side effects of something that's artificially made could down the road be an issue. So I think for a lot of reasons, but mostly just that natural, beautiful heart shaped face where it's fuller on top and narrower down low.

Hannah (34:12):
The big cheeks, but not too big, but the nice full cheeks. So we've talked about the face a few times here. What if your neck is the thing you want to treat? Because right now with, like you said, the GLP-1s, everybody's losing a lot of weight and the neck is kind of first place where all that is showing. We haven't heard from Dr. Salazar on this 200th episode compilation just yet, which is crazy because he's probably the doctor that is featured on the podcast the most often. But he's got a unique technique for treating that loose skin. He likes to call it the Turkey gobbler in the neck area. So let's hear him talk about that.

Dr. Salazar (34:52):
So T-Z Plasty is, as we were saying, a very powerful surgery to correct the excess skin of the neck. So the bottom of the chin and the upper mid part of the neck, if patients call it Turkey gobbler to correct the Turkey gobbler deformity. So basically it's the tissue that goes from your chin to around the area of the adam's apple and patient have excess skin in that area, and they want to improve that without the need for a neck and a facelift, meaning pulling from far away from where the area of the issue is, you can address it with a T-Z Plasty directly. So you just wedge out that tissue and then you perform, let me say it this way, a fancy closure in order for you to have the best scar possible. Why? Because patients will have a scar right here. The scar is placed right underneath the chin and then goes down from the chin area to the area of the Adam's apple. But we have been very successful performing this surgery. Patients are very, very happy. And the scar, even though it's present, tends not to be a big issue.

Monique Ramsey (36:10):
This was a really good episode because people are looking for this surgery, and especially I would say men predominantly, but also women where they are thin and it's that extra skin that you can just grab. And Dr. Salazar has a specialty that he's known far and wide about, because people have come in to see him for this surgery, and it just beautifully takes away that extra skin and pulls it tight. And one of his patients that I saw, a female patient got a beautiful along her jawline even improved, even though that's not where her surgery was. It's like she got a little jawline contouring just because that pulling of that extra tissue take out the extra tissue and close it. And that pulling is so tight that it just made her jowl area even nice as well, which was sort of a nice side benefit. But yeah, it's a good procedure. It's not a lot of doctors do it. And he talks about why that is on the episode. Now, this clip celebrated our 100th episode, and it's very special because it's Dr. Merrell Olesen and Marie Olesen, and Dr. Olesen was our founder. And so let's hear from him. So what were some of the challenges, Dr. Olesen, from your perspective, and then we'll get Marie's perspective, just challenges in those early years?

Dr. Merrel Olesen (37:51):
Well, I would say the biggest challenge was figuring out how to run our office properly. Even though I had been in plastic surgery at a large clinic, and part of the reasons that I wanted to leave had to do with how we dealt with patients. Once we had the patients in our own facility, it took us a while to figure out the best way to treat them the way that we wanted to treat them. Do you agree with that, Marie?

Marie Olesen (38:32):
Yes. Yes. And I decorated this historic building to look like I told the designer, a 1930s hotel, just a timeless. But we started advertising, which is another huge story. And somebody came in and looked at this gorgeous place and said, I'm not paying for this. And I thought, oh my gosh, we don't even know who our patient is. And so we began surveying immediately in 1988, and we have been surveying the patients now for almost 35 years and using their feedback to tell us what they like and what they don't like, and then we try to fix what they don't like.

Monique Ramsey (39:28):
Okay. So what do we think about that, Hannah?

Hannah (39:32):
It's definitely a super special one, seeing as what these two stood for when starting LJC. The podcast follows through with that because they believe in patient education through and through. And that's what we're doing with this podcast. We're amplifying that and continuing that, I guess, tradition that LJC has followed since the start. What is so, please explain to everyone why this one is specifically so special to us.

Monique Ramsey (40:04):
This one is so special because Dr. Olesen, we didn't know it when we were recording this, but about three weeks later, he passed away. So to be able to have the founder of La Jolla Cosmetic Surgery Center on film on video in the podcast with Marie and what they've built, and right at the end of his life, we didn't know it. Again, it was just so poignant right after we were like, we're so lucky that we have this video. And it was so special to be able to show the family what his vision, and he was talking about his vision, and it meant a lot to his family, his brother and sister-in-law and his kids. So that was a really, really special thing. And I'm going to add one more thing that when you're bringing up what their vision was. So this Thursday we're going, we are a finalist in the Better Business Bureau Trust Torch Awards. Torch Awards for Ethics in Business, I think is what they call it. And so seeing this today, getting ready for that interview, and it's just really special to see this legacy carrying on and that we are recognized as a finalist, at least, I don't know if we're going to win, but as a finalist with a Torch Award for Business Ethics. And that was something, and it still is something that's so important to Dr. Olesen, to Marie, and to our team and our surgeons here. It definitely is a perfect topic to talk about.

Hannah (41:46):
Can you believe this was recorded at a hundred episodes and now we're at the 200th episode?

Monique Ramsey (41:53):
I know. I don't know how we keep doing it, but it's fun. It's so fun, and I think people really get a lot of value out of it. And so we see a lot of comments on our YouTube channel from patients all over the country who aren't necessarily having surgery with us, but they're finding this information so helpful and educational. And again, it goes right back to the foundation of patient education that we do our little surgical booklets for our patients and try to keep them informed every step of the way. So anyway, it was really nice. It's nice to see those comments online. It's nice to know we're making a difference for our patients and for other people's patients too. So thanks everybody for listening to our 200th episode and subscribe, tell your friends, leave us a review and reach out to us if you want to be on The La Jolla Cosmetic Podcast. We would absolutely love to have you, right Hannah?

Hannah (42:50):
Yes. We love hearing your stories.

Monique Ramsey (42:53):
Yeah, do.

Hannah (42:53):
And we love letting other people hear your stories because it might help them.

Monique Ramsey (42:57):
Exactly. Exactly. So reach out to us anyway, carrier pigeon. But certainly you can go to the la jolla cosmetic podcast.com and send us a little contact form. Or you can hop on our website and use the little instant chat message and text us and we'd love to have you on. So thanks everybody and check the show notes for all the links to what we watched today.

Hannah (43:21):
Thank you guys. Bye Monique.

Announcer (43:25):
Take a screenshot of this podcast episode with your phone and show it at your consultation or appointment or mention the promo code PODCAST to receive $25 off any service or product of $50 or more at La Jolla Cosmetic. La Jolla Cosmetic is located just off the I-5 San Diego Freeway in the Ximed Building on the Scripps Memorial Hospital campus. To learn more, go to ljcsc.com or follow the team on Instagram @ljcsc. The La Jolla Cosmetic Podcast is a reduction of The Axis, theaxis.io.