Plastic Surgery Regrets, Red Flags & What I learned

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]The anti-plastic surgery conversation online has become completely dishonest.

[00:00:05]The internet loves to judge plastic surgery, [music] but nobody talks about when it's actually functional. I am 44 years old and I am 8 weeks out from an upper bluff, lower bluff, tossis repair, endoscopic brow lift, fat grafting, and a facial laser. And two of those procedures, yes, would be for quote unquote vanity, but the others were done for a very functional issue. And before I get into my journey and tell you guys what you could potentially expect if you're also looking for these types of procedures, I do want to discuss this certain segment of the celebrity population that has come out that is so against plastic surgery. Have some people gone super overboard with Botox and fillers 100%. Have some people gone super overboard with plastic surgery when it comes to, you know, looking like a lion or cat eyes or just changing their physical appearance about an insecurity. Yes, some of that has gotten completely out of control. I judge no one for what they get done. So, if they like their results as a woman and they feel more secure in their own skin, then please, like, by all means, go ahead and let them do that. I have no judgment. I think there's also this topic around people are doing plastic surgery to look younger. And I think that that is also really disconnected and far from the truth. People will say things like, "Oh, why would you get plastic surgery? You look so good. Why do you feel like you need to look younger? Why do you feel like it's not okay to age? Like it's you're allowed to have wrinkles. It's a privilege to age." Like I think there's a lot of this surrounding our culture and there's now becoming a lot of judgment around Botox, fillers, and plastic surgery. And I find this backlash against going under the knife so fascinating because the beauty industry itself worldwide sold over $500 billion dollars worth of products in 2025. So with that statistic, I think it's pretty easy to say that women are very interested and looking more youthful, presenting well, having a good skinincare regimen. [music] So to judge or to put down someone else who has chosen to use plastic surgery instead of potentially just putting more and more money into Botox or into these skininc care regimens, I just don't understand why that's now being judged and put on the table for discussion. In my journey since I was a young girl in my 20s, I had extremely hooded eyes. After my kids, like around age 35, I really really felt the heaviness of my brows.

[00:02:35]Like I felt like when I was in a conversation, my brows had to constantly I was just like always lifting and lifting my brow and lifting my brow. I always had significant asymmetry in my eyebrows. So the right eye and the right eyebrow, my right eye had always been a bit smaller and my brow was definitely way lower than my left. My left always had this like really beautiful arch here and my right one was more straight across. So I booked a consultation with Dr. Lieberman. He is the top Silicon Valley plastic surgeon. He's double boardcertified Stanford undergrad Cornell medical and he went to Quella in Rochester, New York, which is one of the top plastic surgery institutes. I want to share three red flags that I think you should be watching out for when picking a plastic surgeon. The first red flag would be not going to someone who specializes in the surgery that you're trying to get done. If you are getting anything done to your face, the only plastic surgeon that you should go to is a facial plastic surgeon. One of my best friends is actually a breast implant rep. And she goes to all the different OS and sees like all of the different surgeries and the different work. And she was the one that taught me if you're going to get your boobs done, you only go to someone that does boobs. You should not be going to just a general.

[00:03:49]So there was no option but to go to someone that only specialized in face.

[00:03:54]Another thing that you really really want to consider is is the surgeon only looking at the results. Is the surgeon walking you through the healing journey?

[00:04:05]Because I think plastic surgery can be so summed up into the before and the after. So, if your surgeon during the consultation is just giving you a pat on the back and it's like you're just going to look great and you're not really going through what that healing journey is going to look like and how long he anticipates the healing journey and how long you're out of work for and like what to expect. I think that's a huge red flag. And the third red flag is do you have access to the surgeon? So, with Dr. Lieberman, I met with him one time in person and his office is kind of far away from me. his office actually offered for me to come back in every single time. I had an option of an in-person or a Zoom or a phone call every time. So, I actually just chose to do either the Zoom or the phone call because I didn't want to drive up north.

[00:04:48]But, I think I spoke to Dr. Liverman four to five times on the phone, even past the consult, because I had so many questions about all my procedures and then I had a lot of questions about the tossis repair. Dr. Lman spent significant time with me on the phone and I think too like they really understand it's such a psychological you know journey as well and I think that he could understand that I was nervous and that he wanted to give me as much time as he possibly could to help me feel like safe and secure to make the final decision to book the surgery. So, in this consultation, I was explaining to him that as I had aged, I could literally see my eyelashes and my eyelid in my eye at all times and it was just on the left side. And he said to me, he says, "Have you ever heard of tossis?" I had not heard of tossis. I had no clue what he was saying. And he was like, "It's actually the muscle in your physical eyelid is drooping and it needs to be cut open and reattached." Then he sort of hit me with I am not an ocular surgeon specialist. So an ocular surgeon is going to have to do that procedure.

[00:05:53]So from there I met with the ocular specialist and she put these drops in my eyes that dilated basically I don't even know if dilated is the right word but it forced my eye muscle to contract and go back up to where it used to be. And when I tell you guys these drops, it was a life-changing moment to me. I left the ocular surgeon's office and I got in my car and I was looking around in the sky like I had never seen before. And I couldn't believe how big and blue and bright the sky actually was because my lids have been drooped so close to my irises for so long. And to skip ahead, I am 8 weeks out from my surgery. And I can tell you I am happier than I have ever been because more light reaches my eye, reaches my brain and I have never felt better. So for the endoscopic brow lift, I will say of all the procedures that I've had done, this one was pretty rough just in the sense of I have like I think two cuts here, like one here, one here. I might have one here and then it's so funny. I can't even tell anymore, right? But I definitely had quite a bit of numbness on this part of my scalp, more on the right side than on the left because I think it was like a much deeper like heavier lift because of how low that the brow was. The lower bluff I was in kind of the same boat where these eyelids were drooping here cuz it's like kind of the same thing, right? So if you have weakness in your eye muscles around your eye, upper including lower. So the lower bluff actually just sort of like cemented and solidified this lower lid for me here.

[00:07:24]just really keeping that strong function and kind of like reattaching all of the muscles like back into my eye socket.

[00:07:32]The fat grafting, they had a little bit of trouble with me on the fat grafting.

[00:07:37]So, I am a bit leaner and so they had to take the fat from two different places on my thighs. So, unfortunately, I actually had two incision sites, two sightes of bruising. So, the first several weeks were very difficult when I was trying to like use the restroom or get in and out of the car. like it would just sort of like hit those bruises and like hit that spot. But of course, eight weeks later, I can hardly feel it now.

[00:08:00]I'm really really pleased with my result with the fat grafting. So, Dr. Lieberman placed the fat here completely around my temples, around my eyes, and then he also placed it, I'm not sure exactly what this is called, but we put some of the extra here to just soften this so that I don't feel like I have to be getting like so much filler. If you look at my before and after photos, you can see how gaunt and hollow this was for me here. I think in my opinion with the fat grafting, all the research that I've done, you have to be very careful who you choose to to inject the fat. It can be very tricky and if you overdo it, you can have a very full pillow type face.

[00:08:42]So from the fat grafting, you can also see I did have significant bruises around for quite a bit. These two, I think there was one over here too, took like the longest to heal. Like I swear those just healed like maybe a week ago.

[00:08:54]Like they were just really light yellow for so long. So that was kind of one of the other things that I was dealing with. I mean, in terms of all the rest of them, not that big. It was pretty insignificant. I will also say at 8 weeks, my right eye has definitely a little bit more swelling in the upper lid. We're still anticipating that to resolve. Now going into mitosis repair.

[00:09:16]This I feel like was honestly one of the most difficult things in terms of the recovery. I easily slept after my surgery. The first 4 days I just slept all day. By day five I had kind of started to get off some of the medication. You guys that adevent that's crazy. I mean you'll just you don't care on that. And I was like like I've never slept and rested so much. I felt so rested after my procedures. And that was the day once I was up more and trying to like move around and function and get on my phone, my eyes got so dry, I was like almost completely panicked because I was having to put drops in like every 30 minutes and the office assured me that's really really normal. I mean, when you think about it, I literally readjusted my entire eye muscle. So, the way I blink changed, the way my eyes closed changed. So, the moisture level in my eyes and my eyes still haven't adjusted.

[00:10:12]So, if I'm trying to read a book or be on screens for long periods of time, even at 8 weeks, I do struggle and I'm still putting drops in, but not nearly as irritating. So, if you are considering tois repair, especially after this video, I just wanted you to know to anticipate that. That's going to be one of the main things. The actual, you know, like sutures and stuff, they get a little itchy. That's a little irritating. But this, like, that's the easy part. There's no pain in terms of just getting the tossis repair in the upper bluff. Okay. So, the last thing I got done that they always do at LMP Anesthetics um for their clients is they do a laser. So, I do suffer from melasma. I have rosacea and I do keep up with lasers. I typically do a BBL, a halo or a Moxy once a year. I just kind of rotate those in and out. So he was like, "I'm just going to go around your eye because those lasers, especially like when you know you're not under local, those are harder to get around your eye when you're awake." So he's like, "I'm going to get it really hard for you." So that's why I think my photos look as scary as they do, especially day 1, 2, and three, was because of the laser. That's where all the redness came in. Um, you could even like see like a little line here where like maybe the laser didn't hit. And so it actually now that I've been healing the tissue around my eyes from the laser is actually taking like the longest to heal. So I want to say that of course in hindsight I wish I would have gotten this all done four years ago when the problem like first occurred. When it comes to your vision you have to remember everything is happening at a minutia rate. So every year, you know, my eyelid would drop a little bit, but you don't notice it. And so the best way to tell if you havetosis is so when you take a picture and you look directly in the camera, is your lid close to your pupil? So my upper lid was basically hanging over my iris, sitting so close to my pupil, and that does not allow light to get into your eye. And that light really helps your brain function.

[00:12:19]And so if you are failing that test rather looking in the mirror or looking in your phone, I really really urge you to see an ocular specialist. The way my eyes are functioning now is a night and day difference. And I am just so beyond happy that I got it done. And I'm so beyond happy that I picked Dr. Lieberman to do it. Here are three things I would do differently before surgery. Number one, who's ever coming to pick you up from your surgery, especially if it's face, if it's breast or tummy, you can hide that. No one's seeing anything.

[00:12:56]When it is your face, your face will be so swollen and you will look like a monster. You really need to brace the person that is driving you home for that. Okay, so full disclosure, don't tell them I told you, but when my husband when they opened the curtain and my husband came back to collect me to go home, I was sitting on a very small bed.

[00:13:19]I remember they kind of pulled the curtain back and I'm talking to them because I had a head wrap on from my brow lift and it was choking me and I'm like, "Can you just cut right here? Like I'm having trouble like it's pressing on my throat." She's like, "Sure, let me get the scissors." She turns around, my husband sits down on the bed and just falls over my feet. And I was so drugged up. I was like, "Hey, um, he's on my feet and my feet hurt." Like I had no concern for my husband. I had no clue what was going on. And I remember the nurse like shaking him and then she was calling for someone else to like get help. But then he just like kind of sat up again and he swears it's because he didn't eat anything all day and he was worried for me and he just didn't drink enough. but he was scared. My second tip that I would give to you is really come prepared with questions. I don't think I had enough questions prepared because I think what happened to me with my turn of events was just that I thought I was going to just get maybe an upper bluff and a lower bluff. So, when we actually started talking about the anatomy of my face and like why I felt like the need to like lift my eyebrows up all the time and like the actual functionality of my eyes and what to anticipate, I think I just sort of froze. And since I didn't have any questions like written down, I'm not sure really how the end of that appointment went for me. I think I was in a bit of a shocked state. And I remember after I left, I had a ton more questions, but like I said, it was so so easy to communicate with the doctor. And the third thing that I would definitely do differently is you have to make sure that you have the support [music] that you need around you in order to recover.

[00:15:01]So I really thought I was going to work and so I was completely shocked like how down I was. So, I think that if you don't have the support in your house to get you through this, which like I said, I had the support. It was more on me thinking I could work and I sort of like scheduled things that then I then had to cancel. And I remember looking back in hindsight, like Dr. Lieberman's office told me they were like, "You need to be resting. You really are going to need help." And it's so funny cuz I remember them saying it but not really believing that it was true. I assure you it is true. So, if you don't have the support system at home or you have little kids, you need to be in a hotel. You should not be at home. I have a feeling if you are watching this video, you probably are considering plastic surgery and maybe you are really kind of battling or grappling with the idea of just the morality of it because I do think that there is polarizing views. I really feel like there's just not a ton of middle anymore. And so, I hope you found the middle ground here in this video with me. I am preventive medicine all the way. I get all of my physicals done. I get my blood work tested and I am very very open to things that are going on in my body and creating any type of preventative measures that I can to live a long healthy lifestyle for me and for my family. My mental health is really huge for me. That is where I have always my entire life struggled the most. And I can honestly say after having this functional plastic surgery done for my eyes, my depression has improved by 50%.

[00:16:38]So I feel like if you were like looking for a sign or you were like looking for some validation to get it done. I just want to let you know I am like a typical suburban mom here. I'm not trying to look any different or look younger. I'm trying to do preventative things that makes me feel like I am more alive, more in touch with the world. When I can like see bigger and brighter skies, where my mental health is doing much better because of the way I can see better. And then when I look in the mirror, [music] the way I look actually matches the way I feel. And I'm just sorry, but you just cannot put a price on that.