Heidi Montag's Breasts Are Too Big!

Some stories just won’t go away. The Heidi Montag saga seemed like just another fifteen minutes of fame for a desperate starlet. And it makes for a great story: D-list celebrity trying to get an edge with an extreme makeover that will catapult her to stardom… or not.

But now, after the initial stories cataloging her surgeries mini brow lift, nose revision, facial and buttock fat grafts, breast implant revision, ear pinning, neck liposuction, the stories continue. She’s in pain. She’s happy. She’s not happy. She wants bigger implants. She’s going outside the U.S. for implants she can’t buy in the U.S., and the stories just continue on and on, probably fed by her publicist.

Since Heidi Montag and her drama are not going away anytime soon, what can we all learn from this modern-day tale of transformation that will help us in our thinking about plastic surgery?

If you are considering plastic surgery, it is important to be realistic about what you are considering and why.  Number one, if you don’t want to set yourself up for disappointment the only reason you should have plastic surgery is for yourself.  No one should be considering plastic surgery because someone else is telling you to.  Plastic surgery should not be undertaken to get or keep a husband or boyfriend, nor to get a specific job. The procedure, and your new image, should be its own reward. It should give you a positive self-image and give you more confidence. To expect secondary gain is setting yourself up for disappointment. The exception to this rule may be a situation where someone is looking prematurely old and seeks facial surgery for better competitiveness in the job market. Heidi Montag is not prematurely old.

Less is more–rule one: I don’t know exactly how long Heidi’s ten procedures took, but I try to limit my procedures to less than six hours. The medical standard for safe elective surgery is less than six hours. This means that after six hours the risk of medical complications rises. It is also more difficult to recover when you can’t get in a comfortable position because of the pain resulting from your multiple procedures. Performing fewer procedures in two operations makes for two shorter, safer operations with quicker recovery time, as opposed to one long one with a much longer and more uncomfortable recovery.

Less is more–rule two: As you age you should only have the minimum amount of work done to correct the problems. There is no such thing as prophylactic facelifts, although some people claim to do them. I’m okay with the chin and nose changes. But the brow lift and fat grafts actually made her look older boring here and harsher. Nothing can replace the freshness of youth and once it’s gone it’s gone.

Less is more—rule three: And important thing to remember about breast augmentation is that breasts can be too big! The only kind of movie Heidi Montag’s new breasts will get her into is the kind with three X’s, rather than snagging Meghan Fox’s roll in Transformers 3! I’ve put in large implants, even the maximum size, 800cc, but these are cases where the woman could handle them because of her height and the size of her chest. If Heidi wants to go bigger than her current 700cc implants, in order to really see a difference she would need to go to 1000cc which is way too much for anyone, much less a thin woman who is 5’2.

The downside of really big implants: Bigger scars to put them in for silicone implants. Putting in 1000cc  saline implants would be a nightmare. They would come down to her knees in no time.

What goes up must come down. Implants that large would have minimal muscle support. There is no breast lift that would lift them up for any significant length of time. She will have to downsize in order to have a successful breast lift.

Implants that big would make her skin tissues paper thin over time. Wrinkles and ripples would be visible.

Implants that large would actually pull down on her shoulders and neck. They would likely cause severe back pain. Most women who naturally have breasts that size eventually come in for breast reduction.

Just because a surgery can be done, doesn’t necessarily mean it should be done. She’s not yet in the ranks of plastic surgery monsters but if she keeps this up, there is little doubt she will be listed on one of many scary plastic surgery Websites.  Good plastic surgery is designed to makes people look like themselves and doesn’t make you look like a different species. Is she on her way? Only time will tell.