With the general public beginning to accept aesthetic
treatment as a way to enhance a person’s appearance, just as cosmetics do, more
and more patients come for treatment to improve the facial aging sign.
Belle, a mother of two teenage children first came to
my clinic feeling uncertain about aesthetic procedures. She is a stay-home mum
for her kids. Now that her kids are grown up, she wanted a new lease of life.
A consultation was carried out. We focused our
discussion on the problem areas that she is concerned the most, and as usual, I
asked her to go home to think about it and come back when she is mentally
prepared for the treatment.
She appeared two weeks later. A procedure was carried
out. She went home happily.
As she came for her follow up, I noticed that she was
wearing brighter coloured clothes and she was happy. I was happy for her too. I
felt that I have helped her improved her quality of life.
A month later, she came back for more enhancement
treatment. She was wanted to add volume to plush up her lips. Two months later,
she wanted more fillers on the lips. “Doctor Hoo, I want to have even
fuller lips,” she said. “But you look absolutely fabulous right now!”, I
replied. I assessed her face again, with the current ratio of the
thickness of the upper and lower lips, it’s considered fulfilling the golden
ratio of the face, and instituting more hyaluronic acid treatment would over do
her face. I politely declined.
As one sees results in the treatment, it encourages
the person to seek more treatment to perfect the treatment area. Just as all
other good things in life, it is never enough because when a patient looks at
the problem area, he/she will magnify the problem. Instead, we should look not
only at the problematic part, but how to optimize it so that the treated area matches
well with the rest of the face, and in the same time, reserves one’s signature
feature. This is the challenging part of aesthetics. And it’s never easy. The
patient and doctor will need to have the same aim.
Though it is tempting for more, we constantly need to
remind ourselves the purpose of the treatment - to improve our image and
quality of life. Over treatment may jeopardise one’s beauty; I have seen
people’s lives turned dysfunctional or their beauty being jeopardised during
his/her overly enthusiast quest to beautify themselves. Then, the whole purpose
of aesthetic treatment has already swayed. It should help to improve lives
rather than ruining them.
The wisdom now lies in finding the balance; finding
the grey between the black and white, and the centre between the extremes. Once
balance is struck, take a deep breath, and say to ourselves, enough is
enough.
