Blog Article
Posted on January 11th, 2012 in
Facial Surgery, Reconstructive Surgery
Tattoos that need to be removed upon later reflection are nothing new. In the twilight of the punk age, however, more unusual modifications have begun appearing in plastic surgeons’ offices. Many younger clients are seeking to reverse generational fashion statements that seem regrettable in hindsight.
Justin Berton, a writer for the
San Francisco Chronicle, interviewed one such individual. 21-year-old Oakland resident Colton Tidwell (not the person pictured to the right), had his ears modified with disc earrings to the extent that he “could fit a golf ball through the hole in his earlobe.” This remnant of his teenage years caused problems later in life:
“I went a little too far with it… My body had become a bumper sticker… It bothered me that people could take one look at me and think they knew what I liked or didn’t like.”
Tidwell often found himself tucking his
drooping earlobes under a baseball cap in order to avoid embarrassment. After having the surgery, which took 30 minutes, he was able to get a new job at a bank, and was happy that his ears had been fixed.
Body Modification Reversal: A Growing Niche
Some plastic surgeons have emerged as niche experts in body modification reversal. Dr. David Kahn, a plastic surgeon in San Francisco who repaired Tidwell’s ears, has worked on half a dozen stretched earlobes over the last two years. Dr. Haresh Yalamanchili, a plastic surgeon in Houston, has performed at least 14 and has become notorious as “the guy who does ears.” To fix a stretched earlobe, surgeons typically make tiny incisions to release the hanging portion. Then they repair the ear’s surface to make it look natural. Videos of the procedure can be seen on YouTube, although these are not for the faint of heart.
“I don’t regret doing it,” Tidwell told the Chronicle about the stretching. “And I don’t regret fixing it, either. You learn something from all of it. It put it in perspective for me: Whatever you do, especially if it’s to your own body, it really matters.”
(Picture source: Wikimedia Commons,
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