By Peggy O'Farrell
Enquirer staff writer

 

Even in high school, the extra skin around Fred Bosken's eyes bothered him.

"Everybody thought I was sleeping," he says.

The older he got, the baggier the bags under his eyes got, and the more they bothered him.

So the Withamsville man saved his money "for a long time" and had an eye-lift. "As I got older, I just felt like it was something I wanted to do when I could afford it."

More and more men are choosing plastic surgery: From 2002 to 2003, cosmetic procedures increased 14 percent among men and 10 percent among women, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

Nationally, nose jobs were the most popular surgical procedures for men, followed by eyelid surgery and liposuction. Locally, liposuction is probably the most popular, followed by face- and eye-lifts and then nose jobs, says Dr. Lawrence Kurtzman of the Plastic Surgery Group in Fairfax.

Botox injections were the most popular cosmetic procedure overall for men and women in 2003, data show. Men received more than 300,000 wrinkle-reducing shots, while women received 2.5 million.

Losing the spare tire

Some men want to look younger to give them an edge with employers and the opposite sex. Some, such as Bosken, want to get rid of a longstanding perceived flaw.

Liposuction to get rid of middle-age spread is popular with a lot of baby boomer men, Kurtzman says.

"They want to lose that spare tire you get when you're in you're 40s," he says.

Glenn Blind's surgeries were classified as "cosmetic," but they were all for medical reasons.

Blind, 34, of Covington, lost more than 330 pounds after gastric bypass surgery. The drastic weight loss left him with excess skin and other tissues that had to be removed.

A tummy tuck, or abdominoplasty, removed excess skin from around his midsection and allowed him to move more freely. Excess skin is also prone to infection.

Male breast reduction surgery reduced his risk of developing cancer down the line.

In June, he'll have a lower body tuck.

Blind had to wrestle with his health insurance company to persuade it to cover the surgeries.

"They did think (the surgeries) were for cosmetic reasons," he says. "I had to prove they were a medical necessity. In reality, it was a reconstructive situation. Obesity is a disease, and I'm just putting my body back the way it needs to be."

Local plastic surgeons say they're seeing more and more men come into their offices.

"They all want to look younger and thinner," says Dr. Anureet Bajaj, a plastic surgeon at the University of Cincinnati. "A couple have mentioned that they want to look better to the opposite sex, and for the others, it's just to look younger."

There are many reasons for the increase, experts say.

"Men are getting the surgeries for the same reasons women do," Kurtzman says. "One reason for the increase is there's always been a bit more of a stigma for men than for women, and some of that's coming away. And men keep their bodies in shape and their minds in shape, and they look in the mirror and the face doesn't match up."

Bajaj credits a spate of reality shows such as "Extreme Makeover," "Dr. 90210" and "The Swan" for some of the increase.

"There's more public awareness of what plastic surgery has to offer, and so more people realize, 'If this bugs me, I can do something about it,' " she says.

Surgery led to job change

Weight loss and reconstructive surgeries have changed Blind's life: He used to have a desk job with Comair. Now he's a flight attendant.

"The career change was a decision I made due to the plastic surgery," he says. "I wouldn't have considered it before."

For Bosken, the surgery took care of a major annoyance.

"There's a lot you can control about yourself. As far as eating habits and exercise, I eat healthy and I stay active. The only part that really (upset me) was looking in the mirror and seeing my eyes," he says.

"It's up to you to make up your own mind and decide what you want to do, and it's nobody else's business. I felt better after the surgery. In reality, the people around you, if they don't see you for two weeks, they don't know you had your eyelids done. They just say you look good. It puts a smile on your face and that brightens up your personality, I think."

PAYING FOR IT
If you decide you want to a little "work done," be prepared: Odds are you'll be picking up the entire tab yourself.

If the procedure is purely cosmetic, your health insurance provider probably won't cover it, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. If a procedure is medically necessary - reconstruction after an accident or another surgery, or a nose reconstruction to repair sinus problems - it should be at least partially covered.

Here are national average costs for the top five men's cosmetic procedures:

Nose reshaping: $3,188

Eyelid surgery: $2,525

Liposuction: $2,224

Hair transplantation: Not available

Face-lift: $5,283

Source: The American Society of Plastic Surgery

COSMETIC SURGERY NUMBERS
The overall top five surgical cosmetic plastic surgery procedures in 2003 were nose reshaping (356,554), liposuction (320,022), breast augmentation (254,140), eyelid surgery (246,633) and facelift (128,667).

Women made up 82 percent of those who had cosmetic plastic surgery. Women chose liposuction most often in 2003, followed by breast augmentation, nose reshaping, eyelid surgery and face lift.

The men's top five cosmetic plastic surgery procedures for 2003 were nose reshaping, eyelid surgery, liposuction, hair transplantation for male-pattern baldness and facelift.

More than 311,000 men had cosmetic surgical procedures in 2003, up 14 percent from 2002, according to ASPS statistics. The total number of men having minimally-invasive cosmetic procedures in 2003 (including Botox injection, chemical peel, laser hair removal and microdermabrasion) was more than 922,000, up 51 percent from 2002.

Source: The American Society of Plastic Surgeons

http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050215/LIFE05/502150327