Last Friday my wife, Staci, graduated from Loma Linda University with her Doctor of Public Health degree in Nutrition. Loma Linda is a very special area for health and wellness as it is considered one of the “Blue Zones” in the world. It was an honor for her to be able to study health and nutrition at this university as it’s focused especially on educating on plant-based diets and making man whole: spirit, mind and body.
Becoming a Doctor of Public Health has been a long journey for her, and we couldn’t be more excited about this huge accomplishment of hers. Her passion for nutrition and wellness prevailed as we saw her persevere through her doctorate program, even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her dissertation was on a study that she conducted on adult females about their weight loss and feeling of satiety while on the HCG diet program.
She is passionate about health and wellness and loves working with people to help them feel and look their best. With that said, we are so lucky to have a Registered Dietitian and a Public Health official on our OCPS team. She is here to help with non-surgical weight loss options as well as overall health and wellness. Staci is a great resource for all medical diet related questions as well as weight loss and enhancing your overall diet for longevity.
Spotlight on Plastic Sun Damage and Skin Resurfacing by Drs. Deborah Ekstrom and Juris Bunkis
Dr. Ekstrom, who is now 70, pictured with one of our cab drivers in Azerbaijan two weeks ago, age 59, who smokes and has never used sun block in his life!
Skin is our largest organ and serves a number of major functions. First, skin provides a physical barrier for our bodies, protecting us from chemical, physical and bacteriological intruders, and controls evaporative water loss to prevent dehydration. Secondly, our skin acts as a thermoregulator for our bodies through our vasculature and sweat glands. Skin is involved with hormone production (Vitamin D in particular, which is necessary for bone health).
Our skin also has a role in immune surveillance, mediates the sense of touch and participates in social communication. Each of these functions deteriorates with aging. We have all seen homeless people who look quite aged but some of these wrinkled, weathered people are still in their 30’s or 40’s age wise. There is no doubt that poor nutrition, use of tobacco, excessive alcohol use and sun exposure expedite the aging process. For most of us who eat well and take care of ourselves the best we can, sun exposure will be responsible for 80% of visible signs of aging.
Radiation from the sun accelerates DNA changes in the skin that lead to premature aging and skin cancers. We do see patients with sun damaged skin who request skin rejuvenation but are still quite tanned and continue to expose themselves to the sun – we have to explain to such patients that we cannot help them unless they start wearing sunblock and protect themselves from future sun damage. But for those wrinkled patients who tell us that they damaged their skin while younger but now wear sunblock and stay out of the sun, we can help them significantly with a skin resurfacing procedure.
A facelift or blepharoplasty will remove excess skin and change the contour of your face or eyelids but does not obliterate wrinkles or “sun spots”. The chemical peel and laser skin resurfacing procedures were devised to minimize these surface irregularities. The key word here is minimize, as none of these procedures can remove all of the lines, marks or surface discolorations.
All three procedures remove the outer, scarred or sun damaged skin, attempting to leave the patient with a smoother and more youthful appearance. The chemical peel procedure consists of the application of an acid mixture to the skin, which creates a chemical burn. In the newer methods of laser skin resurfacing, various lasers can be employed to vaporize the outer layer of skin and induce a tightening of the remaining skin.
The result of the treatment is a general tightening of the skin with obliteration of many of the fine wrinkles while making the deeper wrinkles and scars less noticeable. Our doctors can review the numerous options regarding treatment of wrinkles and other signs of aging. Generally, your surgeon will be able to come up with a customized program to improve the quality of your skin.
75 year old female who has had a prior facelift but disliked her facial sun damage, shown here before and after a phenol peel (Actual patient of Dr. Bunkis)
Patient in her 50’s with severe lower lid wrinkling, shown before and after a peel to improve her skin texture (Actual patient of Dr. Bunkis)
If you want to see if you can have the shape of your body improved, contact us for a complimentary consultation:
please call 949-888-9700 or visit www.orangecountyplasticsurgery.com
Or for MA location, call 508-755-4825 or visit www.salisburyps.com
You can write to:
Dr. Compoginis at Contact Us Form
Dr. Bunkis at Contact Us Form
Dr. Ekstrom at mds@salisburyps.com
