Sometimes You Just Have to Get Away
By Dr. Juris Bunkis
Honorary Consul, Republic of Latvia in Southern California
Orange County Plastic Surgery, Corona del Mar/Newport Beach
Dr. Ekstrom and I had a reset this weekend—and, as it turned out, we needed it more than either of us realized.
The past few months have been extraordinarily busy. In addition to our responsibilities as plastic surgeons and running one of the busiest plastic surgery practices in the Newport Beach area, we have devoted countless hours to my responsibilities as Honorary Consul of Latvia. This week, the President of Latvia arrives in Southern California accompanied by a business delegation of more than 40 people, and in just a few weeks the Mayor of Riga and his entourage will visit Los Angeles County.
There have been meetings to arrange, schedules to coordinate, countless emails to write and seemingly endless Zoom calls. Somewhere along the way, we stopped taking time to catch our breath—or, as the saying goes, to “smell the roses.”
It reached the point where we would collapse into bed exhausted by 9:00 p.m., only for me to awaken at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning thinking about everything that still needed to be accomplished. Too often, rather than going back to sleep, I would simply get up and start working.
Dr. Ekstrom recognized before I did that something had to give. Her solution was wonderfully simple: Catalina.
So close to home, yet somehow a world away.
She booked us a catch-and-release marlin-fishing trip. We arrived tired, and sure enough, my brain woke me at 4:00 a.m. Saturday morning, already running through my unfinished list. But something changed the moment we stepped aboard the Redrum and headed away from the dock.
As the boat gently rolled with the Pacific swells and Catalina receded behind us, I could almost feel my blood pressure dropping. For the rest of the weekend, there were no emails, no schedules, no Zoom meetings and no problems demanding immediate solutions. There was simply the ocean, the boat, the fishing, relaxed strolls through Catalina and wonderful meals—and time for each other.
It was perhaps the most relaxing day I have experienced in months. Remarkably, that feeling followed us home. Even as I sit at my computer writing this column, I feel refreshed and relaxed.
We know this coming week will be intense. As part of the Latvian presidential visit, we have arranged meetings at eight Southern California studios for a Latvian film delegation—and five Latvian film producers will be staying with us!
But we are heading into the week refreshed rather than depleted.
Sometimes the best preparation for what lies ahead is simply giving yourself permission to stop!
A Seasonal Reset for Your Skin
By Dr. Deborah Ekstrom
Orange County Plastic Surgery, Corona del Mar/Newport Beach
This Week's Plastic Surgery Quiz
Which of the following treatments generally produces the deepest chemical resurfacing of the skin?
Just as Dr. Bunkis and I discovered that occasionally we need to reset ourselves, our skin can sometimes benefit from a reset as well.
As the days become shorter and we generally spend less time in intense sunlight, fall and winter can be excellent seasons to consider skin resurfacing. Years of Southern California sunshine can leave their calling cards: uneven pigmentation, brown spots, fine lines, rough texture and other visible signs of photodamage.
The appropriate resurfacing treatment depends upon the patient’s skin type, degree of sun damage, goals and tolerance for downtime.
TCA (trichloroacetic acid) peels are available in different concentrations and depths. A 20% TCA peel provides a lighter resurfacing and may be appropriate for relatively mild pigmentation and texture irregularities. A 35% TCA peel penetrates more deeply and can produce more significant improvement in sun damage, pigmentation and fine lines—but also requires more healing time and careful patient selection.
Phenol peels represent a much deeper form of chemical resurfacing. They can produce dramatic improvement in appropriately selected patients with significant photoaging and deeper wrinkles, but the increased depth also means greater downtime and greater potential risks. These are not treatments to be undertaken casually and are not appropriate for every skin type or every patient.
Fractional laser resurfacing takes a different approach. Instead of treating the entire skin surface uniformly, fractional technology creates microscopic treatment zones while leaving intervening areas of skin relatively intact. Depending upon whether an ablative or non-ablative fractional laser is used and the treatment settings selected, we can tailor the procedure to the patient’s skin and desired balance between improvement and recovery time.
Preparation matters. Patients may be placed on a physician-directed skin-care regimen beforehand, and some patients require antiviral medication when resurfacing around the mouth or face. Certain medications, medical conditions, history of abnormal scarring and skin types can also influence which treatment is safest.
After treatment, meticulous skin care is essential. Depending upon the procedure, expect redness, peeling, swelling or crusting during healing. Follow your surgeon’s cleansing and moisturizing instructions carefully—and resist the temptation to pick peeling skin!
Most importantly, resurfaced skin must be protected from the sun. Daily broad-spectrum sunscreen, hats and sensible sun avoidance help preserve the improvement you worked so hard to achieve.
Whether it is a quiet morning fishing off Catalina or restoring healthier-looking skin after years in the California sun, sometimes a carefully chosen reset is exactly what we need.
This female in her 50’s had sustained unusually heavy sun exposure throughout her lift and presented to Orange County Plastic Surgery for consideration of improving her skin texture. The options were reviewed and she underwent a full face phenol peel resurfacing procedure. The surgery was performed by Dr. Juris Bunkis of Orange County Plastic Surgery in Corona del Mar/Newport Beach.
Interested in achieving your dreams? CLICK HERE to set up an appointment with Dr. Ekstrom to explore your options.
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Corona del Mar, CA 92625
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