Is it risky to get a BBL? [Maria LoTempio, MD, New York City]

Dr. LoTempio (00:00):
Hi, I am Dr. Maria LoTempio. I'm a board certified plastic surgeon living in New York City.

Eva Sheie (00:06):
Okay. There's been a tremendous effort by plastic surgeons recently to get the word out about the safety of the BBL, the Brazilian butt lift. So tell me first, is the BBL safe?

Dr. LoTempio (00:21):
It's a great question. Let me just put it out, is driving safe? Most of us would say yes, but yet you still can get into a car accident. And I use this analogy all the time with my patients. You get into a car and it's going to be a car that has brakes and inspected, and you're going to wear a seatbelt and has airbags, and you're taught to learn how to drive correctly and you follow the rules of driving, and probably most of us will do very well driving. But if we kind of skirt the rules and regulations, maybe get into a car that's not inspected, doesn't have great brakes, doesn't have oil, they can't stop on a dime, somebody goes through a red light, cuz I don't want to pay attention to that stop sign, then you can have a problem. So with BBLs, it's really about, number one, picking the right candidate, making sure they're screened correctly, making sure they're healthy enough to be able to undergo the procedure.

Dr. LoTempio (01:26):
Being trained in the procedure, having experience with the procedure because a lot of the complications happen during the procedure, especially certain ones. And most importantly is the aftercare. And I think a lot of patients don't realize how important aftercare is. They kind of think, okay, just because I've had the procedure done, I'm out of the woods, everything's great and move forward. And it's not the case. I would say majority of the problems actually happen after the surgery. And we can get into the details of that, but you definitely want it to be able to go to a surgeon who's done these, who has encountered complications. You know you're in good hands with that individual. So I've done over 2000 BBLs and I've had my fair share of complications just like every other surgeon. And I really stay close to my patients, and I'm at the point in my career that I could kind of gauge if they're going to have an issue by certain things they say, and I could kind of get in there quickly and prevent things from escalating. And that's the most important, I think, at this stage of my career, is being identifying different parameters, which can lead to a complication.

Eva Sheie (02:50):
Can you tell us what kinds of things they say that make you raise your eyebrows a little?

Dr. LoTempio (02:54):
Yeah. So I can kind of tell by listening to their voices. If they're not peppy and upright and kind of full of energy and they're down and sluggish, then I always are concerned about their mobility, meaning their ambulation, walking. And I'm always like, so how much are you walking because are you resting? And they'll say, well, I'm taking a lot of naps. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. We need to be up. We need to be walking. We need to be moving. And you are not sick. You're not laying in bed, you're not in a chair. Nope, nope, nope. And you got to really push that you had a procedure, not because you're ill, not because it was an emergency, because you wanted it. So the after part is a little different. So we want to push those patients up, moving around and trying to get back to quickly their normal activities within reason.

Dr. LoTempio (03:50):
If a patient tells me that their pain is getting worse, which is always a little ominous sign, that can be indication of infection, which sometimes doesn't show itself until seven days after surgery, low grade fever. So I actually stay really close contact with my patients. I'm actually talking to them every day for the first three days and then every other day for at least 10 days. And then texting them after that just to make sure, like, Hey, just checking in. Want to make sure everything's okay. Any fevers, chills? Oh yeah, you know, yesterday I had the window open. I had a little chill. I'm like, okay, well maybe tonight sleep with the window shut. And if you feel like you're going to chill, why don't you just take your temperature and go ahead and text it to me? Things like that, simple things that maybe they don't really think about that I kind of say, Hey, let's just try it. Let's just try your temperature and make sure it's normal.

Eva Sheie (04:43):
Where can we see these results of yours?

Dr. LoTempio (04:46):
Real self, online, more importantly, come to my office, fifth Avenue, next to Sephora.

Eva Sheie (04:53):
Is there anything we can see on Instagram?

Dr. LoTempio (04:55):
Some of them are, except Instagram has an issue now that they constantly take.

Eva Sheie (05:02):
Butt policy?

Dr. LoTempio (05:02):
Yeah, they're constantly taking it down. Now I tell people, go meet your surgeon, go talk to them, go see their before and afters. I have 200, 300 slides of BBLs.

Eva Sheie (05:14):
So if there are some photos online, there are many more to see when we come to the office.

Dr. LoTempio (05:19):
Yeah. And those we just can't put online. A lot of them, those are just, we can't for various privacy reasons, confidentiality.

Eva Sheie (05:27):
Too beautiful to see, you just got to come in.

Dr. LoTempio (05:30):
It's all about the beauty of the booty.

Eva Sheie (05:34):
On this podcast, we bring you directly to the doctors who are wear before, meets after links to our guest's website and contact info are in your show notes. Follow us on Instagram @wherebeforemeetsafter. Where Before Meets After is a production of The Axis, the podcast agency for aesthetics, theaxis.io.