13 Craziest Requests Plastic Surgeons Have Ever Received
Updated: Mar. 16, 2022"Vanity is the quicksand of reason," said the fabulous French novelist, George Sand, and these utterly insane requests prove it.
And when they go out of style?
Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, Deepak Raj Dugar, MD, who’s served as a medical advisor to E! News, ABC News, and Sirius XM Radio, among others, told Reader’s Digest that “I’ve been asked multiple times for extremely odd things.” But the strangest? “One patient asked for permanent shoulder pads,” Dr. Dugar told Reader’s Digest. While shoulder-reshaping isn’t unheard of in male patients, Dr. Dugar stresses the patient was a woman.
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Why not have every day be Halloween?
Another strange one: Dr. Dugar had a patient ask him to remove her nose! Why? Because she wanted to scare people on a regular basis. He declined the surgery, in case you were wondering.
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The doc recommended they watch Vertigo, instead
New York City plastic surgeon Norman M. Rowe, MD tells Reader’s Digest about a boyfriend and girlfriend coming in to discuss her potential plastic surgery. The boyfriend pulled out a photo and asked Dr. Rowe if he could make the girlfriend resemble the woman in the photo… who happened to be his ex-wife. Dr. Rowe believes he could have, but he turned them down.
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Um, I have just one last question, doc
When asked about his craziest request, South Florida board-certified plastic surgeon Jacob Freiman, MD, FACS, focused on the things patients have asked him post-surgery, such as:
- “When can I go skydiving again?”
- “What sex positions am I not going to be allowed to engage in?”
- “Will these breast implants interfere with my wearing a bullet-proof vest?”
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“Hey! Eyes up HERE!”
One patient had a particularly unusual request, reports Dr. Freiman: A man with a large handle-bar mustache asked for very large breast implants. And he wasn’t transgender, by the way.
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Sibling rivalry
Phoenix- and Scottsdale-area board-certified plastic surgeon Ali Mosharrafa, MD had this to share with Reader’s Digest: “I once operated on identical twins for breast augmentation. Prior to surgery, they decided on the same size implants. The sisters had their surgery on the same day. After the first surgery was completed, one twin asked me to replace hers with larger implants than the ones used on her sister.”
In case you’re wondering how the story ends: “They are no longer twins,” says Dr. Mosharrafa.
When twins are done being twins
Dr. Frieman says he sees this type of request from twins a lot. “Whenever I get an identical twin in for breast implants, she always asks me to make her breasts bigger than her sister’s. Twins are always competing,” he explains.
Friends that want to share everything
In the category of “weird, but not necessarily unusual,” Dr. Freiman reports that people sometimes ask if the surgeon can transfer fat from a friend’s butt to their own for a butt lift. The answer is “no,” by the way.
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Youth is wasted on the young
Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Daniel Barrett, MD had a woman show up for a facelift consultation who turned out to be 28 years old. Even 40 is considered to be too young for a facelift. Dr. Barrett declined to do the surgery. As he says, his patients’ health, safety, and happiness come first.
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A doubtful pout
Another patient that Dr. Barrett turned down was a woman who wanted a lip augmentation—because she already had had several. Her lips were already about five times bigger than what might be considered normal for augmented lips.
“I wanna be her”
Considered a “celebrity plastic surgeon,” Stephen T. Greenberg, MD, is accustomed to celebrity patients with very specific and sometimes unusual requests. But the craziest request he’s had by far is the non-celebrity patient wanted to look “exactly like Kim Kardashian.” And by that, the patient meant exactly. “She wanted it all,” says Dr. Greenberg, “from rhinoplasty to lip injections, to fillers, a Brazilian butt lift, breast augmentation, tummy tuck, thigh lift, liposuction…”
Let’s at least get him through third grade first
“I once had a Korean parent call to make an appointment for her son for Asian eyelid surgery—an extra fold so he would look more Caucasian,” Dr. Anthony S. Youn, MD, FACS, a holistic plastic surgeon based in Michigan, reported in an “Ask Me Anything” session on Reddit. The hitch: This boy was only seven. “I told her she had major problems and I would never do that to him!”
There’s always Red Bull…
Dr. Youn has had patients—multiple patients—asking if he could give them wings. In other words, “turn them into the X-Men character, Angel.” They tend to be quite disappointed when Dr. Youn has to gently explain reality to them.
Next, read on for the secrets most surgeons aren’t telling you.
