Some Seek Surgical Solution for 'Outies,' Eyebrows

April 28, 2007 — -- The great American obsession with vanity knows few bounds. No body part seems off-limits and yet it's still surprising what some people will do to "enhance" their appearance. Forget tummy tucks; it seems belly buttons and toes are the new rage.

Belly buttons? The operation is actually called umbilicoplasty.

"Women are thinking, I have an outie. I hate my outie. What can I do to fix it?" said Dr. Michael Rose, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. "[The surgery] can be easily explained as transforming an outie belly button into an innie belly button."

But some women weren't necessarily born with an outie.

Alyssa Jaronko, a fitness instructor and mother of three, knew that an umbilicoplasty was right for her.

"After I had children, my belly button definitely did not look how it used to," Jaronko said. "All the exercise I could do in the world was not going to fix this skin."

Dr. Rose agrees.

"From having the children inside of her abdomen, they caused hernias to happen, one actually inside the belly button which pushed the belly button out and gave her an outie," he said.

And now, with her innie belly button restored, Jaronko feels more confident about her body.

"The fact that I can now wear a bikini again is exciting," Jaronko said. "It's back to a normal belly button as if somebody who never had kids."

"Springtime is always when we see a huge spike in cosmetic procedures that affect the body," Dr. Michael Rose said. "People are thinking about the beach and how they're going to look."

For women unhappy with their toes, there is also a surgical solution.

For podiatrist Dr. Oliver Zong, business is booming because so many women want a face-lift for their feet.

Zong performs 30 to 40 cosmetic toe surgeries a month -- everything from toe straightening and shortening to a pinky-toe tuck, a procedure in which fat is taken out of the toe to make it narrower.

After her foot surgery, Christine Fortis said she no longer has to suffer in style.

"I spent my entire life feeling very self-conscious about my feet, never feeling comfortable to wear open-toed shoes," she said. "This spring and summer, my feet will not see a pair of sneakers. They're going to be shown off in every type of flip-flop sandal I can get my hands on."

One of the hottest, newest trends in cosmetic surgery is fixing thinning eyebrows.

"If someone is unhappy with the thinness, or the lack of the eyebrow, or because a scar interrupts the normal curve of the eyebrow, then they're a perfect candidate," said Dr. Ken Washenik, medical director of Bosley Medical.

Eyebrow transplantation surgery is a simple in-office procedure that volumizes your brows naturally and permanently. Debra Prince is one of those "perfect candidates."

"As a child, I had fairly thick eyebrows, and of course as most girls did, I plucked them too much," Prince said. "But then later in life, I developed a thyroid condition and I noticed that my eyebrows got significantly thinner."

In the surgery, hair is taken from a "donor" area at the back of Prince's scalp, divided into individual hair follicles and then artistically placed in her eyebrow area.

"After the transplant, it takes around three months for the follicle to settle in, realize it has its new home and then start to grow," Washenik said.

Kelly Becker received eyebrow transplants one year ago.

"It's given me a lot more self-confidence. I think before I kind of hid behind these brows that I would draw on, afraid for people to see me without them," Becker said. "I am ecstatic with the results."