The La Jolla Cosmetic Podcast

When you meet Amy Biggs, you’ll realize she truly cares about helping you achieve your dream results. Her goal is to ensure you step out of our med spa feeling like your outer appearance reflects your inner beauty.

If your cosmetic concerns need multiple treatments, Amy is with you for the long haul. She loves developing personalized treatment plans and witnessing beauty transformations. By getting to know you on a deeper level, s...

When it comes to skin care, marketing convinces us it’s about instant gratification when in reality it’s a long game. No one knows this better than LJC’s aesthetician Cameron Vessey, who first learned about proper skin care at the age of 13 at her grandmother’s modeling school.

Now as a medical aesthetician, she helps her patients plan the perfect skin care protocol consisting of products tailored to their goals.

Meet Cameron a...

While looking at photos of herself about five years ago, Maria noticed that an “11” had appeared between her brows. Those pesky parallel lines were so deep that they didn’t tan with the rest of her face. That was the moment she decided to do something.

Maria works as a labor & delivery nurse across the street at Scripps hospital, a friend who already had “beautiful Botox” told her where to go. So she first came to LJC to get...

Many people come to LJC seeking to look less tired, old, or sad – because they are not actually tired, old, or sad! Fillers can only be used for so long before surgery is the only option. LJC facial plastic surgeon Dr. Kiersten Riedler talks about the blepharoplasty, or eyelid surgery and how it solves the very common problem of constantly looking tired.

As you get older, it’s common for eyebrows and upper eyelids to fall. Your sk...

If you think the treatments available at a medical spa aren’t for you because you’re not old enough, think again. Autumn’s story will change how you think about those barely visible fine lines between your brows, around your eyes, and around your mouth.

Find out which treatments have been her secret weapon since she started coming to LJC in her late twenties. From Botox to microneedling to laser skin resurfacing, Autumn shares ho...

Lymphatic massage expert Kathleen Lisson explains the important role of your ~800 lymph nodes in post-op recovery. If the lymphatic system is disrupted or overwhelmed, which can occur with plastic surgery, lymphatic massage, or manual lymphatic drainage is often recommended to help with healing and recovery.

The lymphatic system is how your body processes and eliminates waste. Your immune system is part of the lymphatic system, s...

If you’re disappointed that your breast implants are sagging or haven’t lasted as long as expected, the “internal bra” is a superb breast implant revision technique that uses GalaFLEX, a bioabsorbable mesh-like material to add support.

Breast implants aren’t meant to last forever and at some point, our breasts sag. It happens to all of us, and we inevitably won’t have our 20-year-old breasts in our 50s. If you’ve had implants for...

Taylor’s least favorite body part has always been her arms. Working in the medical spa at La Jolla Cosmetic, Taylor knew there were a lot of ways to approach body contouring, including those arms.

She had already lost 30 lbs, and plastic surgeon Dr. Swistun motivated her to lose 15 more to ensure successful results by showing her what she might look like using special imaging software called Vectra 3D.

After reaching her goal wei...

For our patient Kathleen Lisson, an accident while hiking in the desert led to a broken nose, which led her straight to Dr. Brahme for a rhinoplasty… and while he was at it, a face lift, brow lift, neck lift, chin implant, fat transfer to her cheeks, and a septoplasty to fix her deviated septum.

Not everyone seeks cosmetic surgery for aesthetic reasons; sometimes it’s necessary following an accident or injury.
For Kathleen, a fre...

This year, the primary concern of women researching breast implants became safety instead of cost. LJC’s own Dr. Hector Salazar-Reyes joins us to share his thoughts on breast implant safety and walk us through the FDA’s updated labeling requirements, known as the “black box warning.”

With his unique perspective as a champion of patient safety, Dr. Salazar shares the real history of how patients, doctors, and industry teamed up to...

Corey Dylan from San Diego’s KFBG BIG FM 100.7, tells her story about doing Ultherapy for her face and neck. At 51, she felt like her cheeks were looking jowly and knew there was no way to reverse that with skin care products.

As a radio and tv professional, Corey chose Ultherapy because she knew it would allow her to be in and out of the office within a couple hours without anybody noticing she had anything done.

Hear how sh...

If you aren’t quite ready for a facelift, Ultherapy is a great way to delay surgery by lifting and tightening your face and neck. In the first of a two part series about Ultherapy non surgical skin tightening, Anh Bridgewater gives us the full rundown of what Ultherapy is, what it does, how long it takes to see results, and who is a good candidate.

How does Ultherapy work? Microfocused ultrasound is delivered to the tissue layers...

LJC’s laser specialist Julia Jowett, PA-C, and Cameron Vessey, licensed esthetician, discuss why lasers are such a valuable investment for our skin and how to protect that investment for the long term.

Julia and Cameron walk us through what to do prior to prepare your skin before treatment, which products to use and which ones to avoid in order to keep your skin calm and respond well to the energy from the lasers.

They share adv...

Eight years ago, Gabriela came to LJC for a mommy makeover and she was ecstatic with her results. Last summer, a friend with gorgeous results from 360 lipo inspired her to return for a consultation with Dr. Swistun to see if he could help her get the dream body she always wanted.

12 weeks after surgery, Gabriela joins us to talk about her experience having 360 Lipo to her abdomen and upper back and Renuvion skin tightening, follo...

We catch up with Dr. Luke Swistun a week after his broadband light (BBL) & Halo laser resurfacing treatment to hear about his treatment experience and recovery process.

Dr. Swistun tells us about how his treatment experience compared to his expectations, describing the pain level as “tolerable pins and needles.”

At LJC we offer ProNox to our patients, also known as laughing gas, and Dr. Swistun describes this feeling as surr...

LJC’s laser expert Julia Jowett, PA-C, lets us in on her strategy for treating plastic surgeon Dr. Luke Swistun’s fine lines and sun damage. Dr. Swistun had treatment on a Friday and he was back to the clinic working with a practically healed face on Monday.

To identify problem spots, Julia took photos of Dr. Swistun and his wife with the VISIA Skin Analysis system. She then combined broadband light (BBL) and HALO laser, one of h...

It’s not every day that the surgeon becomes the patient! Moments just before his broadband light (BBL) & Halo laser treatment, Dr. Luke Swistun shares what he thinks it will be like and gives insight into why he’s having laser resurfacing.

We’ll be back with more in this 3 part mini-series, including a chat with Julia Jowett who’s treating Dr. Swistun, and a follow up to hear how he’s doing in a few weeks.

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You might think the only option for reshaping your nose is to undergo a surgical rhinoplasty. But there’s another way to change the shape of your nose that isn’t so serious. Facial plastic surgeon Dr. Kiersten Riedler educates us about the liquid rhinoplasty, known as the “non-surgical nose job.”

In this procedure, an injectable filler like Juvederm Voluma XC is used to change the shape or contour of the nose. Deep indentations or...

Breathing through your nose is one of those basic things you take for granted until you can’t do it anymore. Guest host Laura Cain talks with facial plastic surgeon Dr. Kiersten Riedler about nose surgery, specifically the septoplasty and rhinoplasty surgeries she does to fix the inside and outside of the nose.

If you’re used to going through life with restricted nasal passages, you might not even realize how much better it could...