My Journey with Back of Head Augmentation in Korea

[Camcam77550]

​

Thank you for sharing your case with us ,

I also had skull correction by bone cement 1 year ago and I m not satisfide by the result at all since it made my headshape even worse and i saw dr song in seoul recently and he said that he can redone my surgery using the cement but in order to to do that first I have to get the bone cement removed from my head and unfortunately he cant help me to remove it since his clinic isnt suitable for such big surgery , he cant help me to find any clinic / dr to do the removal eighter

so I m looking for some tips , recommendations to find a reliable Dr to remove the cement from my hear ..

Acctually i dont trust the doctor I had the surgery thats why I m looking for someone/ somewhere trustworty,better

did you already remove it ? can you share your dr or clinic to do the removal if you know any please ?

thank you in advance ..

Hi,

I know he's been heavily criticized on this forum, but I saw an article by Dr. Barry Eppley highlighting his effective technique for implant removal. In fact, in his case, he turns it 360 degrees and breaks it to remove it via the original incision instead of making a 10 cm incision as with Dr song. Here's the article : https://exploreplasticsurgery.com/p...e-for-pmma-bone-cement-skull-implant-removal/

 

[Camcam77550]

For those wondering how Dr. Song removes an implant if necessary, I asked this question to him and here is the reply :

"Dear ***,

Thank you for your interest in Jogak plastic surgery clinic and reaching out with questions.
The strength of the inserted bone cement during surgery is similar to the strength of the skull, so it does not get damaged or move with impacts below the level that would cause damage to the skull or brain.
If you need to remove the inserted bone cement, an incision of about 10 cm is required, and there may be a visible scar resembling a solid line. Additionally, there is a possibility of minor hair loss occurring.
Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions regarding the operation and any other thing.
Best regards,

Yong Tai Song, M.D., Ph.D.
JOGAK Plastic Surgery Clinic
3rd Fl. 359, Gangnam-daero, Seocho-gu, Seoul, Korea"

 

[Camcam77550]

I also aksed him how extacly the implant do remain still in the head, here is his reply :
"Dear ***;

Thank you for your email.
The inserted bone cement forms a shape that matches the surface of the skull and remains in place without fixation, as it is covered by the periosteum and securely bonded.
Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions regarding the operation and any other thing.

Best regards,"

As I understand it, the implant is bonded to the skull by the pressure of the scalp and the glue effect of the bone cement on the skull.

If you're having this operation, make sure the surgeon checks how much pressure your scalp can bear (which Dr. Song always check). This is extremely important, because if too much bone cement is inserted, it can result in chronic headaches like the person above experienced.

Hope it helps !

 

[Camcam77550]

​

Thank you for sharing your case with us ,

I also had skull correction by bone cement 1 year ago and I m not satisfide by the result at all since it made my headshape even worse and i saw dr song in seoul recently and he said that he can redone my surgery using the cement but in order to to do that first I have to get the bone cement removed from my head and unfortunately he cant help me to remove it since his clinic isnt suitable for such big surgery , he cant help me to find any clinic / dr to do the removal eighter

so I m looking for some tips , recommendations to find a reliable Dr to remove the cement from my hear ..

Acctually i dont trust the doctor I had the surgery thats why I m looking for someone/ somewhere trustworty,better

did you already remove it ? can you share your dr or clinic to do the removal if you know any please ?

thank you in advance ..

If you don't mind my asking, who was the doctor you had the operation with?​

 

[SK2]

I also aksed him how extacly the implant do remain still in the head, here is his reply :
"Dear ***;

Thank you for your email.
The inserted bone cement forms a shape that matches the surface of the skull and remains in place without fixation, as it is covered by the periosteum and securely bonded.
Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any questions regarding the operation and any other thing.

Best regards,"

As I understand it, the implant is bonded to the skull by the pressure of the scalp and the glue effect of the bone cement on the skull.

If you're having this operation, make sure the surgeon checks how much pressure your scalp can bear (which Dr. Song always check). This is extremely important, because if too much bone cement is inserted, it can result in chronic headaches like the person above experienced.

Hope it helps !

This is very clear and informative, thank you! And yes he does check how much your scalp can take. I think it's paramount not to only be concerned with the aesthetic goal but also bearing in mind the what it could happen if too much bone cement is used.

 

[mrtst93]

Hello, I still think your result is good and believe there is not a standard paradigmatic headshape but I appreciate that you have a specific shape in mind you'd like to achieve. I am happy that your local clinic is able to do this so you don't have to do have it removed in Korea. Just out of curious, did they explain how they would do it? Do they have to separate the bone cement from the skull? I am trying to understand how the cement and skull are attached, in order to have a insight how secure they are in the long term.

Thanks!

Hey! Thank you, but yeah. Even though my implant causes no problems and most people would agree that it looks good, I felt uncomfortable with it from the first moment. I feel better now since I did some slight improvements to my shape using a few ml of hyaulornic acid, but on longterm I think I would be happier having it removed and just try to get some slight volume increase using fat transfer.
I also did a CT scan, because my local clinic wanted to check how the implant looks like. They are quite confident with the removal. I explained to them everything I know about the technique (e.g. that it is right on the bone and under the bone skin and only gets attached to the bone by the pressure of the scalp, the perfect matching form on the natural bone and a vacuum suction effect.

The only thing I still dont understand is that Song says the scar would be 10-12cm because I guess he has to take out the whole implant in one piece. However I heard some other people saying that he told them person to person that the implant would be removed in several pieces...
My local clinic says they could also imagine that it should be possible to just crack/break the implant in 2 pieces using pliers.

The doctor where I made the CT wrote that my implant is about 8cm wide. So hopefully the scar would be less than 10cm if I get it removed.

I can share some pictures of my CT with you - might be quite interesting for all of you

 

[mrtst93]

Hi,

I know he's been heavily criticized on this forum, but I saw an article by Dr. Barry Eppley highlighting his effective technique for implant removal. In fact, in his case, he turns it 360 degrees and breaks it to remove it via the original incision instead of making a 10 cm incision as with Dr song. Here's the article : https://exploreplasticsurgery.com/p...e-for-pmma-bone-cement-skull-implant-removal/

Thanks for your posts and the link. I also checked out a lot of Eppley's articles. Just speaking about them - he shares a lot of valuable information at least.

Regarding the mail answers from Dr. Song I think he could be a little bit more precised in his anwers. I received similar answers from him months ago. But since he can not guarantee you to reinsert bonce cement after removal and create a smaller implant right after the removal, the risk and costs going to him again might not be worth it. This is why I probably will decide for my local clinic.

 

[mrtst93]

Oh and one more thing: since I'm balded and have a SMP/micropigmentation (hair tattoo), I went for a touch up session shortly where I also asked them to cover up my 6cm scar, which was already barley visible, but now its like 99% invisible. So even if I should get a longer big scar due to the removal.. I think after 6-12 months some pigments will fix the scar again

 

[kats001]

Sad to hear this. If you havent already.. would you mind sharing more information? What technique did you decide for? silicon implant or bone cement? And what clinic? Had a CT too and they can see nothing wrong there, all looks like fine and I also do not have any issues with bone cement so far (almost 1.5 years post OP)

Hi, Thank you for your sympathy. It was a PEEK material screwed in with titanium screws. I had it out a few weeks ago. Healing of the new scar over the old one has been much worse this time, with lots of pain. I still cannot rest on the back of my head for too long, as the area has not healed completely so it is a bit uncomfortable. London.

 

[mrtst93]

Hi, Thank you for your sympathy. It was a PEEK material screwed in with titanium screws. I had it out a few weeks ago. Healing of the new scar over the old one has been much worse this time, with lots of pain. I still cannot rest on the back of my head for too long, as the area has not healed completely so it is a bit uncomfortable. London.

Hey! Ok, yeah I heard about some clinics/surgeons who prefer using titanium screws with PEEK implants.. to me this sounds quite scary and dangerous. You got it removed by the same clinic? And even tho they closed the incision in the same way like before the scar is healing much worse? I mean as far as I know scar tissue should be removed (cut away) when closing an incision for the 2nd time, so the "healthy" skin and tissue can heal better again. If the removal was just a few weeks ago you could try to support the healing with special scar lotions, a dermaroller and silicon stripes maybe. Wishing that it gets better over the next weeks! Would appreciate an update soon if you like to share

 

[Kalakhush]

HI,
anyone from Germany here who plans to go to Korea (or some other place) for the head augumentation?

 

[SK2]

Oh and one more thing: since I'm balded and have a SMP/micropigmentation (hair tattoo), I went for a touch up session shortly where I also asked them to cover up my 6cm scar, which was already barley visible, but now its like 99% invisible. So even if I should get a longer big scar due to the removal.. I think after 6-12 months some pigments will fix the scar again

Oh wow I actually can't see your 6cm scar from surgery, is this from your micropigmentation session? Did you ever get any depressed scar in the first place? If so, how did you treat it to have it invisible?

 

[SK2]

Hi, Thank you for your sympathy. It was a PEEK material screwed in with titanium screws. I had it out a few weeks ago. Healing of the new scar over the old one has been much worse this time, with lots of pain. I still cannot rest on the back of my head for too long, as the area has not healed completely so it is a bit uncomfortable. London.

I am sorry to hear that you had big issue with your the implant, I hope now it has helped after its removal And I agree, nothing is worth it if you have to suffer unexplained and chronic pain. Hope you are slowly recovering.
Was it at David Dunaway where you did the Peek implant? I did also look into his practice but since not much public information is available, as well as the high costs and large trauma of his method I decided not to enquire further.

 

[SK2]

Hi, Thank you for your sympathy. It was a PEEK material screwed in with titanium screws. I had it out a few weeks ago. Healing of the new scar over the old one has been much worse this time, with lots of pain. I still cannot rest on the back of my head for too long, as the area has not healed completely so it is a bit uncomfortable. London.

Also would like to add, with bone cement(MMA) method by Dr. Song, there are off limit areas that he would go, say lower part of the back of the head and the sides where a lot of muscles are. I was wondering if it was the same with PEEK and titanium screws method, and if this was not observed whether your headache could have been derived from this.

 

[mrtst93]

Oh wow I actually can't see your 6cm scar from surgery, is this from your micropigmentation session? Did you ever get any depressed scar in the first place? If so, how did you treat it to have it invisible?

The 6cm scar from Dr. Song healed very well, but it was depressed in my case. Since I have no hair you could cleary see that the scar area is sunken in, especially from the profile view there is a visible bump.
I was able to lift the scare tissue a little bit to make it less noticeable by incjecting hyaluronic acid (same fillers like I used for a small additional volume at the lower part of the back of the head).
So fillers also work in scar tissue which is great. The pigments become a bit lighter and fade partially some days after the micropigmentation treatment. So the scar is still visible if one looks closely. For a perfect scar camouflage I would need a specific session where they use a longer needle to bring the pigments deeper into the scar tissue so they can settle in better and stay longer.