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Broadly DK

When You Have Body Dysmorphia, Coping Through Plastic Surgery Can Be a Nightmare

For people with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), who obsessively fixate on their perceived physical flaws, cosmetic surgery often seems like a viable solution.

After performing cosmetic surgeries for nearly a decade, Dr. Beverly Fischer, head surgeon at the Advanced Center for Plastic Surgery in Maryland, encountered a patient who would haunt her for years.

A young woman in her 20s, who had recently lost weight, was seeking nasal reconstruction surgery. "She told me, 'I don't want a cute turned-up nose, I just want it slightly smaller,'" said Dr. Fischer. "Everything she asked for sounded realistic. I operated on her and when she first came back she was like, 'I don't know if it's small enough. I don't know if I see much of a difference.' I told her that it takes close to a year for the swelling to go away and that she had to be patient."

This dissatisfaction with her surgery resulted in multiple visits to Dr. Fischer's office. The patient would come in, appointment or no appointment, requesting more surgeries, expressing dissatisfaction about teasing from family and friends, and worrying that she couldn't go out at night because she thought she looked like a trauma patient. "She was coming in every week complaining about something," said Dr. Fischer. "She was almost incapacitated to the point where she couldn't go out of her house anymore."

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