The pandemic seems to have caused an explosion of plastic surgery across the country, and the New Orleans area is no exception.
"This past holiday season was by far the busiest I've ever had," said Dr. Frank Lau, associate professor of plastic surgery at LSU Health New Orleans. "Our cosmetic surgery volume, my cosmetic surgery volume, went up by about 30 to 40 percent."
Why are so many people seeking out plastic surgery? The American Society of Plastic Surgeons calls it "the zoom boom" -- all that time video conferencing and seeing ourselves in that little square while in a virtual meetings has made some of us aware of sags and bags on our face.
"As we now spend a lot more time on video conference calls, we are more aware of our appearances, especially our facial appearance," Dr. Lau explained." "It's kind of like almost the equivalent of getting a lot more mirror time, which I think most people did not have before."
As a result, he and others in his specialty have been busy.
"That has contributed to a pretty strong uptick in botox, fillers, facial liposuction, neck liposuction, chin augmentation, and then even traditional things such as facelifts and rhinoplasty," said Dr. Lau.