Adolescence is a delicate age which is characterized by physical transformations and psychological upheavals.
Any request for cosmetic surgery from a teenager must be examined with the utmost care.
Young people can be more fragile and susceptible to influence that is why it is important to determine the real objective of their motivation.
Is it just a justified complex or unfounded request ?
Even if plastic surgery has become considerably very common, the act must always be motivated and thought out. If this principle is true for an adult, it is even more so for an adolescent. The plastic surgeon must therefore distinguish between two types of requests : those that are linked to a real anomaly, a source of major complexes and those that are fantasized by the adolescent in search of an idealized model.
In the first case, intervention is always possible. It helps to avoid social eviction or major psychological disturbances, for example, a young person with a visible and pronounced deformity will be more likely to withdraw, to be depressed or to fail at school. Some examples of physical defects include :
-Detached ears : they can be corrected with otoplasty.
-Prominent, humpbacked, asymmetrical nose : rhinoplasty can smooth out the defects and reharmonize the face without transforming the expressions.
-Breast hypertrophy in teenagers : an overly large mammary gland can be very unpleasant for a young girl and can be a hindrance to her daily life (sports, difficulty in getting dressed, back pain).
-Teenage gynecomastia : this rare disorder results in hyperplasia (proliferation of breast cells). The teenager has the impression of having breasts and fears the opinions of others. A mammectomy can be considered.
-Tuberous or asymmetrical breasts : surgical correction is the only alternative. It allows the teenager to regain a balanced silhouette without changing the volume of the breasts.
How to react to an unjustified wish ?
Sometimes, teenagers « invent » a complex which turns into an obsession. In this case, the intervention will not reconcile the young person with his/her appearance, on the contrary, it may mask a more serious psychological disorder such as dysmorphophobia. If the complex has no reason to exist, the moral suffering is very real : the surgeon can invite the patient to consult a psychotherapist and must always refuse an operation in this context.
