DXL Radio / Vaser

Dr. John Millard on DXL Radio, July, 2008

June 25, 2012

toned

This amazing interview with a muscle builder magazine radio show reveals that models who are photographed for muscle magazines get VASER® Hi Def in order to be portrayed in those magazines.

Dr. Millard also declares that this procedure could be as significant as the invention of the breast implant.

 TRANSCRIPT, w/ time codes:

 HOST: Joining us today on DXL Radio and Magazine is Dr. John A. Millard, who is from Lone Tree, Co, a suburb of Denver. All right, you’ve been living there for a few years I understand and you’ve come up with something that I want to talk with you for several minutes on line today.

DR. MILLARD: Yes, in fact, what it is, is called VASER® Hi Def, the VASER’s the ultra sound part of it. It was invented by Dr. Alfredo Hoyos in Bogata, Columbia some five years ago. And he sort of kept it to himself for two or three years and when I was lecturing down there I discovered this incredible technique where you could take fat and sculpt it much like Michelangelo would have sculpted stone, and change the patient’s shape and give them a more athletic appearance.

HOST: Well let’s give us a little history about plastic surgery. How far back does that actually go?

DR. MILLARD: 1:00: Liposuction’s been around since the early 1970s. And, the disadvantage to liposuction from the time it was invented in the early 70’s until about the turn of the century here, um, as you really couldn’t have great control in your abilities to sculpt. The technologies were really relegated to allowing us to really “debulk” people, take their bulges down. But we didn’t have a fine tool like we have today to be able to sculpt. It was the invention of the VASER technology by Sound Surgical that allowed us to take the next step. VASER Hi Def represents a marriage between art and technology.

HOST 1:36: Now, some people probably just thought the light bulb just went on, they said, “Ha, this gentleman can help me get my abs to look just absolutely perfect. What kind of people are coming to visit you, and obviously there’s good conversation that goes on before you even get them into surgery.

DR. MILLARD: 1:52: Correct. Correct. The traditional patient that’s usually seeking us out interestingly enough is not the traditional lipo patient. In fact, the majority of our patients are working out between three to six times per week, and they’re just not seeing the results that they think they should be seeing. They’re often portrayed in muscle magazines around the country.Interestingly enough, unless you spend about eight hours in the gym and eat broccoli for breakfast, lunch and dinner you’re probably not going to look like those muscle magazines. This actually takes advantage of the fact that it can be very aggressive at removing fat over the patient’s muscles, and because of that, it sort of does what a body builder would traditionally do. He sheds the last bit of fat to uncover his muscles. Most of us can develop the definition underneath our fat. It’s just being able to show it.

HOST 2:43: How detailed is this compared to say five years ago with VASER Hi Def?

DR. MILLARD: 2:50: VASER Hi Def is MUCH more detailed than traditional liposuction. Um, traditional liposuction, like I said, was a fairly harsh technique and it didn’t allow for precision sculpting or there was nothing gentle about it. The VASER machine actually allows us to very precisely remove fat where we want to and leave fat behind where we want to leave it behind to enhance some of the definition, at and around and between muscle groups. So in the big picture we’re actually using the patient’s own muscles. We’re using them as a template, and taking some of the fat over it and around it an enhancing what they already have.

HOST 3:28: Not to be like David Letterman, but he does that top ten list that we all see on the weeknights… to put in a list of… what would be the top things folks would be going in to see you for?

DR. MILLARD: 3:40: Well, for VASER Hi Def they’d be coming in for getting better definition of their six-pack in the male, or the two-pack that the female’s looking for, the definition around there. Ah, typically a male would come to me for enhancement of his pectoralis major muscles, his major muscles. We can stick the fat we remove from his belly into his pectoralis muscles to enhance the size and definition of his pectoralis muscles. Typically, men are now coming in to enhance the size of their sculpted biceps and triceps on their arms. Ah, women are coming for better definition of their gluteal area, and much better definition of their waistline. This procedure, because of its ability to be precise and so aggressive allows us to move women’s waistlines up and down and around. I can give a short young lady who comes in and give her the appearance of a long very long waistline with this technology.

HOST 4:34: You’ve been making some of the rounds with the other media, and some of the other media that I’ve watched you and chatting about some things in general… are people somewhat scared to go see you for the first time… sort of like seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist… you sort of fit in that same, the realm of plastic surgeon, you really have to be determined to do it.

DR. MILLARD: 4:54: Well you know what’s interesting that you mentioned that. All plastic surgery patients are nervous when they come in the first time, a) to shed their clothes and be exposed to the doctor, and to put themselves under the knife for the procedure. I will tell you this, interestingly enough… the VASER Hi Def patient tends to be so much more motivated, in part because they’re already spending time and money and energy on their body in the gym, they typically have a little less fear, they’re actually a little more direct in what they want, and it’s been my, at least my observation that most of these patients have less apprehension than traditional plastic surgery patients.

HOST 5:29: John, people today are very impatient about getting something done, as simple as going and getting a Starbucks coffee, they want the double latté, bla bla bla, they go like that… they want everything quick, quick… what’s the fastest you can do this, and how do you slow them down? Obviously you do. That’s your job as a doctor. Patience is a virtue here.

DR. MILLARD: 5:49: It is, and you know, the funny thing you mentioned is the majority of these patients, it’s not uncommon for them to have been working out continuously for four years, so by the time they arrive to me I think they’ve been very patient. And they have what I need to have underneath the fat to sculpt. In fact what they’ve given me is something, I’ve got the entire muscle group as a template in every area, something they’re been working out. Um, I’m the final step, so their patience… they don’t have to have patience any more. At the end of the day they’ll have their results within two months after they have this procedure. They’ll start to see the results in two weeks, and so the answer to that is like I said, a little misleading, most of these people have already had patience because they’ve already tried to get these results without the final result.

HOST 6:35: Talk about body contouring, specifically when somebody comes in and says I want “this” what are they looking for?

DR. MILLARD: 6:50: Well, the traditional lipo patient comes in and mostly wants to just lose some weight, wants to reduce volume in certain areas typically, their legs, their tummy or their flanks. That’s the traditional lipo patient, and by all means, we do a VASER lipo, with the same technology because we can be much more aggressive again, if when we’re not “sculpting,” when we’re doing a traditional approach to lipo, meaning the traditional patient, about 50% of those patients typically work out, and we can reduce their (fat) volume pretty aggressively, and that’s what they’re looking for.

The VASER Hi Def patient on the other hand is much more specific. Typically a VASER Hi Def patient …. I had a gentleman fly in from Canada this week, was very precise about what he wanted. He wanted definition on his pecks, he wanted definition around his abs, he wanted definition around his triceps and biceps; they know their bodies much better. People who work out, and work out and spent the time and energy on their bodies tend to know their bodies better and tend to have a much higher level of request in regards to what they want. But it’s interesting… we can provide that.

HOST 7:50: Is it safe to say the better shape you are, the easier it is for you to heal, or is that just me making up a fairly tale here?

DR. MILLARD: 7:57: No, actually, I’ve always enjoyed working with patients who work out, even before we did VASER Hi Def, my patients that worked out would get back in about half the time as the traditional patient who didn’t work out… in part because they know how to stretch, they carry a slightly higher pain tolerance, they’re used to having a little pain with their workout, and they recover quicker, they’re much healthier.

HOST 8:18: This might be a tough question, but I’ll ask it, John do you say no to people on occasion?

DR. MILLARD: 8:24: Absolutely! In the women’s population it might be because they don’t work out, they’re too heavy, they have excess skin from pregnancy, ahh, a majority of those patients get referred, in our particular situation, we have a center called bod-e-evolve where we actually offer them the entire package… nutrition, fitness, coaches and everything… and we’ll send them (patients) to them and they’ll come back to us when they’ve lost the weight. If they need skin removed we’ll do that procedure, then six months later they can actually come back and have the (VASER) Hi Def procedure. So it’s a combination of, if you have too much skin then you need to have a procedure before you have the (VASER) Hi Def procedure, and if they’re too heavy we don’t just send them out the door, we actually refer them to our in-house nutritionist or in-house fitness coaches, and a lot of those patients end up back in our office.

HOST: 9:07: Let me ask you a couple of technical questions. Once somebody does get to surgery are they put out or are they still awake? Can we start there?

DR. MILLARD: 9:15: Traditionally in our office we use something called an epidural which means they actually stay awake through the procedure. They’re awake but sedated. Their perception is that they won’t remember anything – but they’re not certainly put to sleep as you would, say with traditional anesthesia, which is very attractive to our patients… Um, a lot of our patients are worried about going to sleep. 95% of our patients choose not to with this technique.

HOST: 9:38: Let’s talk about equipment. What are you using on them, without getting too graphic or over the top of most of our heads here?

DR. MILLARD: 9:46: What we’re using is a state-of-the-art ultra sound technology, and it’s called VASER®. It was designed about five years ago by this brilliant research PH.D up here in Colorado, and it’s a technology that uses essentially, sound, to shake the fat loose. It shakes the fat loose as you would shake the grapes off the vine, but it leaves everything else relatively untouched, which is important. There’s nerves and blood vessels and connective tissue in there. For the patient, that’s perceived as: less bleeding, less pain, faster recovery. And it’s VASER technology, the VASER technology has a fancy name, stands for Vibration Amplification Sound Energy at Resonance, but what it is is it’s a tool that’s tuned for human fat in a way that maximizes its removal, and minimizes injury to surrounding tissue. We’re able to then gently and precisely sculpt the body because of that.

HOST: 10:43: Once you’re finished with that person, the procedure, are they back in bed, what’s happening to them? I know you just did this like a half an hour before we talked.

DR. MILLARD: 10:54 We actually have an active program of massage and a little bit of laser and external ultra sound that allows them, almost every one of my patients can be back in the gym in 15 days, even the (VASER) Hi Def patients, partly because we’ve developed the technique postoperatively to allow them to recover much faster. And so now they’re in our spa every day getting a massage for about two weeks… and they do fantastic with that. It allows them to get back to work in half the time of traditional recovery techniques.

HOST: 11:25: Sometimes it takes somebody to go down the deep end before they realize they want to look like they want that six-pack on the beach and have a new meaning in their life, and, I’m sure they’re bummed out by that, but when they walk out at the end of that this must be gratifying for you.

DR. MILLARD: 11:42: OH! It’s the most enjoyable procedure I do. It’s not only gratifying because you essentially start with this amorphous piece of clay and end up with essentially something that’s very defined, and you see it on the table from a surgeons standpoint, but what’s even more gratifying is that my patients increase their motivation to work out. They find themselves spending even more time at the gym. I mean, approximately 95% of patients seeking VASER Hi Def are already in a fitness routine and they report to me coming back increasing in that fitness routine. And so, and that compares to, I mean less than half the patients who have traditional lipo are in a fitness routine. So I’ve got a great group of patients to work with, very self motivated, and it’s very rewarding.

HOST: 12:24: Let’s talk about demographics. The youngest person you’ve ever worked on and the most senior?

DR. MILLARD: 12:30: The youngest gentleman was seventeen years old, just about to turn eighteen, he was just a month or two away from turning eighteen, and the oldest patient we’ve worked on thus far is 62 years old. We have a 69-year old Ex-Olympian scheduled, and a majority of my patients are between the ages of 35 and 60, um with a big chunk of them in their early 50s. I do a lot of very physically fit men in their early 50s who are kind of fighting that middle age bulge a little bit despite working out.

HOST: 13:04: Is it a cash business?

DR. MILLARD: 13:07 It’s a cash business, like most plastic surgery, insurance doesn’t cover it. I will tell you, just from a business standpoint, VASER Hi Def is actually probably one of the more expensive procedures we do in plastic surgery but patients sign up for it just about faster than just about anything else I do. I think it speaks to the demographic. This is a population that’s used to spending money on themselves for self-improvement. And this is what this is. This is an adjunct to your self-improvement regiment, and your fitness regiment.

HOST: 13:39: Now, I have a couple examples of people that I know that have had plastic surgery over the years, and some that goes back, gees it must go back, I’m showing my age here, 15 or 20 years, the first gal that I know, and she wanted to show it off to us, which is an unusual after this because it’s an attribute I guess as anything, and my sister, who quite honestly, I don’t stare much at John (chuckle), but she had liposuction on her breast reduction and a tummy tuck, and just to see these people that I know well enough over the years, just to see what they feel like and the recovery time is pretty amazing from old days to today. Uh, this must just be the best part of your job, no question.

DR. MILLARD: 14:23: I’m privileged to be doing what I’m doing. I come into work every day more excited than the last. In part because we continue to develop new techniques even from these techniques, and so right now VASER Hi Def is on the cutting edge of not only lipo but plastic surgery, and I think this procedure could be as significant as the invention of the breast implant.

HOST: 14:43: And you’re also teaching this aren’t you to others?

DR. MILLARD: 14:44: Yes we are. We’re teaching it. We started teaching internationally. So far we’ve taught 26 surgeons world-wide, and we’re starting our domestic teaching in August.

HOST: 14:47: If someone is interested in finding out more information about your procedure with the VASER Hi Def, do you have a website they can go to?

DR. MILLARD: We do. Millardplasticsurgery.com There’s some pretty detailed explanations and illustrations, so it’s Millardplasticsurgery.com

http://www.millardplasticsurgery.com/

HOST: 15:15 John, I want to thank you very much for your time today, and I know you’re a very busy guy, and this sounds fascinating and I know DXL Magazine is also going to cover it for one of their editions coming up as well.

END OF INTERVIEW w/ DR. MILLARD.