Sad ruins of Michael Jackson: Doctors share the blame

Yesterday’s death of pop superstar Michael Jackson completes a sad story that began with brilliant achievements and ended with financial and physical ruin, exacerbated by his addiction to plastic surgery and his other personal failings.

Jackson was a boy, then a man, who could bring to life the exquisite dance steps and melodies that he dreamed up, but whose face could not be transformed into his vision of what a face should look like.

The profession of plastic surgery shares the blame with Michael Jackson himself for his multiple plastic surgeries and the dismal result.

“He was a cordial gentleman of immense talent but had a completely unrealistic and disconnected concept of what his physical appearance was. It is a smear on our profession that there were so many people who did operate upon him,” said plastic surgeon Dr. Brent Moelleken of Beverly Hills Moelleken described himself as “one plastic surgeon of many who declined plastic surgery for Mr. Jackson.”

For plastic surgeons, the sequence of nose jobs that Michael Jackson underwent is a cautionary tale.

“There is seldom a plastic surgical conference where before and after photos of Michael’s unfortunate progression of rhinoplasties is not shown,” said plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Persky of Encino. “His rhinoplasty history emphasizes that the surgeon ultimately needs to take responsibility and only perform surgery that is structurally sound. I believe that Michael’s surgeon succumbed to letting Michael push for more changes through surgery. A surgeon must be able to say no, no matter how famous, no matter how much financial gain is involved.”

Plastic surgery John Di Saia of San Clemente noted that for Jackson “his normal features became distorted over time” as a result of excessive plastic surgery.

Complicating Jackson’s self-image and his medical care was the skin disease vitiligo, which caused his skin to lighten. The change in his skin color wasn’t just a choice that Jackson made, according to Dr. Christopher Zachary, chairman of the UCI Department of Dermatology.

“Michael Jackson suffered a form of skin disease which in Caucasians is insignificant, but in people of color can be devastating. For Jackson, who was in the public eye almost from birth, vitiligo must have been acutely embarrassing, a psychologically painful affliction, a curse on his public appearance. No wonder he tried too hard to improve what nature had given him,”

Zachary said doctors now can treat vitiligo more effectively than in the past, using lasers and pigment cell grafting techniques.

Facial plastic surgeon and nose-surgery specialist Dr. Payman Simoni of Beverly Hills, who did not treat Jackson, says the singer’s medically assisted abuse of his face may have been triggered by comments that his father made when Jackson was a boy.

In response to a query from “In Your Face,” Simoni submitted a history of Jackson’s many plastic surgeries, based on Simoni’s educated speculations and observations. This depressing history has been only gently edited:

He was born with cute African-American facial characteristics. However, his father reportedly nicknamed him “Big Nose.” That may have started his long battle with his nose.

People first noticed the changes with his nose during the “Thriller” era when he was just 26 years old. His nose seemed slightly narrower. At this time his nose was still proportional to his face and ethnicity.

Just one year after, Michael’s nose appeared to be even thinner. This could have been the normal progression of healing after rhinoplasty. His nose still looked good for his face.

Two years later, at age 29, Michael seemed to have another nose job and cheeks implant. His dramatic facial changes in conjunction with whiter skin got people talking. He blamed his change in skin color on a medical condition called vitiligo. However, the uniform skin color on his face and neck could hint at the use of skin bleach.

His famous little teeny nostril triangles and a sharp razor bridge of the nose popped into pictures three years later. This was the nose surgery that he really should not have done. Or more importantly his doctor should have refused.

To make matter worse, he now had a manly cleft in his chin and a square jaw.

Most probably, he was not satisfied with his last nose surgery at this time but there was no point of return. In a couple of years, in 1993, his legal allegations and loss of some important advertisement contracts had probably made him more dissatisfied with himself. He probably took out his anger on his nose and underwent another rhinoplasty that devastated his nose to the max. This time his nose was at the worst of his life; an extremely upturned nose with a super-sharp tip. …

In 1997, he shows up with a larger chin implant that made his nose even less in balance. This is the part that is difficult for me to comprehend. We have someone who is extremely “unlucky” with his nose procedures. Now some plastic surgeon decides to go ahead and go extreme on his chin too. This should be warned to plastic surgeons on their first day of their training.

Michael celebrated the new millennium with an eyelid surgery. At 2004, Michael had a reconstructive surgery on his nose by a German plastic surgeon. No significant change was seen but it was definitely somewhat improved.

It is obvious that Michael consistently wanted a thinner nose through his life. Was it his father’s remarks at early age that created his wrong self-image? We would never know. But the lack of complaint on his part against any of his plastic surgeons could indicate that he may have blamed himself throughout.

But equal blame should be placed on those plastic surgeons who blindly did what they were requested.

Michael Jackson, rest in peace, finally.

- http://inyourface.freedomblogging.com/2009/06/26/sad-ruins-of-michael-jackson-doctors-share-the-blame/7211/