If you have just been told that you are going to need surgery, there probably is a 50/50 chance that you knew this already.  But if it comes as a total surprise, you may be a bit numb at first and feel confused and even panicky.  No one wants to have surgery.  Even people who choose elective surgery, like plastic surgery, would prefer to have someone give them a pill or better yet, wave a magic wand!!

Several people have asked me about the headphones…if they go over the head or behind the neck? The answer is “behind the neck.” This is the newer way that headphones are being made today and we have had 100’s of people try them lying down, walkikng around, leaning back in a comfortable chair or sitting up straight. So far, all of those positions are reported to be perfectly comfortable. I think it’s important to know that, although the headphones come pre-programmed with the music that I have chosen as “ideal for surgery” once your procedure is over you can delete this music if you want to and put any music you want onto the headphones. They come with a USB cable and all instructions. But keep in mind, it’s not about entertainment, it’s about “entrainment” and synchronizing the heart-beat and breathing to the slow, steady pulse of the music! This 60-minute selection of music repeats in a loop until the headphones are turned off, hopefully when you leave the recovery area!
Let me know what your other questions might be! Happy listening!

This is a different kind of post, but I thought it was interesting and I would share it with you. Enjoy! Drug Kingpin who’d had Plastic Surgery nailed by computer voice recognition!

In a story that brings to mind John Woo’s “Face-off” which starred John Travola and Nic Cage as an FBI agent and drug dealer/terrorist who “switched faces” via plastic surgery comes this news off the wires.
Ramirez Abadia, a leader of Colombia’s biggest drug cartel who had his features deliberately altered by plastic surgery, was identified by Brazilian and American anti-drug agents using advanced voice recognition technology.

A write up can be found here from the Washington Post.

U.S. intelligence agencies have used voice recognition for decades, but the technology has become much more effective in recent years through improvements in software that rapidly analyzes vocal frequency patterns, said Jim Hunter, a partner in the Merlin Risks security firm in Sao Paulo.

“The way you use your voice is as individual as fingerprints,” Hunter explained. “If they have a sample of a known voice and they get an unknown sample of sufficient length, they then test the unknown against the known.”

The process is more complex than fingerprinting because peoples’ voices are different when they speak normally, yell or whisper _ but the software breaks down different frequencies and uses statistical analysis to make matches

Good plastic surgery should not be able to make you unrecognizable to family, friends, or intelligence agencies. How would you alter yourself to evade detection? Let’s look at Mr. Ramirez to get some ideas.

If you look at the difference between the “new & improved” drug dealer on the left with some old FBI stock photos on the right & you can see some rather obvious stigmata of plastic surgery.

He apparently was once a handsome man who has been altered into a vaguely humanoid thing. It looks like he’s had

rhinoplasty – note the excessively narrowed upper part of the nose & I think you can see a red scar inside of the left nostril on the upper picture
Face lift & neck liposuction – his face is kind of globally distorted. On the underside of the neck there appears to be a “dent” which can be from sutures or liposuction. He’s also got a very prominent chin cleft which wasn’t evident (to me) on the old blurry photos.
blepharoplasty (eyelids) – he’s got a rounded eye and clear ectorpion or “scleral show” (scar contracture which pulls the lid down and shows more of the ‘white of the eye’) on his left lower lid which a not infrequent complication of lower eyelid surgery
facial implants – these are made from silastic (silicone rubber). I say this because his face has assumed all these weird geometries along the cheek, chin, and jawline. Facelifts and/or fat grafting can do this to some degree, but my money’s on implants.
Rob

Considering that colonoscopies are the best way to catch colon cancer at its earliest stage, people still do whatever they can to put off this routine screening. While it is true that no one looks forward to a colonoscopy, perhaps a little music can help make the experience more pleasant.
That’s the indication of a new study, presented at the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy’s national meeting, which shows that patients who listened to music during their routine colonoscopy required less sedation for the procedure.
“Offering music makes sense,” said Dr. Benjamin Krevsky, lead author of the study and professor of medicine at Temple University School of Medicine. “It has no downside, it may prove beneficial and patients appear to be satisfied with the procedure.”
For the study, Krevsky and colleagues invited 73 men and women to bring music from home or choose from a selection of CDs with the understanding they may be played during their colonoscopy.
Ear buds were taped to the participants’ ears before each procedure and the volume was adjusted so the music was only audible to the patient. Then, after the initial dose of a sedative commonly used during a colonoscopy, it was randomly determined if the music would be played during the procedure itself. Further doses of the sedative were given if necessary.
After the procedure, each patient was asked about their discomfort and pain levels during the procedure and if they had any anxiety.
From their data, the researchers determined that those who listened to music during the colonoscopy needed approximately one less dose of the sedative mediation, while still reporting about the same levels of comfort as those who did not listen to music.
If music does indeed reduce the amount of sedation a patient needs for a colonoscopy, it could lead to reduced healthcare costs and greater satisfaction with the overall procedure.
“Over all, colonoscopies are very, very safe.” Krevsky said. “And while the risks of sedatives are relatively small, in general, less medication is better.”
The type of music the patients selected didn’t seem to matter. Krevsky even suggests toting along your mp3 player to your next colonoscopy. Your favorite tunes may make the procedure a little easier to bear. Karen Barrow 11/20/2006

The concept of using music for pain relief is ancient. People have literally been doing this for thousands of years. The concept of using music during surgery is a little bit newer. For 30 years or more, surgeons have been taking their own music into surgery, but for some reason, no one thought that patients should have their own music. The belief was that the patient was “asleep” and wouldn’t even hear it. What they did not understand was that the human body responds to music, even when asleep…not only the body, but also the mind and the spirit.
Through the process of “entrainment” the body responds to rhythmic music by synchronizing the heartbeat and breathing to that tempo of speed of the music. The mind also responds to slow, steady, soothing music by relaxing the body. The effect: when the body is relaxed, it requires less anesthesia in order to stay “asleep.” Less anesthesia means safer surgery, fewer side-effects and complications and a faster recovery! It’s so simple. If you want to try this, click on the link HERE. Best wishes!

CAROLS by Candlelight in Horsham was extra special this year for one little girl and her parents.
Emily Vettos, 10, was in the Combined Primary Schools Choir, but what made her carols debut special was that six months ago she was deaf.
Her mother Dee said Emily had lived with hearing difficulties for most of her life but was now loving life and singing proudly after an operation.
“Emily was born almost six weeks premature and the tubes in the ears are one of the last things to develop, so she had a lot of pressure building in her ears,” Mrs Vettos said.
“When she was two we realised she was mumbling a lot and so we took her to the doctor and he referred her to an ear, nose and throat surgeon and he found she was profoundly deaf, that she didn’t have a lot of hearing at all.
“He operated on her and widened the tube in both her ears and for a while we thought she was going really well.
“She was very smart, doing well at school but she was very shy and it wasn’t until we had an appointment a year ago that we found she had had a lot of scarring in her right ear and was not actually improving.
“We found out that she had taught herself to lip read and that was how she was getting by.”
Mrs Vettos said that after a second operation, about six months ago, Emily had a new lease on life.
“We had no idea because she never said anything and she had no idea either,” she said. “It wasn’t until she had the surgery that she realised, she came out and said `oh mum, you sound great’. And she’s really come out since then, she’s still got deafness in her right ear, and she will always have some hearing loss, but she’s coming out of her shell and doing a lot better.”
Singing has now become a big part of Emily’s life.
“She joined the school choir about three years ago and used to stand up the back and was really quiet and shy and then after this surgery, because she could hear the beat and was in tune, she sings with gusto. She’s really loud and she loves it,” Mrs Vettos said.
“She likes everything, she’s into 1980s music and Abba at the moment because of Mamma Mia but she’s always singing,” she said.
“We think we’ll get her singing lessons for the coming year, she really does enjoy it.”
Mrs Vettos said seeing Emily sing at carols had been a defining moment for her and husband Con.
“I was so proud, from a little girl who really had the odds against her and was so shy and withdrawn, to come on stage in front of other people and perform, well it was the proudest thing I have ever seen,” she said.
Emily said she had enjoyed singing at the carols celebration.
“It went really good and I liked doing all the actions. It was cool because there were a lot of people that I knew and it was exciting,” she said.
Emily, who wants to be a singer and a photographer when she grows up, said singing made her feel good.
“When I was little I was really embarrassed because I couldn’t do much and now that I can sing I guess I can do a lot more than I used to be able to, it’s a nice feeling,” she said.

Would you like to be part of my research?
November 29th, 2008 · No Comments
All over the world, at any given moment, people are being told that they need to have surgery: back surgery, shoulder surgery, knee replacements, hip replacements, hysterectomies…you get the picture. For almost 20 years I have been assisting people who are having surgery to find the perfect music for them. Now I have created my surgical serenity headphones and downloads so that anyone can use music with their surgery at any time!
Now I need to gather some data specific to my surgical serenity music that I have chosen for my first-time-ever downloads of music for surgery. I need to get not only data, but testimonials! If YOU or someone you know is planning to have surgery, please let me know and I will send them a free download in exchange for some basic information about their before and after subjective experience of the procedure and a sentence or two about the experience.
I will offer this special, time-limited opportunity until I have gathered at least 100 testimonials. Get your requests in NOW!
Sincerely,
Alice H. Cash, Ph.D., LCSW