WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — One Iowa clinic is experiencing more patients eager to go under the knife (or the needle) during quarantine.
It's following a national trend of people seeking plastic surgeries or cosmetic injections, largely because they're able to heal privately under a mask.
"Since the [ban on elective surgeries] came up back at the end of May, we’ve had a ton of injectables going on,' said Dr. Suzie Kuhnen, DO, of Iowa Specialty Surgeons. "The second we were allowed to inject again, I had a crazy busy schedule because people could not wait to get in. Like, 'quarantine has killed my face'!"
Dr. Kuhnen says since many people are working from home or even laid off from jobs, they're able to hide their swelling from the public eye. It's also allowing people who haven't sought procedures in the past to look into it for the first time.
"Lots of people wanting tummy tucks, lots of people wanting breast lifts or augmentations because they have time off at work or they can work from home," said Dr. Kuhnen. "It's a lot easier instead of saying they have to take off a certain time frame to be off of work in general."
Dr. Kuhnen says masks easily hide any swelling from lip injections.
"If you think about like when you bite your lip, how much it swells...you put a needle in your lip, it’s going to swell even more,' said Dr. Kuhnen. "So even, it might not be the product for a few days, it’s just that you’ve had a needle put in there several times. So this is the perfect time for that."
In addition to masks doing patients favors, now that it's winter, scarves help too.
"You have a scarf and a mask covering up things that you have no clue you ever had it done. So that way when you’re done wearing a mask, they’re like wow, you look really good!"