Best Low-Cost Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery Abroad: Medical Tourism

Seeking more affordable cosmetic surgery treatments outside your residing country is a common practice around the world.

The most common cosmetic surgery procedures that are done abroad include: corrective jaw surgery (underbite or overbite), nose surgery, breast enhancement, facial contouring,  body contouring, filler treatments, and laser resurfacing. On the other hand, usual plastic surgery include breast reconstruction, congenital defect repair, hand surgery, scar revisions, and others.

Some of the most popular regions when it comes to high-quality treatments are Europe and Asia. So, the best cosmetic and plastic surgeons in the world can be found in countries as South Korea, Greece, Spain and Turkey.

What is Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery?

Cosmetic and plastic surgery both deal with improving patients’ physical appearance, but these represent two different medical specialties with different procedures, treatments, and goals.

Cosmetic surgery is focused on the improvement of healthy body parts that patients want to change and make them look more aesthetically appealing or more beautiful by the cultural and personal standards.

Plastic surgery is focused on correcting dysfunctional areas of the body. It uses various procedures, treatments, and techniques in order to reconstruct damaged tissue, dysfunctional areas, and body defects caused by accidents, traumas, burns, or diseases. Therefore, it is often called reconstructive surgery as well.

Plastic and Cosmetic Surgery Traveling Guide

There are three main reasons for traveling abroad for the sake of cosmetic and plastic surgery:

• Particularly skilled surgeons and practitioners
• Cost-effective procedures
• -Treatment discreteness

International Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons has published a digital guide for plastic and cosmetic surgery tourists.

If you want to organize medical travel with a surgery as the main goal, you should mind these several important aspects of the trip:

• Do your own research and find the most suitable hospital and clinics for your issues
• Find the highly qualified cosmetic practitioner
• Communicate directly to the doctor or the clinic’s staff
• Prepare the health insurance
• Make a safety checklist
• Think about the possible complications
• Find accommodation for the recovery period
• Check if you need a visa and if you do so, start your visa application process

Young Adults Traveling Abroad for Cosmetic and Plastic Procedures

Cosmetic surgery should be approached with caution, especially in the case of teenagers and young adult patients who are traveling abroad for the purpose of having cosmetic procedures done.

Since the results are usually permanent, it is of the utmost importance to choose the right certified surgeon and make sure there is a pre-operational consulting practice included. It is the best way to go through the patient’s motivation and see if there is a psychological issue lying beneath, which is often the Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD).

Cosmetic and Plastic Surgery Treatments

• Abdominal etching (for patients that are already in good shape); LipoSite on abdominal etching.
• Arm lift surgery, brachioplasty (tighten up skin under the upper arms and removed excess fat if needed).
• Body lift surgery (includes different types of cosmetic surgery such as butt lift, thigh lift, and tummy tuck).
• Breast augmentation.
• Breast lift surgery, mastoplasty, mastopexy, (raising sagging breasts upon the chest by modifying the breasts).
• Breast reduction surgery, reduction mammoplasty (reduce weight and volume of the breasts).
• Brow lift surgery, forehead lift, browplasty (elevate a drooping eyebrow).
• Buttock augmentation, Brazilian butt lift, butt implants (increase the size of buttocks).
• Buttock lift surgery, butt lift, gluteoplasty (removing skin and fat from the buttocks).
• Calf augmentation surgery, calf enlargement, calf implants (increase the size and shape of the calves).
• Cellulite treatment, gynoid lipodystrophy (treatment of Cellulite with Shock Wave Therapy e.g. Acoustic Wave Therapy (AWT), Extracorporeal shock wave therapy (ESWT) or Radial shock wave therapy (RSWT)).
• Cervicoplasty (remove excess skin from the neck area).
• Cheek augmentation, cheek implants, malar augmentation, malar implants (augment or change the contour of the cheek).
• Cheek reduction, buccal fat removal surgery (remove excess fat from the cheeks to reshape the cheek contour).
• Chin augmentation, chin implant, mentoplasty, genioplasty (reshape or enhance the chin).
• Chin reduction, mentoplasty, genioplasty (reshape or reduce a prominent chin).
• Cleft lip repair surgery (reconstruct the shape of the lip and nose).
• Cleft palate repair surgery (repair defects of the hard and soft palate).
• Dermal fillers (injecting fillers under the surface of the facial skin to restore a younger look).
• Derma peeling, deep chemical peel, chemexfoliation (minimally invasive procedure to improve damaged skin and skin with deep facial wrinkles).
• Dermabrasion, microdermabrasion, dermaplaning (surgical skin planing by deeper abrasion of the skin).
• Dimple surgery, dimple creation, dimpleplasty (minimally invasive surgical procedure to create dimples).
• Ear surgery, ear reshaping, otoplasty (improve ear structure, shape, position or proportion).
• Endo-laser-lipo lift (combination of three facelift techniques; lipostructure, laser, and endoscopic facelift).
• Endolifting, Endoscopic Facelift (correction of drooping of skin (temples / cheeks / chin / neck) on young or middle aged patients).
• Eyelid canthopexy, lower eyelid surgery (tighten and lift the lower eyelids by supporting the eye, reduce eye bags).
• Eyelid canthoplasty, lower eyelid surgery (tighten and lift the lower eyelids by reshaping the eye, reduce eye bags, can create cat eye look).
• Eyelid surgery, eyelid lift, blepharoplasty (remove excess skin, fat and lax muscle from the upper and lower eyelids, lift drooping upper lids and reduce eye bags).
• Face silhouette lift, mini facelift, thread lift, suture lift (lift sagging areas of the face).
• Facelift MACS (Minimal Access Cranial Suspension), S-lift, soft lift, mini lift (small facial rejuvenation focusing on the jaw line and sagging cheeks).
• Facelift mini, feather facelift, APTOS Lift, suture suspension facelift (gentle lifting of selected face areas).
• Facelift surgery, rhytidectomy (remove wrinkles and sagging of the face).
• Facial feminization surgery, FFS (set of reconstructive surgical procedures that alter typically male facial features to typical female facial features.
• Forehead lift (reduce enlarged appearance of forehead by repositioning the hairline).
• Gynecomastia surgery (breast-reduction surgery for men).
• Hair microsurgery, micrografts, minigrafts (inserting microsurgical hair grafts, one by one, into the bald area)
• Hair transplantation (move individual hair follicles from one part of the body to a bald part of the body, e.g. male baldness, eyebrows, and chest hair).
• Hand Surgery (surgery of the hand, the wrist and the peripheral nerves of the upper limb).
• Hymenoplasty (restoration of the hymen).
• Hymenotomy (removal or opening of hymen).
• Jaw augmentation, jaw implants, mandibular augmentation (create a stronger and more defined jaw line).
• Jaw reduction, (to narrow the jaw).
• Labial reduction surgery, labiaplasty (cosmetic genital surgery of the folds of skin surrounding the vulva).
• Laser hair removal (remove unwanted hair by destroying the hair follicle with pulses of laser light).
• Laser skin surfacing, laser skin resurfacing (to decrease the facial wrinkling).
• Lip augmentation, lip enhancement, lip rejuvenation, lip lift (increase the lips fullness through enlargement using dermal fillers).
• Lip contouring, lip definition, lip reshaping (dermal filler treatment which gives distinct definition to the border outline of the lips).
• Lip reduction (decrease size of lips).
• Lipostructure, structural fat grafting (improve contours of the face).
• Liposuction, lipoplasty, liposculpture, lipostructure, suction-assisted lipectomy (sculpt the body by eliminating excess fat where needed).
• Nasal septum deviation, submucous septal resection, septal reconstruction, septoplasty (straighten a deviated nasal septum – the partition between the two nostrils).
• Neck lift, platysmaplasty (remove loose skin or excess skin along the jaw line and on the neck).
• Nipple correction, inverted nipple correction surgery (correction of inverted nipples).
• Nipple reduction (reshape nipples or reduce areola).
• Nose surgery, nose correction, nose job, rhinoplasty (reshape the nose).
• Pectoral implants, pec implants, chest implants, pectoral augmentation (improve chest contour for men).
• Pediatric plastic surgery (plastic surgery of children).
• Penis enlargement surgery, bigger penis, bigger dick.
• Post-bariatric body contouring (treat excess skin after  bariatric surgery).
• Reconstructive surgery (surgery of abnormal structures of the body).
• Scar removal, scar reduction (remove scars).
• Transgender surgery, gender reassignment surgery, sSex reassignment surgery, sex reconstruction surgery, SRS, genital reconstruction surgery, sex realignment surgery, sex change, feminizing genitoplasty, penectomy, orchiectomy, orchidectomy, vaginoplasty, masculinizing genitoplasty, metoidioplasty, phalloplasty (change sex from male to female or from female to male).
• Spider vein treatment, spider vein surgery, telangiectasias, sclerotherapy (reduction in spider veins).
• Temple implants (change the silhouette of the face by giving fullness to the temples).
• Thigh lift by De.C.Li.Ve. technique, “Dermo Cruro Lipectomy Vertical” (thigh lift with special technique to minimize scars in the inner or outer thigh area).
• Thigh lift, thighplasty (Improve thigh contours by correcting loose skin and removing excess fat in the inner and outer thighs. Can also reduce the cellulite.).
• Tummy tuck surgery, abdominoplasty (remove excess fat and skin to get a more flat stomach profile).
• Varicose vein treatment, varicose vein surgery, varicose vein removal (reduction in varicose veins).
• Vaserlipo (ultrasound body contouring); Vaser website.

Browse the Medical Tourism Directory

By searching through the specialties and treatments on the Medical Tourism Directory you can find the best hospitals in the world. With several search options you can find the best Korean plastic surgery, information about low-cost cosmetic surgery in Turkey, information about liposuction cost in Spain, and much more, depending on your needs.