Over the last few years, Breast Implant Illness - or BII - has been a much-discussed topic on social media. In this episode, we’re covering a broader term we’ve coined as “breast implant fatigue.” Whether you’re no longer happy with your implant size, you feel you might have BII, or you’re experiencing pain around your implants, there are many valid reasons to reach out to your surgeon and discuss your options. In this episode, we discuss what we know about BII, who should have their implants removed, and who might just need a new device or adjustment for relief.

A few key takeaways from this episode include:

• Breast implant devices were not meant to last forever. Over time, you may need a device exchange, breast lift, or other procedure. With almost every cosmetic surgery, you’re signing up for two or three surgeries over the course of your life to maintain your results.
• Breast implant illness has been a hot topic, and the truth is it’s typically identified by ruling out everything else that could be causing adverse symptoms. There’s no guarantee that removing your implants will eliminate your symptoms.
• At the end of the day, if you are unhappy with your breast implants for any reason, talk to your surgeon. If you’re no longer in touch with that surgeon or have moved, reach out to a local board-certified cosmetic surgeon to discuss your desired results.

Welcome to HKB Uncut: the Health, Knowledge, and Beauty Podcast. On this show, Dr. Bill Kortesis & Dr. Guarav Bharti unpack the newest techniques and trends in cosmetic surgery, how to tune out the social media noise to make empowered decisions about your appearance, and what you need to know before you book a procedure. 

Dr. Bill Kortesis and Dr. Guarav are board certified plastic surgeons and Co-Founders of HKB Cosmetic Surgery, an award-winning practice with eleven locations across six states. 

Connect with HKB: 

• Website
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Before & After Gallery
• Blog
• TikTok

Making a decision to get a cosmetic procedure should be based on facts and great conversations with your surgeon, but you might have heard some plastic surgery myths on social media that are giving you second thoughts. In this episode, we’re addressing some of those myths head-on to put your mind at ease. There are many more we could cover, so let us know in the comments on YouTube or Spotify if you liked this episode, or leave your own plastic surgery myths in the comments!

We debunk several myths in this episode, including:

• Fat grafting is risk-free
• BBLs are the same everywhere you get them
• You can’t work with two surgeons at the same time
• You should be able to jump into normal life immediately after surgery
• Plastic surgery is always immediately noticeable
• And many more!

Welcome to HKB Uncut: the Health, Knowledge, and Beauty Podcast. On this show, Dr. Bill Kortesis & Dr. Guarav Bharti unpack the newest techniques and trends in cosmetic surgery, how to tune out the social media noise to make empowered decisions about your appearance, and what you need to know before you book a procedure.

Dr. Bill Kortesis and Dr. Guarav are board certified plastic surgeons and Co-Founders of HKB Cosmetic Surgery, an award-winning practice with eleven locations across six states.

Connect with HKB:

• Website
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Before & After Gallery
• Blog
• TikTok

As an award-winning plastic surgery practice with locations in six states, we see a wide range of plastic surgery cases. In this episode, we’re recapping the top procedures and trends we saw in 2025, what we think will be trending in 2026, and the newest advancements in plastic surgery you need to know about. Whether you’re interested in a cosmetic procedure for yourself, or you’re just trying to understand what you’re hearing about on social media, this episode is for you!

In this episode, we cover:

• The procedures we performed the most in 2025
• How we’ve seen the pendulum swing with fillers
• The #1 skin tightening procedure we see in our practice
• What we want people to know about GLP-1s in 2026
• Innovations in fat grafting you can leverage for great results
• The art of the preventative face lift
• Maintaining results after a cosmetic procedure

Welcome to HKB Uncut: the Health, Knowledge, and Beauty Podcast. On this show, Dr. Bill Kortesis & Dr. Guarav Bharti unpack the newest techniques and trends in cosmetic surgery, how to tune out the social media noise to make empowered decisions about your appearance, and what you need to know before you book a procedure.

Dr. Bill Kortesis and Dr. Guarav are board certified plastic surgeons and Co-Founders of HKB Cosmetic Surgery, an award-winning practice with eleven locations across six states.

Connect with HKB:

• Website
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Before & After Gallery
• Blog
• TikTok

Plastic surgeons have never been able to change patients’ lives as dramatically as they can today by combining aesthetic and well-being treatments. Drs. Bharti and Kortesis chat with Austin plastic surgeon Dr. Johnny Franco about the ‘Skinny Shot’ and the best modalities to combine with it to make patients healthy and happy.

It’s easy to love the simplicity of semaglutide, but when you lose weight drastically, you’ll start to get loose, lax skin. For a complete treatment that makes you look and feel great, it’s best to address skin laxity simultaneously with biostimulators like Sculptra, energy modalities like RF microneedling, and skin tightening treatments like Renuvion.

This episode was recorded live at The Aesthetic Meeting 2023.

Follow Dr. Johnny Franco on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/austinplasticsurgeon/

Welcome to HKB Uncut: the Health, Knowledge, and Beauty Podcast. On this show, Dr. Bill Kortesis & Dr. Guarav Bharti unpack the newest techniques and trends in cosmetic surgery, how to tune out the social media noise to make empowered decisions about your appearance, and what you need to know before you book a procedure.

Dr. Bill Kortesis and Dr. Guarav are board certified plastic surgeons and Co-Founders of HKB Cosmetic Surgery, an award-winning practice with eleven locations across six states.

Connect with HKB:

• Website
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Before & After Gallery
• Blog
• TikTok

Some people avoid general anesthesia procedures because they don’t want to commit to the downtime, while others have a fear of not being in control of their own body.

If you’re one of these people, the good news is you can have procedures like face and neck lifts, blepharoplasty, and even liposuction under local anesthesia. But if you have a low pain tolerance and can’t handle needles, you probably shouldn’t rely on local for your cosmetic procedures.

Drs. Bharti and Kortesis outline the procedures which can easily be done under local, the benefits of choosing local over general anesthesia, and the limitations of local.

Welcome to HKB Uncut: the Health, Knowledge, and Beauty Podcast. On this show, Dr. Bill Kortesis & Dr. Guarav Bharti unpack the newest techniques and trends in cosmetic surgery, how to tune out the social media noise to make empowered decisions about your appearance, and what you need to know before you book a procedure.

Dr. Bill Kortesis and Dr. Guarav are board certified plastic surgeons and Co-Founders of HKB Cosmetic Surgery, an award-winning practice with eleven locations across six states.

Connect with HKB:

• Website
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Before & After Gallery
• Blog
• TikTok

Drs. Kortesis and Bharti share highlights from the recent aesthetic plastic surgery meeting, including the big takeaways from their courses and the answers to some controversial questions from audiences which included some of the premier thinkers in aesthetics.

Topics included breast implant fatigue, breast implant illness, avoiding unnecessary surgeries, and the internal bra technique with Galaflex.

Much like this podcast, the doctors recognize that the opportunity to share their experiences with other doctors is to uncomplicate the complicated procedures they do on a daily basis.

This episode was recorded live at The Aesthetic Meeting in Miami, Florida on April 22, 2023.

Learn more about The American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons https://www.theaestheticsociety.org/

Welcome to HKB Uncut: the Health, Knowledge, and Beauty Podcast. On this show, Dr. Bill Kortesis & Dr. Guarav Bharti unpack the newest techniques and trends in cosmetic surgery, how to tune out the social media noise to make empowered decisions about your appearance, and what you need to know before you book a procedure.

Dr. Bill Kortesis and Dr. Guarav are board certified plastic surgeons and Co-Founders of HKB Cosmetic Surgery, an award-winning practice with eleven locations across six states.

Connect with HKB:

• Website
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Before & After Gallery
• Blog
• TikTok

Surgeons can fake reviews, doctor up pictures, and go incredible lengths to convince you they know what they’re doing. But an ethical plastic surgeon in a reputable practice doesn’t do any of that. They’re willing to talk to you and answer all your questions.

If a surgeon gets mad when you ask about their experience, you may want to look somewhere else. Go to someone who has done the procedure you’re considering hundreds of times and has the credentials to back it up.

Drs. Bharti and Kortesis share how to find the right surgeon for you, from the research process to the consultation. Find out the most important questions you should ask a surgeon when meeting them.

Welcome to HKB Uncut: the Health, Knowledge, and Beauty Podcast. On this show, Dr. Bill Kortesis & Dr. Guarav Bharti unpack the newest techniques and trends in cosmetic surgery, how to tune out the social media noise to make empowered decisions about your appearance, and what you need to know before you book a procedure.

Dr. Bill Kortesis and Dr. Guarav are board certified plastic surgeons and Co-Founders of HKB Cosmetic Surgery, an award-winning practice with eleven locations across six states.

Connect with HKB:

• Website
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Before & After Gallery
• Blog
• TikTok

Continuing the discussion on how you can affect your results, Drs. Kortesis and Bharti take us through all the things you can do to get the best results possible out of your procedure.

Just because you get a facelift doesn't mean you stop taking care of your skin there. By taking a few simple steps before and after surgery, you open the doors to an incredible transformation.

Get the inside info on being as prepared as possible, healing quickly, and maintaining results.

Hear part 1 of this series, “How to Ruin Your Results” https://hkbsurgery.com/podcast-how-to-ruin-your-results/

Welcome to HKB Uncut: the Health, Knowledge, and Beauty Podcast. On this show, Dr. Bill Kortesis & Dr. Guarav Bharti unpack the newest techniques and trends in cosmetic surgery, how to tune out the social media noise to make empowered decisions about your appearance, and what you need to know before you book a procedure.

Dr. Bill Kortesis and Dr. Guarav are board certified plastic surgeons and Co-Founders of HKB Cosmetic Surgery, an award-winning practice with eleven locations across six states.

Connect with HKB:

• Website
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Before & After Gallery
• Blog
• TikTok

There’s “active recovery” and then there’s surfing, skiing, swimming in the ocean a few days after surgery… and what about sex? Going to the gym? What are the acceptable levels of activity and risk in the days and weeks following surgery?

Don’t do something unnecessary to damage the investment you just made in yourself or worse, end up back in the operating room to fix something you could have prevented.

Drs. Kortesis and Bharti share what not to do if you want the best results possible out of your procedure, from the bedroom to the weight room.

Links
Read H/K/B’s blog on plastic surgery recovery tips
https://hkbsurgery.com/9-things-you-need-at-home-to-make-plastic-surgery-recovery-more-comfortable/

Welcome to HKB Uncut: the Health, Knowledge, and Beauty Podcast. On this show, Dr. Bill Kortesis & Dr. Guarav Bharti unpack the newest techniques and trends in cosmetic surgery, how to tune out the social media noise to make empowered decisions about your appearance, and what you need to know before you book a procedure.

Dr. Bill Kortesis and Dr. Guarav are board certified plastic surgeons and Co-Founders of HKB Cosmetic Surgery, an award-winning practice with eleven locations across six states.

Connect with HKB:

• Website
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Before & After Gallery
• Blog
• TikTok

H/K/B’s brilliant female plastic surgeon Dr. Shawna Kleban joins Drs. Kortesis and Bharti to uncomplicate the stereotypes and differences in treatment women in plastic surgery sometimes face.

From getting called “nurse” in the hospital to being known as the “aggressively direct” female plastic surgeon, Dr. Kleban gives perspective on the challenges and differences women face in what has historically been a male-dominated field.

Find out why some patients prefer female plastic surgeons while others tend to not give them the same respect as their male counterparts, and hear Dr. Kleban’s invaluable advice for younger women considering a career in medicine.

Links

• Meet Dr. Shawna Kleban
• Learn more about H/K/B Cosmetic Surgery
• Subscribe to the It's Complicated email list to be notified about new episodes
• Follow us on Instagram @hkbcosmeticsurgery

Welcome to HKB Uncut: the Health, Knowledge, and Beauty Podcast. On this show, Dr. Bill Kortesis & Dr. Guarav Bharti unpack the newest techniques and trends in cosmetic surgery, how to tune out the social media noise to make empowered decisions about your appearance, and what you need to know before you book a procedure.

Dr. Bill Kortesis and Dr. Guarav are board certified plastic surgeons and Co-Founders of HKB Cosmetic Surgery, an award-winning practice with eleven locations across six states.

Connect with HKB:

• Website
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Before & After Gallery
• Blog
• TikTok