Episode 25 - Hollywood Is Curing Their Cellulite! with Dr. Henri Gaboriau
Hollywood is no longer dreading getting into bikinis thanks to Dr. Gaboriau. Is it really possible to be cellulite free? What are the gimmicks and what really works. The author of the Cellulite cure talks to Teri Struck of Beauty Now and shares the secrets that Hollywood already learned.
The Dr. shares the best of his book and tells us how to get rid of cellulite.. what works and what doesn't. Go to Personal life media. com to hear all our shows on looking your best. Cellulite be gone. Get gorgeous gams all year long without surgery.
Transcript
Transcript
This program is brought to you by PersonalLifeMedia.com.
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Teri Hausman: I’m Teri Hausman, host of “Beauty Now.” In the past we have done shows on how our “Beauty Now” listeners can enhance their own appearance through lasers, lifts, lipo,. breast augs and more. We are all very blest that we have choices. There are people in the world who are as fortunate as we are and my focus today is how we can help other people.
Today my guest is Dr. HenrI Gaboriau. He is a board certified plastic surgeon who is making a difference. And you guys can make a difference too. I hope you take time to listen today.
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Dr. Henri Gaboriau: We work with agencies, non-profits who in fact are in charge of taking care of runaway kids, foster houses, you know, kids with problems with alcohol and drugs and usually they are the one working these kids who basically have been abused in the past and when they see a kid that needs to have some kind of reconstructive surgery, they do contact our organization. We have countless experience of patients, children that basically they were wearing their hair very long to cover the scar and now we remove the scar, we put another scar but of course its less visible. We do it in a way that it’s more natural and suddenly their hair will change because they don’t cover anything anymore.
What is the typical personality of an abused kid? They are introverted. They don’t look you in the eyes. They are very, very shy and very afraid. They will never come directly to you. If you come to them and say Hi they will automatically retreat. They are very submissive, you look and they definitely have a personality that when you see them, after a while you think there is something going on right here.
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Teri Hausman: Welcome, Dr. Henri Gaboriau.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Thank you. Appreciate being on the show.
Teri Hausman: Oh, first of all, why don’t you tell us how you started this charity. It’s for abused kids, right?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: That is correct, yes. It is for kids that have been the victim of domestic violence.
Teri Hausman: So it’s for kids…How did you come to start this? I think it’s so wonderful.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: It started a long, long time ago, back in France. I have a cousin who in fact was born with some disabilities and one of them was that he was blind in one eye. At 12 years old on his way back from school he got assaulted by some 15-year-old kid who beat him up. As a result he lost his only seeing eye at the time. We used to be together all the time. Later on I always heard him asking why, why did that happen to me because I don’t see any more.
That was the first time I realized that something was quite wrong. I felt that at the time was about seven, eight years old. He was older than I was. I thought I would become a doctor, not a surgeon. I thought, if later on I can make a difference, I will.
Teri Hausman: That’s unbelievably great. A lot of people would have that idea but they wouldn’t be able to follow through. Tell us how you followed through with your education.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Interestingly enough at the same time I was playing, I love to play with my stuffed animals and I what I used to do is cut them apart and repair them.
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Dr. Henri Gaboriau: So I was reconstructing them. From then on, I really liked that. I really liked the reconstructive part of surgery. So for me it was very natural. After high school I decided to go to medical school and then become a surgeon. So I don’t remember at any time as a teenager thinking “I don’t know what I want to do.” Because for me it was straightforward. That was to be a surgeon and to reconstruct faces.
When I opened my own practice I decided that it was time to create a non-profit to take care of these abused children because the story of my cousin never left my mind.
Teri Hausman: That’s unbelievable and I think it’s innate in most of us that we want to help people. But you actually went on to become a doctor and you were able to help people and then you went and did something about it. So tell us more about this charity. Tell us what we can do.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Well, the name of it is basically called Face, Heart and Mind Foundation. The reason we chose that name is because face and facial plastic surgeons we take care of, not only the face but also many types of scars on the rest of the body. We basically pour our heart into that and also we take care of their psychological status. That is why we have the mind in it. For this is where we find Face, Heart and Mind foundation was a perfect name for it.
The way it works is we work with agencies, non-profits who in fact are in charge of taking care of runaway kids, foster houses, kids with problems with alcohol and drugs and usually they are the one who are seeing these kids who have been abused in the past. When they see a kid that needs to have some kind of reconstructive surgery, they contact our organization.
Then after that we do have a step-by-step process to see if that patient will be a likely candidate or not. To be able to go through the program the kids have to be removed from the environment, the abusive environment. We not perform surgery on children who are still with the perpetrator of that violence. They have to be free of drugs; they have to be free of alcohol or any type of addiction. Also, they have to go through a psychological counseling to make sure they are ready for the surgery before and after.
Teri Hausman: Wow, so you do a lot but you don’t provide the counseling. Are there other organizations that do that?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: That is correct. The foundation is meant mainly to provide free reconstructive surgery. The counseling is offered by either some outside providers and we work with some providers here in Seattle area that have their own private practice. They want to give back to the community and work with us. We contact them and say, do you mind doing an evaluation on this patient. Also we work with another organization called Auburn Youth Resources. They are specialized in kids with problems. So also they have psychologists. They have social workers. They have psychiatrists. They have a lot of personnel that can help us with the psychological aspect.
Teri Hausman: And what are the ages of the kids you generally see? All ages, even small children?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Correct. We can basically go from small children up to 19 years of age. The reason we did a cut off after 19 years of age is because there are great programs out there for adults. One of them, I’m not going to mention all of them, but one of them is Face to Face, also put together by the American Academy of Facial Plastic, takes care of adults.
We decided to stop at 19. The reason is, before 18 we have to have permission from either the foster parents, they have been adopted from the family who adopted them from the guardian or from the court. Sometimes it’s a problem to get those permissions. At least, we give them one year to make their own decision if they want to do the surgery later on.
Teri Hausman: So you ask the child if this is what they want?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: We do. You cannot oblige a child to go through surgery after what they have been through already. It’s interesting that 99% of the children we had already through our organization, they wanted the surgery in the first place. With a few cases that they didn’t want to because they were too young to understand and it’s very important to respect that. We cannot oblige them to go through something that they don’t want. It could be very traumatizing for them.
Teri Hausman: Right and so, you go through with the parents and you ask what they want. Why don’t you tell our listeners a little bit about what you have done for these children? What kinds of surgeries have you already performed?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: The main type of injury that we see after being abused is scars. Usually they are on the face. The majority of the scars on the face. Face and neck. They go from being slapped, using a belt buckle, that’s a very common one, even rings. You know we get hits on the face with the hand and the parents have a ring on it and then you have a big scar.
The first, I would say, that represents more probably 90% of our surgeries is scar removal. We remove the scar. What’s happening is when they get abused and when they have a big gash in their head, most of the time the perpetrator are not going to bring their children to the hospital. So they yield with horrible scars.
What we try to do is make the scars less conspicuous or we change the scar basically that reminds them of what happened and we put another scar that is less visible and also it is a scar that they want. It’s a very interesting concept is that we tell them you are going to have another scar. We cannot give you the skin that you had before the event. And they agree on it and they say, that scar is… I wanted that scar. The new one. I wanted that one, you know, I know it was done by a surgeon; it’s not done by somebody that was mean to me. So it works also psychologically when you do that.
Teri Hausman: That’s so wonderful. That is such a wonderful thing that you do. So tell us more about what else you do.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Well, after the scars the other thing we do see is burns. There are a lot of burns. Of course, they are scars, but they mainly created with scalding water, you know boiling water, and cigarettes. Cigarettes burn. We see that a lot on the torso, on the arms, very rarely on the face, though, because they don’t want that to be seen. These are a little bit tougher to remove. So that really we need to, we work at those usually we get better result but it’s not as easy to treat as a simple scar. So that’s the surgery that we do offer.
We do offer, also, as I say, through other organizations, the psychological aspect, which I feel is as important because you can remove the scar from the outside but if you have not treated the inside, the deep scar, they will still carry that for the rest of their lives.
Teri Hausman: Oh sir, that’s sounds amazing. I think that’s such work that you do. What about children that are burned and stuff, what can you do for burn victims?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Burn victims is definitely a tough one. Usually it’s a large area. We had one little girl that got burned by her mother who poured boiling water on her chest. She was eight years old and she was complaining that she was hungry and she wanted to have dinner. The mother turned around and poured water on her. She was burned quite a large area. That would require multiple surgeries with skin graft to avoid contraction. Of course, unfortunately, when at the time it happened the parents took a long time to bring the kid to the emergency room. It took in fact several days.
A lot of the scar was already on their way to be formed. So what we do is we call it serial excision. You remove a little bit of the scar, a little bit at a time. You take it out. You come back six months later; you take it out again more. So it’s a long process.
What we tell these children and most of them are teenagers by the time they come to see us. I mean, we usually see them before, by the time all the paper work is done, that the foster parents, whatever, agree to the surgery. It takes about four months to five months. We usually end up having teenagers from 11 years old on and they understand the process. We tell them it will be a long haul. There will probably be several surgeries over the next several years. You know, they are very willing to go through that because the last thing they want is to have a scar that reminds them of what happened.
Teri Hausman: And by that time, they probably are just so ready to heal their insides….
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Yes, absolutely. In fact the only…. We had a few failures here. Not medical failures or not surgical failures. The surgeries were performed and they healed very well but we, if it was right at the beginning, years ago when we first started and we had some patients relapse into drug and alcohol. This is very, very prevalent in to kids that have been victims of domestic violence. They kind of take refuge into some type of addiction. One did relapse unfortunately. We could not finish the surgical plan we had….
Teri Hausman: That was their just trying to self medicate, but that’s just a really big problem for a lot of abused people. We need to take a quick break, because we need to thank our sponsors and we’re going to be right back with Dr. Henri Gaboriau.
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Teri Hausman: This is Teri Hausman. I’m back with Dr. Henri Gaboroiau. He’s a facial plastic surgeon that helps children that have been abused. He started this foundation called the Face, Heart and Mind Foundation. Welcome back, Dr. Gaboriau.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Thank you.
Teri Hausman: We were just talking about how you can help burn victims and to me, that’s one of the hardest scars to heal is burns, aren’t they?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Yes, absolutely they are. The reason is that especially with these abused children they are mainly on the torso and they usually cover a larger area and it needs a lot of surgery. It’s not only one but they need a lot of skin graft, coming from other places and basically it usually requires two, three or four surgeries. It’s a long haul and different from just removing the small scar.
Teri Hausman: Usually on this show we’re talking about lasers, lifts, lip, you know and how we can have the perfect behind with no cellulite, hormones and those kinds of things, but we don’t want to take it for granted that there are so many people out there, victims of abuse, children and adult that need our help.
I just think it’s an incredible thing that you have done by starting this foundation and if any of our listeners would like to help you can go to PersonalLifeMedia.com, click on “Beauty Now.” We’re going to have a link to Dr. Gaboriau’s website, Face Heart and Mind Foundation and you can read all about him and learn how to contact him and help. I think this is a really great thing. What else can our listeners do, besides donating money? Are there volunteer positions that you have? Where are you located, tell us more about that?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: The foundation is based in Seattle, Washington. The organization is made that it can be basically nationwide. We are right now trying to find of course some doctors, surgeons, plastic surgeons that could donate their time to take care of the kids. We are also looking for professional psychologists and psychiatrists who would love to donate their time also. The main thing what I really struggleis the exposure. It’s very interesting when you are not old, you have not a voice.
You cannot get to any hospital and you can get care. For kids this is very difficult because they are minor, they are protected by the law. So they cannot go to a hospital and say, look what happened to me and take care of it. So usually what we try to tell the audience is that there are different ways to help.
One of them is basically to give our name to friends you may have, to people in the hospital you may know, doctor friends of yours you may know, saying this is an organization. They are nationwide, based in Seattle. We offer various options and hope for those kids. So it is interesting because mainlyy would ask my patient interested or slight interested is, please give the name of the foundation to anybody you know that may benefit from it.
Teri Hausman: And that, and also to the doctors that you know and all the different professionals that can help. I think that that’s a wonderful idea because I know myself so many people who would want to be involved with this. There is so many people out there listening today that actually could start an email list and forward emails with your name and your foundation on it.
Again, just go to PersonalLifeMedia.com and we’re going to link you and then you could send our your own emails. That would be something really great that you could do that doesn’t involve money, just a little bit of your time.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Correct. Absolutely. I would appreciate that. The main thing is the awareness. To have the [xx] aware of our organization is also a lot of people in the community. It’s very interesting when you start talking to people that they say, oh my god, you know what I know somebody that their kids are foster kids or adopted a kid and they are scarred. They don’t know where to turn to, because you have to realize that a lot of the medical insurance do not pay for scars like that because functioning…. they do function quite all right. As you know medical insurance is for any type of disease that do deter a bodily function and a scar on the face, you know, you can still live. So this is why medical insurance usually do not cover.
Teri Hausman: So after the surgery do you see these children come back and their self esteem is through the roof? How’s their healing process?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Yes. Well, the vast majority of them they are so willing, I mean, when we tell them that the program exists and we tell them that we can take care of both the physical scar and at the same time we have psychologist and psychiatrists taking care of the psychological part of it, it’s amazing how they change. We have countless experience of patients, children that they were wearing their hair very long to cover the scars. We remove the scar. We put another scar but it’s of course less visible. We do it in a way that it’s more natural. Suddenly their hairdo changes. They don’t cover their face anymore. It’s a very interesting process. You can see it. It’s not only that they tell you about it, you can see it in their behavior that it did make a huge impact.
Teri Hausman: That must just warm your heart. You must feel so great about yourself when you do something so great for kids.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Well, the philosophy that I have, as a plastic surgeon, we are very, very fortunate that we work with a great population that is usually extremely healthy. They do not medical problem and they are usually in very good spirits, with very good self-esteem. I think that it’s when we have skills we should…. For me it was a natural thing. We give back to other people that are less fortunate than we are. As a matter of fact I’m happy to say that a lot of my colleagues are very interested in the program or are helping because they feel that they can help.
Teri Hausman: Now would this be tax deductible to surgeons who were going to donate their time or is this just a guest?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: No, it is in fact, we are a 501C3 so it is any type of donation can be in kind or money is tax deductible, absolutely.
Teri Hausman: Well that will be more incentive for all the surgeons out there who are qualified to provide this service. Not only that but this can make a difference in a child’s life.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Yes. In fact, it’s interesting that, kind of a funny story, that every time I have been working with surgeons and psychologists and psychiatrists we try to keep track of the hours. We have to do that for IRS and all purposes like that. A lot of them say, no, no, no. They don’t care if it’s tax deductible or not. [Laughs]
Teri Hausman: Exactly. They just want to give.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Exactly. In fact it’s very difficult to [xx] your hours of vacation, how many hours you work on vacation, you know. They don’t know, they don’t care. That is not why we do it for.
Teri Hausman: Well, I can understand that. If I were a surgeon I would definitely want to donate my time, but I think that I could actually make a difference and try to reach the surgeons that I do know and psychologists and help you here. I think this is one of the best charities that I have heard of in a long time.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Thank you and I really appreciate that. I appreciate that a lot. This is what I found out when I was doing all my training and studying in different hospitals there was a lot of great non-profit organizations for adult. I had never seen one for children, victim of domestic violence that takes care of both the physical and psychological part of it. I think that is extremely important.
Teri Hausman: I think it’s so important and I actually went through the training to become a [xx] which is a child advocate for abused children and kids in foster care and I know that the [xx] organization is everywhere and they need more advocates and what they do is they oversee the foster children. They go and do weekly visits just to make sure they are placed in a good foster care. Because there are even kids that get into the foster care system that are abused.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Absolutely.
Teri Hausman: So there are so many different ways people can get involved and this one is the Face, Heart, Mind Organization and what Dr. Henri Gaboriau has done is that he is helping these children get some surgeries that they can feel good about themselves even though they have a lot of healing to do on the inside from their scars by “trusted” adults. So I think it’s an amazing thing.
I really, really encourage all of you listening today to take the time to go to PersonalLifeMedical.com and get the link to Dr. Henri Gaboriau’s site and contact him and contact every doctor that you know and if you can that would be great if you could make a donation. But, if not, take the time to send out an email list and do things that way. So, there are lots of things people can do. Do you know anything else that…do you have any other suggestions for people?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Well, I think that ...The only suggestion that I would say in a very more philosophically aspect is I think we have to be really aware and looking for signs of abusing kids. As I said, they don’t have a voice. You must know that personally, a lot of kids they do not want to go around and say, my dad is beating me up every night, you know. I think we should be more aware of that. Looking around, looking at the kids and see how they are doing and make sure we give all the attention and love we should. I think if we all do that.
Teri Hausman: You know, that’s actually a really good point. Because you know oftentimes you’ll be in a market or somewhere and you’ll see a woman or a man just smacking their child right in front of you. What would you advise these people to do?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Well, what I look for is…. Let’s go back a little bit. What is the typical personality of an abused kid? They are very introverted. They don’t look at you in the eyes. They are very, very shy. They are afraid. They will never come directly to you. If you come to them and say Hi they will automatically retreat. They are very submissive and they definitely have a personality that when you see them then after a while you say, okay there is something going on right here. My advice if you do see a kid like that try to find out who are the parents. And If the parents are the perpetrator, you can believe me that the minute they are going to see you getting interested to see what’s happening they will absolutely take the kid and shot away.
So after that the question is what can you do? If it is a public place, sometimes it’s good to let the police know, because they are very aware of that thing. Concern for the safety of that child. If it’s at the school, contact the teachers…and as a matter of fact that just happened in one of our schools recently here because a little girl was abused by somebody in the family and in fact the parents were aware of that and did not want to do anything about it. It was basically another, grown up student who saw that and said that something was wrong with the little girl. She was too shy. They got child protection and police involved. Just be aware of these little signs, you know.
If you have a child you know that is not, looks very submissive, looks very afraid, they don’t talk, they just lower their eyes all the time and they have multiple bruises. That’ something that is a sign also.
Teri Hausman: And you can be anonymous. Is that not correct?
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Correct. Absolutely.
Teri Hausman: You can be anonymous and I really think that, take that chance and get out there and sometimes when you bring it to their attention the child knows too that it’s not right that their parents are doing this because they oftentimes think that well this is my parent, it’s normal.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Absolutely. And that is the toughest aspect of child abuse is when you have to make a decision to remove the kid from the environment.
Teri Hausman: Well, it is. But sometimes that offers the parents some help and if there are parents out there that need help then you are doing them a favor by reporting them because there are different agencies that will assist them in getting counseling. A lot of times their main goal is to get the parents and the child back together. It’s not to separate them, but that’s only if it’s for their own benefit.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Absolutely. Yes, right.
Teri Hausman: Everybody likes a happy ending and this is unfortunately we have run out of time. We have really enjoyed talking to you today and I think that again if anybody would like a transcript of today’s show, go to PersonalLifeMedical.com and you can request transcripts and links to Dr. Henri Gaboriau’s very, very worthwhile charity which is Face, Heart, Mind Foundation and please make a difference in a child’s life today. Thank you so much for being with us today, Dr. Gaboriau.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: No, thank you so much for having me on the show. I really appreciate that
Teri Hausman: I can’t really thank you enough for what you do and really you have inspired me and I hope some of our listeners to help.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Thank you.
Teri Hausman: We’ll have you back. Thanks so much for talking with us today.
Dr. Henri Gaboriau: Thank you very much.
Teri Hausman: Goodbye.
Teri Hausman: Find more great shows like this on PersonalLifeMedia.com.