Orange County Register

Photos: Above, Corey Feldman before and after his liposuction. (Photos courtesy of Dr. Jeffrey Hoefflin) Below right, Dr. Hoefflin operates on Feldman, who is visible at the lower right. (Photo from A&E). Below left, Feldman and his wife, Susie Sprague. (AP photo)

MOM, HOLLYWOOD AND BREAST IMPLANTS

Childhood traumas, teenage friendships, his wife’s breast implants, and Hollywood perfectionism all played roles in actor Corey Feldman’s decision to have liposuction.

Feldman and his plastic surgeon, Dr. Jeffrey D. Hoefflin of Los Angeles, told “In Your Face” how the 37-year-old actor decided to have the procedure, what it involved medically, and what the results were.

Hoefflin, a friend of Feldman since they were teenagers, performed both Feldman’s operation and an earlier breast-implant replacement for Feldman’s wife, Susie Sprague, 26.

Sprague had been unhappy with the overly sidewards placement of earlier saline implants by another surgeon, Hoefflin said, so she decided to replace them with silicone versions.

His job was to operate through 2.5-centimeter incisions in the breast aureoles, take out the old implants, use sutures to reshape breast tissue so the implants would be pushed closer together, and put new silicone implants in place, he said.

“It was complicated, with a lot of fine sutures,” he said of the 2006 procedure, which took about three hours.

Sprague and Feldman were pleased with the outcome. Feldman said of his wife’s implants:

They were originally done five years prior, but as these things go, you can’t make anything last forever because the body changes. So every 5 to 10 years you have to repeat the procedure to keep things looking right.

Jeff did an amazing job not only reconstructing them but he also made improvements that we are both very happy with. Apparently so was Playboy.

Sprague is featured in photos in this month’s Playboy magazine.

The success of that operation helped Feldman make the decision about his own liposuction.

“We have been friends since childhood, and I knew I could trust him,” Feldman said about Hoefflin (right).

Hoefflin trained in plastic surgery in New York, then moved back to L.A. two years ago to work with his father, who is also a plastic surgeon.

The two friends soon got back in touch and Feldman began discussing the possibility of liposuction.

“I had a little problem area in my belly that 100 sit-ups a day (my typical routine) was not getting rid of,” Feldman said. “I am a vegetarian, never drink alcohol and am very active, so it wasn’t a matter of laziness. It just wouldn’t stay flat, and threw off my overall appearance.”

The liposuction was done March 7 and was televised Sunday in Feldman’s reality TV show, “The Two Coreys,” on the A&E network. In the show, Feldman bluntly told a cameraman, “Don’t show my fat.” The appearance of his abdomen was a continual irritant.

“I look in the mirror and I’m never satisfied,” he said. “The big thing consuming my brain is that I ought to get liposuction.”

His psychologist, Nicki J. Monti, told him, “You’re never going to be perfect. Will you ever love yourself anyway?”

Feldman had a history of kidney infections that had landed him in the hospital so he was wary about surgery, Hoefflin said.

“We talked about risks and benefits,” he said.

Feldman said his obsession with his appearance is linked to the high standards of Hollywood and the demands his mother placed on him as a child actor. Feldman began working in film at age 3 and starred in “Goonies” at age 14 and “Lost Boys” at age 16.

“All she ever told me what that I was fat and ugly,” he said. “I would not be allowed to eat until she woke up in the morning so she could control and monitor what I was eating. If she found me eating I’d get into trouble. Trouble meant a beating, or being locked in my room for a couple of days.”

“I’m in an industry that’s all based on self-deprecation,” he said. “As young as I can remember, I was making sure my hair was perfect – and my teeth. My mom was bleaching my hair at three and a half years old.”

As he agonized about having liposuction, he asked his wife, “Should I do it or not?”

“If you want to do it to feel better about your stomach, do it,” Sprague said.

For Feldman’s liposuction, Hoefflin said he used a technique that’s appropriate for removing small amounts of fat, but not for weight loss.

After the fatty areas are marked on the abdomen (pictured), the procedure involves injecting a small amount of liquid in a quantity that’s about equal to the amount of fat that will be sucked out.

The liquid is a mixture of saline solution, the pain-killer lidocaine, and epinephrine, which boosts the supply of oxygen and glucose to the brain and muscles.

Hoefflin then removed fat from the front and sides of Feldman’s abdomen in a procedure that lasted about 25 minutes.

“It’s not unusual for patients to get nervous before surgery,” Hoefflin said, “but it went extremely smoothly.”

Feldman said, “Dr. Hoefflin admits it was the smallest amount of fat he’s ever had to remove, I feel much more confident on the beach or at at the pool with our friends. I would recommend it to anyone that doesn’t have a weight problem but is looking to tighten up the loose ends.”

Related links:

• Archive of posts on removing and controlling fat
• Corey Feldman liked wife’s implants, so signed up for lipo
• Dr. Jeff Hoefflin’s Web site
• “The Two Coreys” Web site
• “Salon” review of “The Two Coreys”

For more on celebrities and cosmetic medicine, see links on the right side of this blog.

(This post was revised Aug. 12 to clarify the quote about nervousness before surgery and the statement about the first breast-implant surgery on Susie Sprague.)

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