Daniela Cesin was 14 when she began thinking about her looks. I saw the difference in my body: my abs, the muscles in my arms, and I started liking it,” she says. By 31, she had the slim, toned body she had hoped for, but something was still missing.
She met her cosmetic surgeon for the first time the day before the procedure, and he realised she didn’t have enough fat to go ahead with it. Instead, he offered to perform RibXcar: a rib remodelling surgery that would involve fracturing three of her lower ribs on each side and binding them in a corset for three months, to set the ribs in a new position and give her a wasplike waist. The idea of breaking the bones around her vital organs sounded a lot more invasive than a breast augmentation, which she had 10 years ago, or a rhinoplasty (nose surgery) and blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery), which she had two years ago.
Also, she had never heard of the procedure. But after the consultation, she decided to trust her surgeon. Cesin had already paid for flights and taken three weeks off from her job as a sales director.
The next day she was anaesthetised, and her surgeon used an ultrasound to locate the ribs, made six small incisions in her back, and inserted a vibrating tool to create greenstick fractures – an incomplete bone break – on each rib. When she came to she was wearing a black corset with small knobs on each side that she could tighten to her preferred measurements. The recovery has been uncomfortable.
It was initially hard to stand or lie down without help, and there was soreness from the incisions. The first week, Cesin barely slept. Despite her discomfort, when we speak six weeks after her surgery, she is pleased with the eight centimetres she has shaved off her waist.
Cesin is one of a small but growing number of women choosing to fracture their ribs for an hourglass shape. To achieve this look, women previously underwent riskier rib removal techniques, which reduce the protective bone barrier for the liver and spleen. Kazbek Kudzaev, a plastic surgeon in Russia, realised in 2017 that he could achieve similar aesthetic results when he moved the ribs with a drill until one side fractured, then bound the body in a corset while they healed.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
