Tired of coming up with post-face-lift excuses for why you were out of circulation for two weeks? (I had a ballooning accident!) Now plastic surgeons are reducing recovery time by draping their patients in heating blankets called Bear Huggers. Some, like Gerald Pitman at Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital, who offers the deep plane mini-lift, have even raised the temperature of the entire operating room.

The practice is borrowed from burn surgery, where rooms are routinely kept above 80 degrees. The result, says Pitman, is that recovery time is almost halved to around seven days. But not everyone involved in the operation is so happy: Jokes another surgeon: “Jerry keeps it like a sauna; the anesthesiologists have started complaining.”

Related:

• Archive: “Gotham”
• Articles by Beth Landman
• Table of Contents: Mar 24, 2003 issue of New York | Subscribe!