Good Morning America
Twins Get Facelifts to Look More Alike
Pair Finds New York Plastic
Surgeon Who Specializes in Twins |
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Jan. 16, 2006 — Annette Bilobran and Jeanette
Phelan are 62-year-old identical twins and spent
most of their lives looking exactly alike, but age
has changed them a bit.
Bilobran, who is single, is a bit thinner and more
athletic. The two still look a lot a like, but lifestyle
has made their faces look slightly different. In
addition, Bilobran had a medical problem five years
ago — the cause of which she declined to name.
Both women live in Schenectady, N.Y. and work as
psychiatric nurses in the same facility.
"I'm so excited. I am happy with the results.
It was a lot less painful. Within three weeks, I
was skiing and ballroom dancing," Bilobran
said.
Phelan, who is married with four children, was
not as enthusiastic about getting the procedure
done but said she is still pleased when people notice
a change in her appearance. Bilobran said people
tell her that she looks well rested or that her
face looks rosy, but cannot tell that she has gotten
a face lift.
Defensive Aging
The twins demonstrate how "genetics is highly
overrated in the aging process," their plastic
surgeon Dr. Darrick Antell said. He said
other outside factors like smoking, stress and sun
exposure contribute to difference in how twins age.
Antell, who is affiliated with the Lenox Hill hospital
in New York, first became interested in twins while
he was training to be a plastic surgeon. He studied
a set of twins, one of which was burned on the face.
He thought it must have been extremely traumatic
for one twin to suddenly look different the other,
and went to the Twin Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio
for research.
He met Bilobran and Phelan at one such festival.
Because they participated in one of his studies,
he reduced their fee.
Antell, who now specializes in plastic surgery
on twins, demonstrated with pictures of other twins
he operated on, displaying the photographs of a
set of twins, one who smoked and one who did not.
"Wrinkle pattern is similar on the twins,
they are just deeper and course on the one that
smoked," he said. The same is true when a twin
is exposed to more sun than the other.
Stress also has a significant impact on the formation
of wrinkles, he said.
"What happens with stress is the fight-or-flight
mechanism — it doesn't feed your skin as well.
Your hair can grow great almost overnight,"
Antell said.
Antell says practice defensive aging — that
means don't smoke or tan and try to reduce stress
levels.
Meanwhile, he is happy to perfect his techniques
on willing twins.
"It's a big challenge for a plastic surgeon
to do an operation on twins, because you have the
additional goal of trying to keep them looking as
alike as possible," he said. "It's kind
of like trying to throw a baseball through maybe
a moving tire hanging from a tree and you've got
to get it through that tire four times exactly each
time."
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