Inside the Painful Rise of Cosmetic Rib Remodelling
Daniela Cesin’s journey toward a specific aesthetic goal began at age 14, initially through diet and exercise. D aniela Cesin was 14 when she began thinking about her looks. “I was a little bit chubby and I started to work out at home and lose weight. The muscles in my arms, and I started liking it,” she says, i saw the difference in my body: my abs. And there was soreness from the incisions, it was initially hard to stand or lie down without help.
By 31, having achieved a slim physique, she still felt something was missing: the elusive “guitar hourglass shape. But made a comeback with Marilyn Monroe, before slender, androgynous frames gained popularity from the 60s to the 90s, the engineered hourglass shape fell out of fashion in the 1920s. Among other things, to the multibillion-dollar shapewear industry; global access to Instagram and filters; and easily streamed online workout videos that focus on creating a slim, hourglass silhouette through targeted training, this is thanks.
In August, she relocated from her home of 15 years in Miami to her native Venezuela for a combination of liposuction and hip fat grafting. While she had previously undergone rhinoplasty, blepharoplasty, and breast augmentation, she was initially hesitant about rib-related procedures, famously stating, “No, no, no, I don’t want to do anything with the ribs. She viewed the concept of damaging bones around vital organs as significantly more invasive than her prior surgeries.
However, after consultations, Cesin moved forward with the procedure. Her surgeon utilized ultrasound imaging to locate the ribs before making six incisions to manipulate them. The recovery process proved grueling. Cesin described intense discomfort, noting that because the body cannot easily adjust to a new position, she was waking up every hour during the first week. Additionally, she must wear a corset for 23 hours a day, which, combined with the surgical trauma, has led to painful acid reflux and difficulty eating. Today, it takes about an hour and is performed under general anaesthesia as a day-surgery treatment. Such as allergic reactions to the anaesthesia, blood clots, wound infections and seromas (pockets of fluid that build up under the skin), these include standard surgical complications. Both of these are potentially fatal. And why do you want to make such a permanent change to your body?’”.
Cesin is part of a growing cohort of individuals opting for rib remodelling to achieve a narrower waist. Unlike older, more dangerous rib removal techniques—which compromised the skeletal protection of the liver and spleen—this modern approach fractures the ribs and binds them in a corset to heal in a modified position. Kazbek Kudzaev, a Russian plastic surgeon, pioneered this methodology in 2017. Despite marketing claims that the procedure is non-invasive, many patients report feelings akin to being “hit by a bus” immediately following the surgery. 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. Cesin had already paid for flights and taken three weeks off from her job as a sales director. When she came to she was wearing a black corset with small knobs on each side that she could tighten to her preferred measurements. 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, kazbek Kudzaev. Waistlines have expanded and shrunk, t hroughout history. Corset wearing and tight-lacing became a symbol of beauty for the “leisure class” (the restrictive garments made physical labour impossible), between the 16th and 19th centuries. In the 2010s, the extreme curves of the Kardashians became the defining silhouette.
The medical community remains deeply divided over the safety and necessity of these procedures. Consultant plastic surgeon Sandip Hindocha of London’s Private Clinic expressed significant skepticism, questioning why patients would seek such an invasive intervention. Hindocha points to research published inPlastic and Reconstructive Surgerywhich recorded a 3.7% complication rate among 2,351 patients monitored between 2018 and 2024. He emphasizes that this is a concerning statistic, particularly for elective surgeries that lack long-term clinical data.
The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) does not endorse the practice. Nora Nugent, a former president of the organization, cites the lack of extensive long-term results and the requirement for highly specialized body contouring skills as major deterrents. Furthermore, surgeons typically exclude cisgender women over 40 from the procedure due to the heightened risk of osteoporosis, which increases the likelihood of the ribs snapping entirely rather than merely fracturing. Weight gain following the procedure can also introduce additional complications. Surgeons in countries including Colombia, Korea and France have refined the technique, since his discovery. It may be something that UK/BAAPS plastic surgeons bring into their practices in due course but it is not available at the moment.”. Tinier, waif-like frames have become popular on TikTok and Instagram, but a highly defined waist is also considered desirable, in recent years.
While UK surgeons are advised to enforce a mandatory two-week cooling-off period, Hindocha remains concerned that some patients enter these agreements without fully grasping the potential for life-altering consequences. This includes incidents like that of a patient named Sophia, who in November 2025 woke from the procedure to discover via a CT scan that she had suffered a pneumothorax—a collapsed lung affecting 25% of the organ—requiring oxygen therapy and hours of medical monitoring. According to the procedure “needs to be done with a surgeon who has a lot of experience in it,”, Hindocha. “Maybe a surgeon that also does chest wall reconstruction.”.
Cultural pressures are seen as a driving factor for this trend. Philosophy professor Heather Widdows, author ofPerfect Meargues that society has moved from using adornment for celebratory purposes to viewing it as a requirement for standard health and hygiene. As society shifts toward a more visual-centric culture, the notion that “who we are is how we look” has become deeply ingrained, creating an environment where surgical intervention is seen as a default path to normalcy.
These trends are frequently amplified by social media. In July, a group of 10 international influencers made headlines during a brand-collaboration trip to Bali, where they visited a clinic specializing in rib recontouring. For others, like 35-year-old licensed masseuse Rivera, the choice is driven by underlying conditions like lipedema—a disorder causing painful, disproportionate fat deposits that are resistant to traditional weight loss methods. After accepting her inability to lose the fat was not a personal failing, she sought surgical intervention, noting that the culture in areas like Miami makes cosmetic surgery an expected norm, often making it easy for patients to get carried away. In July, 10 Australian influencers, who have made names for themselves globally on shows including Married at First Sight and Below Deck, prompted headlines with a trip to Bali.
