Skip The OR With These Wide-Awake Cosmetic Surgery Procedures

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Have you ever wanted a little nip and tuck, or just a tweak to your appearance, but thought you didn't have the time or money for it?

CBS2's Alex Denis found the new way doctors are making these procedures easier by doing away with the operating room. In the latest craze, patients are having procedures done while awake and giving input.

In a matter of minutes, Solange Perez got a new nose.

"It didn't even hurt, and I'm ready to go back to work after this," she said.

It's a plastic surgery trend – the non-surgical nose job – and it has people flocking to doctors, like board certified cosmetic dermatologist Dr. Howard Sobel.

"To have someone come in and say, 'I just came from my doctor, and he said it's going to be $15,000 to do my nose but all I have is this little divot, can you do something?' And I say, 'we can do something in literately three minutes,'" he said.

Meant for people with minor imperfections, Dr. Sobel reshapes the nose by injecting micro droplets of silicone. The procedure immediately and permanently changes a profile for $750.

Getting feedback from his patients during the entire process, Dr. Sobel ensures they have the look they want. He also talks his patients through liposuction, because they're wide awake.

"It's liposuction without anesthesia. We numb you just like the dentist numbs you, and you get back to work," he said.

Thanks to a mixture of numbing agents and nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, Dr. Sobel takes a different approach to the well-known procedure.

"Start the procedures, do 50-percent of the procedure, stand them up, let them look into a mirror. They'll look at themselves and they'll tell me, 'a little here, a little here'" he said. "Then I get to 75-percent of the procedure and I stand them up again… And before we're actually done, I let them give me the nod of approval."

Without general anesthesia, how was the pain level?

"He gives you local anesthesia, so you don't realize he's actually working on you," said patient Maria Bell, who returned to work the next day.

Dr. Sobel says these options save patients money, because they aren't paying for OR time and general anesthesia.