Liposuction is Commonplace, but is it for You?

Liposuction is the most popular cosmetic surgery procedure performed in this country — over 1000 are done every week. It promises a safe, effective way to remove fat, and it delivers on this promise.

Liposuction is commonplace, but is it for you? How is it done? When does it work best? And when isn’t it such a good idea?

“I couldn’t get rid of these saddlebags”

Our liposuction patients range in age from 16 to 60, have stable weights, discreet areas of fat, and “good” skin elasticity.

Karin, a 32 year old patient, said this at her consultation: “I work out. I eat right. I’m in shape, but I just can’t lose these saddlebags. My mother and sisters have them too — it must be genetic. I know friends that have had liposuction, and they love it. My friend Bethann said, ‘Look, if my teeth stuck out I’d get braces. I feel the same way about my hips.’”

Shape vs weight

One thing we tell all our patients is that liposuction is about shape, not weight. Liposuction sculpts the body to “fit” harmoniously by removing pockets of fat in the neck, arms, abdomen, flanks, inner or outer thighs, calves — often more than one place at a time.

Removing this fat doesn’t necessarily affect your weight. But shape and weight are related in a “good news/bad news” way.

The first “good news” is that the fat, once removed, will not grow back. Those fat cells which are removed are gone forever.

The “bad news” is that you can still gain weight — you’ll just put it on differently. The second “good news” is that liposuction may affect your body weight’s “set point”.

You know… that weight your body wants to be. Liposuction, by removing fat cells, may affect that “set point” in a way which allows your body to lose weight and keep it off.

The procedure and after

We perform liposuction under local anaesthesia with sedation. Anesthetic fluid is added to the fat until the skin over it becomes firm or “tumescent” (Have you heard the term “tumescent technique?” This is where the term comes from.)

Adding a lot of anesthesia has its benefits. It keeps bruising to a minimum and yields a long-lasting numbness so that afterward, the surgery rarely hurts. The suction is then done with long thin tubes or “cannulas” inserted through quarter-inch incisions hidden in body creases.

After the procedure, many patients say it feels like they’ve had a hard work-out, or as one patient said “I felt like I’d bumped my thigh into the kitchen table. I was sore, but the pain pills handled it, and I didn’t even use the whole prescription!”

Patients can often return to work within the first week after surgery, and the bruising is usually gone after two or three weeks.

Who’s a candidate?

When you remove the fat from under the skin, one of two things will happen – the skin will either tighten and shrink, or it will loosen and perhaps sag. It depends on the skin’s elasticity. If the elasticity’s good, the skin will shrink. If not, sagging may result.

For some patients, loose skin doesn’t matter. “I just want to look good in clothes,” said one patient. But for others it does, and procedures which remove the extra skin may need to be considered.

Appropriate expectations are important. Small irregularities happen 10-15% of the time. Although we can usually improve these imperfections with a small “touch-up” procedure, it’s important to remember that while improvement is nearly always possible, perfection hardly ever is.

The future

Liposuction is less than 15 years old. In that time, it’s become an extremely safe and effective procedure. The bruising has been reduced and the recovery period has been shortened. Down the road, ultrasonic liposuction may have a role in further blurring the boundary line between weight and shape as extremely large amounts of fat might be able to be removed safely.

Further refinements can’t help but make a safe and effective procedure even better.

Contact The Austin-Weston Center for Cosmetic Surgery serving Northern Virginia, Maryland & Washington DC, to learn more about the most advanced liposuction procedures. The Austin-Weston Center for Cosmetic Surgery board certified plastic surgeons are specialists in body contouring.

Writers:  George Weston M.D., Dr. Robert Sigal, M.D.,  Byron Poindexter, M.D.
 

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