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Plastic Surgery after Significant Weight Loss

After losing a large amount of weight, conflicting feelings can emerge. For while the pounds are finally gone, what often remains in the aftermath of that loss is flabby skin and tissue that’s no longer supported or bound to fat.

Therefore to complete your transformation, plastic surgery following weight loss is often considered the final step.

Consequently, for women who are shedding pounds after the birth of a baby, or who’ve had successful surgical interventions or diet regimens, the goal shifts - the focus is no longer on pound reduction but on body contouring to provide a more balanced and fit appearance. Fortunately, there are several plastic surgery procedures available for body contouring after dramatic weight loss. Moreover, the surgeon can help determine timing and appropriateness for beginning this second phase of transformation.

Having a more toned, less flabby body through surgery following weight loss will be more successful if some essential preliminary conditions are met. Paramount among these is a stable weight, for when patients lose or gain many pounds after plastic surgery for contouring, they will experience one of two situations:

1. Fat again forming beneath, and placing traumatic stress on, the now tauter, already weakened skin, causing stretch marks and scarring

2. In the case of losing more weight, a return to flabby hanging skin pockets and unsupported tissue beneath it.

Thus, once weight is stabilized, various procedures can be considered. The surgeon may devise a plan so that they are done in stages, rather than all at once. As dramatic weight loss often takes a long period of time, it stands to reason that contouring surgeries to finalize it should proceed at a reasonable pace suited to each individual’s needs, physical condition, and concerns.

Besides weight stability, you should be in general good health, have realistic expectations, a positive attitude, and a commitment to follow up with routines of good nutrition and fitness in everyday life.

Taking these steps will ensure you see the greatest benefit from all of your hard work. Moreover, while adults of any age can undergo these procedures, being a smoker adds additional risks.

Procedures to help the body conform in shape to its newer reduced size and restore severely stretched skin and sagging underlying tissue involve mostly the abdominal area, the upper arms, breasts, and buttocks.

To eliminate the hanging pockets of skin or tone up the tissue beneath for a smoother appearance, board-certified plastic surgeons perform techniques appropriate to the area being addressed. Regardless of which surgery is undergone and in what order, however, there will be medications administered for comfort, including intravenous sedation or general anesthesia.

Secondly, surgery following weight loss requires incisions, sometimes extensive, to remove excess skin. A lower body lift is one of the most prevalent procedures sought.

It may be done as one process or as a series, dependent on the patient’s individual health assessment by the physician. Such a lift treats sagging buttocks, as well as the abdominal, waist, hip, and outer thigh areas. Sometimes a circumferential incision is made, encircling the body to allow removal of the belt-like overhang of excess skin. For women who have had babies and experienced dramatic weight loss, the focus is usually on the abdomen. Accordingly, liposuction may be used to suck out fatty tissue remaining from unresolved post-delivery weight loss. For those women who have successfully lost the pregnancy weight, the stretched skin of their abdomens and any stray fat deposits can be corrected with a tummy tuck, or abdominoplasty. This specific form of body contouring plastic surgery is at the heart of the mommy makeover. Others experiencing significant fat reduction, perhaps from surgical procedures like liposuction or following overall weight loss programs without surgery, often find that, besides the abdominal or other areas below the waist, they now have upper arms that are unsightly with hanging skin tissue, or breasts that droop with downward nipples.

Strategically placed surgical incisions allow sagging skin tissue to be removed, the results producing smoother tighter contours, and best of all, improved skin quality. When reshaping of the thighs by tightening sagging tissues is the target, a complete contouring involves incisions made in the groin area, extending to the knee along the inner thigh region. Ridding the outer thigh of its excessive skin additionally requires an incision from the groin extending upward around the hip. While the visual effects of body contouring surgery are readily apparent, it can take up to two years to complete all recommended procedures and fully realize their results.

Though some visible scarring usually remains from the incisions, patients find it insignificant when considering the sleeker more toned body they now inhabit. What’s more, though aging causes some loss of firmness, relative permanence of initial improvements and long lasting results can be expected when following a healthy lifestyle and maintaining its cornerstone, a stable body weight.

 

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