Cosmetic Fat Removal

Liposuction is also one of the absolute most popular plastic surgery procedures. I love doing liposuction. To me, I consider it sculpting as opposed to suction. It's almost like you have a block of clay, and you're making something beautiful out of it. I really enjoy that because there's a lot of artistry in it. As far as the surgery itself, it's pretty simple. You have an area of fat that you don't want, you inject it with a fluid which prevents bleeding and gives you anesthetic, and then you use a hollow cannula under suction to pull out the fat that you don't want. Technically, you can do liposuction in almost any area where you have extra fat that you don't want. Of course, some of the most popular areas for liposuction are the abdomen, the hip or flank area is also very popular, but I've also done liposuction of the thighs, the arms, even the knees, and areas like the chin and neck. Any place that you have fat that you don't want, there's a very good chance that liposuction could remove that fat if you so desire. One thing I'd say about liposuction and who's a good candidate. Liposuction is a contouring procedure. If somebody has extra fat all over their body, then liposuction probably is not the right answer for them. The best candidate for liposuction is somebody who has specific areas of fat in certain locations that they want removed. It's great for that because you're contouring the body but not using it as a weight loss procedure. If you think about having liposuction, and you're going to choose a surgeon, you just want to make sure, one, is the surgeon certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery to know that they're truly trained and certified? Then I would just ask them about how many of these procedures do they do? There are a lot of plastic surgeons out there that have a very broad practice, and they may only do liposuction once every few months. For someone like me who does a lot of cosmetic breast and body surgery, we do liposuction every week. You just want to make sure that, one, your surgeon is properly trained and certified, and two, are they experienced in that particular procedure? The benefits of liposuction are pretty obvious. You can take fat from one area that you don't want, and you can remove it. The feedback is generally very good. The only thing I will mention about liposuction as far as feedback is you have to be a little bit patient with liposuction. When you liposuction an area, that location is going to swell. Now, if you're doing a lot of liposuction in the area, obviously, the patient is going to be able to see the difference because you're removing more fat than the swelling replaces the size of. However, if you're doing subtle liposuction, so things like the inner thigh, maybe the neck, a lot of times right after the liposuction procedure, the swelling will actually mask the result. Feedback is generally very good because I do educate patients that they need to give themselves time. I tell my liposuction patients, "You really need to be about six weeks out before you even think to look as far as, okay, what is my result going to be?" But also remember, it can take up to six or nine months for all that swelling to come out, so yeah, feedback is generally good, but I think educating patients helps to make that feedback good.