Patients often ask me, “Do I need a tummy tuck or just liposuction?”  The answer to this question is often easy.  There are usually three problems that make patients unhappy with their stomach, too much fat, too much skin, or loose abdominal muscles.

Patients who present with primarily an excess tummy fat problem, but good skin tone, no lower abdominal skin roll and little muscle stretch from previous child birth are great candidates for simple liposuction to improve their abdominal contour.  Liposuction has the advantage of minimal scars, little down time and less cost compared to most tummy tuck procedures.

Unfortunately, most patients do have some combination of the big three-too much fat, skin, and loose abdominal muscles.  For those patients liposuction treatment alone of their tummies will be a major disappointment.  Tummy tuck or abdominoplasty is the correct answer.

 I perform the abdominoplasty procedure by first aggressively liposuctioning away all excess abdominal and flank fat deposits.  Next loose abdominal muscles (rectus diastasis) are tightened by a suture technique.  Finally all excess, loose abdominal skin is removed through a lower abdominal scar easily hidden below the panty line.

Although tummy tuck procedures are more involved and require more recovery time than liposuction, the dramatic improvements they can offer the problem tummy is usually felt to be well worth it.  What most of my patients really want is a fantastic surgical result and for many of them abdominoplasty is what truly delivers.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 2:50 pm and is filed under Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.