Category Archives: Tummy Tuck

Tummy Tucks and Fat

Posted on by
Reply

Often losing weight or having children leaves the midsection with unpleasant pouches of fat. While you may be a healthy weight, the unflattering pockets of fatty tissue won’t disappear with exercise and they don’t seem to be fading, no matter how much you’ve dieted. If you’re trying to lose those last few fatty pockets on your midsection, there are two ways to make a difference – liposuction and a tummy tuck.

Liposuction for Fat Deposits

Liposuction is the ideal solution for fatty deposits, but with one caveat. A liposuction procedure uses cannulas to suck out fat from the body. The skin then tightens and the area is smooth and contoured correctly. Liposuction works beautifully on parts of the body where there are small pockets of fat to be reduced and contoured. It does not work as well on areas of the body where the skin is not able to bounce back and smooth out correctly. Often, with severe weight loss and baby weight, this is case on the abdomen.

Tummy Tuck for Fat Deposits

A tummy tuck procedure, on the other hand, is ideal for removing both the fatty pockets and the loose skin as well. In a tummy tuck procedure, the surgeon cuts away a large fan of skin along the lower midsection. He then tightens the muscles under the skin as necessary before pulling the remaining skin down smoothly over the abdomen. A wide incision is left along the pubic line, but over time this scar fades. The abdomen that remains is smooth, sculpted and free of the bulges that fatty deposits and loose skin can leave behind.

Determining which procedure is best for unsightly bulges or awkward lumps of fat is usually a case of your skin condition more than anything. Skin that does not snap back quickly is not suited to liposuction. But skin that is easily reshaped and not stretched saves the patient a great deal of recovery since liposuction is more suitable.

 

Two Things You’ll Need Before a Tummy Tuck

Posted on by
Reply

A tummy tuck is a daunting surgery to be facing, even if it’s a great choice for toning and reshaping your body. Before you arrive in the hospital for the day of your surgery, you’ll need to plan ahead carefully to be sure that you have all of the necessary things to make the day of the surgery as well as your recovery as comfortable as possible.

A Good Friend

Perhaps the most important thing you’ll need on the day of the surgery is a good friend or family member. When you have your surgery, the surgeon will be using anesthesia. Once you wake up, you’ll be uncomfortable from the surgery as well as under the influence of the anesthesia, which makes you groggy. You will need a friend or family member to take you home and help you over the first days of your recovery. If you don’t have a friend or family member suited to this, you can arrange to spend some time in a recovery center where nurses and assistants will help.

Loose Clothing

During the surgery, the doctor will place drains in your abdomen. The drains will help to reduce swelling, but they may be in place for days, perhaps even weeks after the procedure. During this time, the abdomen will be uncomfortable from the surgery as well. Rather than wearing pants, even sweatpants, with a waistband that can aggravate the midsection, loose dresses are comfortable to wear and easier to handle when it is time to empty drains and get dressed.

Tummy Tuck and a Hysterectomy

Posted on by
Reply

While it is not medically advisable or permissible for a surgeon to perform a tummy tuck procedure while a patient is delivering a baby, another common procedure, the hysterectomy, involves an almost identical incision as a c-section, and this is an excellent time for a patient to undergo a full tummy tuck.

To coordinate a tummy tuck and hysterectomy, the patient will need to work with two different doctors. The surgeon performing the hysterectomy will need to be informed and consulted with in regard to the patient’s choices for the tummy tuck procedure. The plastic surgeon will need to coordinate with the attending surgeon so that the two procedures can occur back-to-back in the operating room.

For the patient, the surgeries blend well together. The surgeon performing the hysterectomy will make the necessary incision to open the abdomen and remove the uterus and perhaps surrounding tissues. While the incision is open, the surgeon will then step in after the uterus is removed to widen the incision as necessary, tighten the muscles and underlying tissue of the abdomen and dissect the belly button.

He will then pull the skin down along the abdomen dramatically before trimming off the excess portions. The skin will be repositioned on the abdomen, the belly button will be replaced correctly in a new incision and the incisions will all be stitched carefully.

Normally the recovery time for a hysterectomy is almost the same as the recovery time for a tummy tuck. This makes the processes a good match to be performed together and it is essentially a way to get a “two-for-one” procedure. Even if the procedure are performed at the same time, however, the patient will be required to pay for the non essential part of the procedure.

Tummy Tuck with a C-Section

Posted on by
Reply

A cesarean surgery, or c-section, seems like an ideal time to have a tummy tuck. After all, the tummy tuck procedure and the c-section deal with the same areas of the skin and have an almost identical incision. Using the same surgery, anesthesia and recovery room just seem like a logical idea for a tummy tuck, and many women request the tummy tuck along with the delivery. Most, however are disappointed.

Childbirth via cesarean is not an elective procedure. In the vast majority of cases, the c-section delivery is medically necessary for the mother or the baby. A tummy tuck procedure, on the other hand, is not a medically necessary procedure. Most doctors refuse to perform the two surgeries together for medical reasons.

When a baby is born, the mother has been pregnant for nine months. The hormones of pregnancy have contributed to the shape of the mother’s body and immediately after delivery an entirely new flood of hormones appear ready to continue to change and adapt the mother’s body to motherhood. These hormones along with the overstretched muscles of pregnancy and the swollen uterus make it virtually impossible for a surgeon to perform a full tummy tuck.

While there is no full tummy tuck procedure available with a c-section, many surgeons are more than willing to make a “wide incision” to remove all of the scar tissue that remains after the surgery, especially if a mother has had previous deliveries. With a wide incision, the surgeon is able to perform what amounts to a very mini tummy tuck. A bit of extra skin is removed to help the tummy smooth out as it heals although there will still be scarring and a raised ridge from the surgery that can only be helped with a fully tummy tuck procedure.

Tummy Tuck or Liposuction?

Posted on by
Reply

In the world of cosmetic surgery, there are roughly two options available when it comes time to contain your tummy. While there are various kinds of tummy tuck procedures and some new and emerging forms of liposuction, these remain the two most popular procedures for removing fat and smoothing down the midsection. Of course, deciding between the two is often the biggest obstacle facing patients.

The Skin of the Abdomen

Neither a tummy tuck nor liposuction is considered a weight loss procedure. Both procedures offer a contouring option for patients looking for a smoother midsection, and the skin of the stomach makes a large difference in which procedure you ultimately choose. If the patient’s skin is loose, sagging or has scars and stretch marks, choosing liposuction will do very little to make an improvement as the skin will simply sag more. A tummy tuck, on the other hand, will remove the damaged skin.

The Placement of Tummy Fat

Strangely enough, the positioning of the fat on your abdomen has a lot to do with the choice of procedure. If you have a large amount of fat around the center of your belly – circling your belly button, for instance, the tummy tuck is the best option to smooth down the midsection. A few extra pounds of fat around the lower abdomen, on the other hand, can easily be removed with liposuction, provided the skin is elastic enough to snap back into position correctly.

While some patients choose between liposuction and a tummy tuck, still others realize that the best benefits come from having both procedures. A tummy tuck removes large sections of damaged skin while the liposuction helps to smooth out the skin around the newly reshaped midsection.

3 Ways to Recover Quickly From a Tummy Tuck

Posted on by
Reply

A tummy tuck requires a lengthy recovery process. It is a major surgery after all that transforms both muscles and skin. This means that the recovery process will not be done in a day or even a week, but you can make the process go more smoothly by taking care of yourself and making the right choices when it comes to your recuperation.

Squeeze Your Drains

When you leave surgery, your surgeon will have left two or possibly four drains in position to help you remove the excess fluid from your abdomen. The drains collect the fluid that leads to swelling and help keep the area of your surgery from becoming inflamed. You’ll have to empty the bulbs from the drains regularly and then, as you reattach them, give the bulbs a good squeeze to remove the extra fluid and provide suction to draw more swelling out of your body and heal more quickly.

Move Regularly

It can be tempting to sit still and wait for your recovery to happen. Moving can make your injuries feel more uncomfortable, but moving is actually far better for you in terms of recovery than too much rest. Balance your rest and your movement by making it a point to keep moving around your house – walk to the bathroom, walk to the kitchen, cruise around a bit while you’re talking on the phone. Take a slow walk around the block. Circulating the blood without raising your blood pressure will make your incisions heal more quickly.

Get Long Amounts of Sleep

Go to bed early and try to sleep late. You’ll wake up a bit stiff in the morning, but the long periods of deep sleep and rest are giving your muscles and body time to recover and heal without interruption. Be sure that your bed is comfortable and that you’re able to sleep for as long as your body needs to at night before you carefully rise and begin your day anew.

 

3 Things Women Should Know About Tummy Tucks

Posted on by
Reply

Tummy tucks are popular surgery for women with good reason, but there are a few things going into the surgery that women, particularly young women, need to understand as they consider the surgery.

Tummy Tucks Aren’t Weight Loss Surgery

There is a perception that a tummy tuck is the perfect way to lose some of that extra fat around your midsection. This is true only in one sense of the world. A tummy tuck is a major surgery that involves a very lengthy recovery process. If you’ve dieted, exercised and tried everything under the sun to lose the fat, liposuction may remove the pockets of fat that remain. A tummy tuck is more effective for sagging skin and tissue that cannot be fixed by any other means.

Tummy Tucks Aren’t Permanent

The tummy tuck surgery you undergo to flatten your tummy in your twenties won’t last into your forties if you decide to get pregnant and have a baby or if you gain a great deal of weight. Removing excess skin from your abdomen means the skin can still stretch out to accommodate weight or pregnancy, and it will – resulting in a loss of the progress from the surgery.

Tummy Tucks Require a Long Recovery

A tummy tuck isn’t the sort of surgery you can take a long weekend to recover from. When you undergo a tummy tuck, you’ll need to spend up to a month recovering at home before you’re released to go back to work in some cases. While many are back at work in a week or two, which may use up all of the vacation time you’d stored and leaves you without sick days to return to the doctor for follow-up appointments.

 

3 Reasons to Delay Abdominoplasty

Posted on by
Reply

If you’re considering a tummy tuck, you want to have the surgery…yesterday! Who wouldn’t want to look into the mirror and see an amazing new midsection with toned, flat abs. But, a tummy tuck is a major procedure, and it’s important to understand how to best promote healing and lasting results from the surgery. For many women, it makes more sense to postpone the surgery rather than proceeding immediately.

Wait if You’re Still Considering Pregnancy

If you’re thinking about having another baby, there is no need to have a tummy tuck now. A tummy tuck smooths away the stretched skin and fatty deposits that are left after your baby is born, but if you have a tummy tuck and then decide to have another child, the tummy tuck won’t harm the pregnancy in any way, but the results of your surgery will be undone.

You’re Overweight

It’s tempting to think that a tummy tuck will remove those last ten pounds if you’re overweight, but in truth a tummy tuck only removes about four pounds of fat from the body, and it’s a contouring surgery, not a weight loss one. If you’re overweight, you need to lose those pounds first before considering the surgery. Not only will you heal faster, but the results will be much more striking as well.

You’re Unhealthy

If you have unhealthy habits like smoking, drinking heavily or the use of several different medications, a tummy tuck is not an ideal procedure at this particular moment. Smoking and certain medications can delay healing following a tummy tuck, and surgeons will require patients stop smoking before they move forward with the surgery. Taking the time to quit smoking, scale back drinking and getting over any lingering health concerns prior to surgery can make a dramatic difference in how quickly and how well the patient heals, and if the surgeon will even consider performing the surgery at all.

The Top Questions to Ask Your Tummy Tuck Surgeon

Posted on by
Reply

If you’re contemplating a tummy tuck, you don’t want to rush into any surgery. The procedure is not only expensive, but it can affect your overall health and well-being for decades into the future. When contemplating abdominoplasty, you should have confidence in your surgeon and his ability to produce the sort of results you’re looking for with a strong safety record as well.

How Many Tummy Tucks Have You Done?

The first question to ask is how many surgeries your doctor has performed. If the doctor comes back with a number that you think is too low – a dozen, twenty or even fifty – consider talking to another surgeon who is more experienced. This is a major procedure after all.

Do You Have Pictures of Your Results?

Ask for pictures of the results from the surgery. The more pictures you see, the more you’ll be able to tell about not only the surgeon’s work, but how willing he is to share images of his work. If he only lets you see a few pictures, for example, he may not be comfortable with his own work. You should be able to see quite a few images at the doctor you’re interviewing.

How Many Revision Abdominoplasties Have You Done?

If a tummy tuck doesn’t go well the first time, the surgeon performs a revision abdominoplasty to clean up the first. That doesn’t mean that every revision abdominoplasty is correcting his mistake, but it is important to know about potential problems and what the surgeon is able to do to fix those. You might ask to see pictures of these as well so that you go into the surgery ready, fully understanding the process and concerns for the surgery.

A Tummy Tuck Isn’t For You

Posted on by
Reply

Abdominoplasty is among the most popular plastic surgery procedures, but it’s not a procedure for everyone. The tummy tuck surgery is designed for both men and women with surplus skin and fatty pockets along the midsection. While it’s tempting to consider the surgery for a bit of a pouch or belly fat, a tummy tuck is a major surgery that is most appropriate for only some patients, and it may not be for you.

Tummy Tucks and Pregnancy

If you’re going to have additional children or you’re not sure yet if you’re going to have another baby, a tummy tuck isn’t worth the money for the surgery. While it’s possible for women to become pregnant and have a normal pregnancy after a tummy tuck, it’s not advised as the results of the tummy tuck will disappear with the stretched muscles and skin.

Tummy Tucks and Weight

A tummy tuck redefines and contours the body, but it is not designed as a way for patients to lose weight. If a patient has gained weight and is hoping to lose it with a tummy tuck procedure, he or she is sure to be disappointed. Most surgeons won’t perform a tummy tuck on a patient who is obese or far from an ideal weight. The surgery is dangerous for those with excessive weight and the results will not be as attractive, especially if the patient goes on to lose additional weight following surgery.

Tummy Tucks and Scarring

The tummy tuck procedure leaves a large scar. The scar is prominent and even dramatic as it heals. This scar may be a significant deterrent for patients who are interested in a slightly flat belly to show off their new physique. The scarring usually will fit behind a modest pair of panties or a swimsuit, however.