Body Contouring

Your body is your temple, treat it with respect and it will do the same for you – or so the saying goes.

However, in spite of all your best efforts (dieting, exercise, skincare), you still come to the same conclusion - There is excess fat in some obvious area on your abdomen, hips, thighs or arms. And for some of you, (after pregnancy or after large weight shifts) the skin integrity is also in question, with overhanging skin or the dreaded stretch marks. Well, body contouring is the field of plastic surgery that focuses on correcting those excess fat pockets, sagging skin or the overall distorted body shape.

I like to describe body contouring treatments as similar to a Chinese menu – one from column a, two from column B. What I mean by this is that there are many different procedures that we can do, every person’s problems are unique, and we will provide the solutions to that patients specific problems. For instance, a young healthy woman in excellent shape may present to me with complaints of unsightly fat pockets on the outer thighs and inner thighs. Because her skin tone is good, she would likely be an excellent candidate for power-assisted liposuction (PAL).

However, if she had had a significant weight gain followed by a large weight loss (more common now, due to surgical obesity procedures), she would likely also have sagging skin or even stretch marks that would not resolve with PAL alone. In these cases, in addition to PAL, we would also remove extra skin from the inner thighs (medial thigh lift), remove the extra skin from the outer thighs (lateral thigh lift/buttock lift), remove extra skin from the upper arms (brachioplasty) or from the abdomen (abdominoplasty/mini-abdominoplasty).

What if the patient presents after having her third child, are there other things to consider? Yes, after pregnancy, in addition to new fat pockets on the abdomen and thighs, patients also have a separation of the muscles of the abdomen (diastasis recti) that make that hour-glass shape a memory of the past. The newest techniques to correct this problem is called the high lateral tension Abdominoplasty. This technique will get rid of the unwanted fat, excess hanging skin and stretch marks as well as tightening the muscles bringing back that hour-glass shape body contour. Furthermore, because of technical improvements, the scars of the procedure are much improved in comparison to the older techniques.

Finally, how do you know if you are a candidate for a mini-abdominoplasty versus a full abdominoplasty? Simply, the mini-abdominoplasty has a shorter scar and no scar near the belly button. In exchange for the limited scarring, it has limited ability to remove excess skin from the upper abdomen. So if you feel that the majority of your excess skin is below the belly button, you are a candidate for this procedure.