So let us talk about tummy tuck and body lifts. We sort of clump these procedures together because pretty much, they entail the same type of procedures. What they are is lifting of skin and fatty subcutaneous tissue from the muscle and removing the extra skin that is lax and loose and hanging. What are the causes of extra skin laxity and hanging skin; multitude of things. For example, patients who have had pregnancy or multiple pregnancies, they have stretching of the muscles of the abdominal wall, they have excessive fat deposit around the bowels and protrusion of the bowels through the weak muscle and also excess skin laxity, excess fat around the tummy, so now they have a big, fat, large, hanging abdomen and when they come to see us, we would decide because of the skin’s elasticity being excessive and looseness being excessive, and also because of the fact that their muscles are very loose, this patient is an excellent candidate for a tummy tuck. How do we perform this procedure? It entails an incision at the bikini line where it is not very visible, lifting up the skin of fat subcutaneous tissue underneath the skin from the muscle, tightening the muscles if needed, pulling the skin down and removing the extra skin. And then, the patient would go home couple of hours after the procedure and will come back the next day for followup and then have several visits. In a couple of weeks, this patient would be actually experiencing a very nice flat abdomen much improved in contour, much improved in appearance, and 90% of the patients are ecstatic even after the second week, and you know I have good news. Most patients in six months, look ten times better even than they did just two weeks after surgery, so they just feel better and better and better after the healing is completed.
Now, we combined tummy tuck with other list, but there is also something called a mini-tummy tuck and that is sort of a little bit different. It is sort of a miniature tummy tuck, some patients only have a small amount of flattened skin hanging in the lower border of the abdomen, we call this, you know, abdominal apron, or lower abdomen apron and so we can remove this excessive fat and skin. A small incision, you know very fine line, in the bikini line and they heal very well. Most patients are extremely, they don’t need any procedure or extensive procedure, healing time for them, instead of two weeks generally is about half of that may be about a week or less. Now, tummy tuck, mini-tummy tuck, we talked about and there is a liposuction that we can combine, very mild liposuction, minimal liposuction with tummy tuck. More extensive liposuction with mini-tummy tuck and some times depending on the patient or depending on the patient’s need, I recommend that an individual undergoes a liposuction procedure waits about six months and then we perform the tummy tuck. These people usually get tremendously improved body figure and appearance and it is unbelievable how their whole body image and body appearance changes, amazing. Make sure you talk to your surgeon specifically to find out if you are a candidate for this combination of procedure. The healing time for liposuction combined with the mini-tummy tuck is the same as the healing time expected for just mini-tummy tuck alone, so it does not really add much to your healing time. And if you do the two procedures, meaning do the liposuction, wait six months and half tummy tuck, then we are talking about two or three, four days at the most of healing expected for liposuction and then the tummy tuck which is about two weeks, so you will have two separate healing periods, separated by six months.
What is body lift? body lift is appropriate for patients who have had tremendous weight loss, either secondary to this natural weight loss or stomach stapling or stomach banding which we may be able to talk about if you are interested in at some point, you can talk to your surgeon and he will refer you to the appropriate physician in the New Me Institute or one of our affiliated practices, you know, for you to have a discussion about that, for weight loss, and these banding or stomach stapling procedures help reduce your body weight by 75 to 100 or plus pounds. If you are a candidate for that make sure you discuss that with the surgeon. When they come in for further discussion.
Patients who had tremendous weight loss or have excessive body sort of skin laxity, circumferentially meaning all the way around their body would need a body lift and that means that the incision would go around the body, remove a layer of skin and fat all the way around the circumference of the body and then the wound would be closed, so they would have a scar that would be in the pant or clothes line in the lower border of the abdomen and hips and back. Again, it is an amazing contouring procedure. It helps the right candidate tremendously just completely changes their body appearance and it is an incredible procedure to be considered.
Arm lift and thigh lifts are pretty much the same technique meaning lifting the skin and the fatty subcutaneous tissue underneath the skin from the muscle, lifting the skin up, removing the extra skin and stitching or suturing the skin to the other edge of the skin on the other side, and it is for patients who have excessive skin redundancies called folds of skin in the inner thighs or in the upper arms and it is again tremendously effective body contouring procedure. It does leave a fine-line of scar, usually hidden in areas that are least visible and they are not for every one, but for the candidate they are tremendous in benefit than you get to discuss them with the surgeon who will be coming in to talk with you, make sure you feel comfortable, that is the key asking any questions you may have, they are more than glad to answer anything about these particular procedures and let you know if at all you are a candidate for them and if you are what variation again, no two patients are alike, so no two procedures are going to be identical in two patients, so you know we will consider procedure for you that will result in the least scarring, the most effective you know the procedure that gives you the best outcome for you and you would have the fastest recovery and returning to work immediately with the minimum risks, so that is our goal, that is what we are going to do for you, make sure you ask. The goal is to minimize any risk for you depending on your age there are certain issues that may apply to you and not to next person, but the bottom line is three to four weeks before the procedure the patient needs to stop smoking or any type of nicotine use, alcohol drugs and aspirin, Motrin, herbs of any kind, vitamins of any kind, basically nothing except food and prescribed medications. The other is that you need to, if you are taking any regular prescribed medications, you need to discuss that with your internist and also our family doctor and also with a surgeon, myself or one of my associates who have been trained by me, specifically about those and make sure that those are safe to be taken prior to surgery. Bottom line is if you are at the ages of 40, does not matter, what procedure you are having all the preoperative instructions are not taking any alcohol, Motrin, herbs, vitamins and so on does apply to you. No matter what you are first of all and then secondly, if you are over the age of 40 EKG, you need you know an evaluation of your heart, using the EKG, basically you do the electrocardiogram and you get the report read by an internist or a cardiologist and there has be a signature on that EKG otherwise we will not perform your procedure if you are over the age of 50 in addition to your typical blood test and the EKG you need to have a medical clearance and that is the other thing preoperatively for all the procedures regardless of what procedure it is.
Postoperative course or care of these procedures will be given to you in writing so that in brief you know as a summary, you will make sure that you have someone with you for the first couple of days postoperatively, preoperatively you will have an evaluation most likely by a general internist or a cardiologist if your needs require and intraoperatively in the surgery you will be given antibiotics to take. For tummy tuck, you make sure you bring a little cane because you will be walking bent over for about a week to 10 days and that sort of will help heal the skin area because we have shortened the skin and eventually over the course of a week to 10 days we will redrape your abdomen and you will be fine, so don’t forget the cane with you. You will be going home with someone you trust whether you had arm lift, thigh lift, abdominoplasty which is the tummy tuck, mini- tummy tuck or combination of liposuction and tummy tuck, inner thigh lift or whatever type of lifting like they call fanny lift and so on. If you have any of those procedures you will be going home with someone you trust, who will be watching you, taking good care of you, there will be most likely a drain placed or two drains placed in the area to drain any fluid collection from the area of surgery. You need to basically learn how to manage the drain, it is very simple and the nurse will teach you, make sure you do have the individual ahead of time cued to ask if the nurse doesn’t volunteer to give you that information, even though it is in writing and our nurses are excellent at giving the instructions in detail and in depth, just make sure that you sort of have a mental note made to ask anyway, and if you are not sure at any about any postoperative course, guess what, 24 x7 we are available here to answer any questions you have at any time. Myself any other surgeon that work at the New Me Institute would rather hear from you more often than not. If you think, should I call or not, you should call. This the one place that you absolutely after surgery you need to be sure that everything that you do is correct and that we do not take any chances, whatever it takes will do to make sure you are safe and happy at the end of the day, so make sure you do ask any questions you may have. Other things basically would entail, you know, taking antibiotics as we have mentioned before in pretty much all the other postoperative course requirements, antibiotic treatment, this is not an exception, you will also be doing that. Pain medication, the level of pain is not tremendous, generally people describe as a 3-4/10 much less than child birth in most cases, it is not that bad, just sort of just a tight bit more than going to the gym and working out. It is not really that bad at all for most of these procedures. Most of the pain is at the incisional site and pain medication manages it well.
The wound cares start about five days or more after surgery, you will get an instruction for the wound care instructions, so don’t worry, you don’t need to memorize anything I have said here, I just basically want to make sure you have at least an idea about what is to come after this procedure. Every visit you have with your surgeon or myself you will get instruction as to what to do between that visit and the next visit, so this is not something you have to memorize and perform like in a play. You just basically get instructions step by step and again any day, any moment, any time you feel uncomfortable with the particulars of it call. This is your home, we are more than happy to answer any questions that you may have, so here we go, if you feel I have not addressed anything that you may need to know make sure you ask the doctors or the nurses who will be coming in right after this to answer for you.
Thank you. |
