If You’re Considering Body Contouring After Major Weight Loss…

Body contouring following significant weight loss can help an individual to remove excess skin as well lingering, unwanted fat from specific areas, such as the thighs, arms, or abdomen. 

What happens during body contouring surgery?

The procedures necessary to achieve your goals will be defined along with a plan for the timing of these procedures. Plastic surgery procedures that may be recommended by Dr. Anigian include:

• Lower body lift: to correct sagging of the abdomen, buttocks, groin and outer thighs
• Arm lift: to correct sagging of the upper arms
• Thigh lift: to correct sagging of the inner, outer and mid thigh

Once your surgery is scheduled you will be required to come in for a pre-operative appointment. You will be given specific instructions on how to prepare for surgery, including guidelines on eating and drinking, smoking, and taking or avoiding certain vitamins and medications. Carefully following these instructions will help your surgery go more smoothly. If you smoke, it's especially important to stop at least two weeks before and four weeks after surgery; smoking inhibits blood flow to the skin, and can interfere with the healing of your incision areas.

Step 1 - Anesthesia

Medications are administered for your comfort during the surgical procedures. The choices include intravenous sedation and general anesthesia. Dr. Anigian will recommend the best choice for you.

Step 2 - The incision

All body-contouring procedures require incisions to remove excess skin. In many cases, these incisions may be extensive.

Incision length and pattern depend on the amount and location of excess skin to be removed, as well as personal preference and Dr. Anigian’s surgical judgment.

Advanced techniques usually allow incisions to be placed in strategic locations where they can be hidden by most types of clothing, but this is not always the case.

Body contouring is often performed in stages. Your particular condition and goals, as well as Dr. Anigian’s best judgment, will all influence how he defines a surgical plan. While it may have taken you two years or more to lose all the excess weight, it may take equally as long for the results of your body contouring to be complete.

Body Lift

A complete lower body lift treats sagging buttocks, abdomen, waist, hips and outer thighs in one procedure or in staged procedures. Incision patterns vary, and may include a circumferential incision around the body to remove the "belt" of excess skin and fat.

Breast Lift

The incision patterns for lifting a woman's sagging breasts will be determined based on the amount of excess skin to be removed.

These may include one or a combination of incisions in a circular pattern around the areola, in a line extending from the areola to the breast crease, and horizontally along the breast crease.

A breast implant also may be recommended to enhance breast shape and size.

Arm Lift

Sagging skin in the upper arms is treated with an incision from the underarm area extending along the inside or back of the upper arm. Additional incisions on the arms may be necessary anywhere excess skin has formed sagging pockets.

The smoother, tighter contours that result from upper arm contouring are apparent almost immediately, although initially obscured by swelling and bruising. In addition, skin quality is dramatically improved in both appearance and texture.

Thigh Lift

Reshaping of the thighs is achieved through incisions in the groin that can extend downward to the knee along the inner portion of the thigh.

Improving contours of the outer thigh may require an incision extending from the groin around the hip. Through these incisions Dr. Anigian will tighten tissues for a smoother, more toned thigh.