Older Liposuction techniques
Liposuction is the most commonly performed cosmetic surgery in the world, over 500,000 liposuction surgeries are performed each year in the USA alone. In the United States, liposuction is the most-performed cosmetic surgery today. And hips liposuction, including the buttocks and thigh areas, is the most popular liposuction of all. It is considered a very safe procedure, and one that has returned many women (and some men) to a much more balanced, youthful appearance. Hips liposuction, like other liposuction, should not be thought of as a treatment for obesity or a method of weight loss. It is a body contouring operation, to reshape the body in association with good exercise and a healthy diet. In hips liposuction, the average patient has approximately five to seven pounds of fat removed.
Other accepted names for liposuction include lipoplasty, suction lipectomy, sculpturing and body contouring.
Liposuction is a procedure that helps with body contouring by removing unwanted fat from specific areas of the body. The procedure is regualrly done on the hips, thighs, buttocks and abdomen areas. However it can also be helpful in the upper arms, chin, knees, and neck areas. The tumescent technique provides patients with more precise results, smaller incisions, and a quicker recovery time. Liposuction is not a substitute for dieting and exercise. It is very helpful in removing localized areas of fat that do not respond to traditional weight loss methods. The best candidate for liposuction are normal weight people with firm, elastic skin who have pockets of excess fat in certain areas.
Liposuction surgery has evolved over the years with several technological advancements. Liposuction is often employed to eliminate love handles, double chins and chunky thighs, and reshape the body to a much slimmer appearance. Cosmetic liposuction surgery has evolved over the years thanks to technological advances with suctioning techniques that have basically replaced the more extensive liposuction surgeries of years past. Liposuction is also popular due to the minimal scarring that it leaves behind.
Fluid injection is commonly used by lipo surgeons nowadays. This is called Tumescent liposuction and is a lipo technique in which large volumes of fluid (up to three times the amount of fat to be removed) are injected into the incision. This procedure is typically performed on patients who only need a local anesthetic and is named after the swollen and firm status of the tissues when filled with solution. This liposuction surgery technique can last as long as four to five hours. Similar to the tumescent technique, the super-wet lipo technique involves fluid injection that is usually equal to the amount of fat to be removed and rather takes only an hour or two. During fluid injection, a medicated solution is shot into fatty areas before the fat is removed. Fluid injection offers several benefits, which include making it easier to remove the fat, reducing the amount of blood lost during surgery and bruising sustained after surgery, and providing anesthesia during and after lipo surgery.
There is an ideal liposuction candidate that cosmetic surgeons will consider when evaluating whether the surgery may be right for certain people. The ideal liposuction will include suctioning off a certain amount of fat, usually within 10-15 percent of the patient's body weight. The ideal liposuction candidate will maintain a normal body weight, balanced diet and healthy lifestyle and not have any history of chronic medical conditions. Furthermore, liposuction typically works best on candidates with elastic skin that can bounce back following surgery. Age is not much of a consideration with lipo.
Liposuction surgery can be beneficial on certain small and troublesome areas on the body. Results are typically best on the hips, abdomen, neck and outer thighs. Men typically accumulate fat in their torso, back, abdomen and sides. As for women, fat tends to build up in their hips, buttocks and thighs. These respective areas are often the most common sources for lipo in men and women. The buttocks and abdomen are two areas which people feel like liposuction can help them improve their appearance. While lipo on the buttocks can slim down the area, it may also leave rippling and dimpling. As for abdominal fat, liposuction typically does a good job of removing the fat between the abdominal muscles and the skin. However, lipo can not remove abdominal fat that is stored deeper in the body.
While liposuction can have beneficial impacts, it's important that you set realistic expectations. If you think liposuction surgery is going to dramatically meet your standards of the ideal look and cause people to treat you differently, you are probably following wrong motivations for the surgery. With that said, liposuction may be viewed as successful if you are looking to improve your appearance and self-confidence.
During this surgery, a cosmetic surgeon creates a tiny incision in the desired area of the body that is going to have some fat suctioned out. From here, the cosmetic surgeon inserts a narrow tube called a cannula into the incision. After being pushed and pulled through the fat layer that lies deep beneath the skin, this tube essentially serves as a vacuum which breaks up the fat cells and suctions them out. Typically, a vacuum pump or large syringe is used to provide the suction action to the tube. If a person is getting liposuction surgery on another part of his or her body, the cosmetic surgeon will finish up in the one area, move to the next location and repeat the process. The amount of time that liposuction surgery takes varies and depends on several factors, including the size of the area, the amount of fat being removed, and the specific technique and type of anesthesia used.
Liposuction surgery techniques are quite detailed, and the recovery period and healing process is very gradual. Fluid buildup is a common after effect of liposuction surgery. In some instances, this excess fluid may need to be drained with a small drainage tube that is inserted under the skin. Cosmetic surgeons will often prescribe antibiotics to liposuction patients to prevent infection following the surgery and also fit them with elastic garments to wear over the treated area for a couple of weeks. Liposuction is a tough surgery, and you will most likely not look or feel well afterwards. The immediate days after liposuction surgery may be marked by pain, burning, swelling and temporary numbness, and a cosmetic surgeon can provide medication to help alleviate some of this discomfort. After enduring liposuction surgery, some patients may feel anxious for results and even get depressed in the following days and weeks when they don't notice any major changes. These feelings will likely subside once liposuction patients begin to feel better.
Most cosmetic surgeons recommend their patients to walk around as soon as possible after undergoing a lipo procedure. Such movement can help reduce swelling and diminish the chances of blood clots forming in the legs. With that said, it is not wise to engage yourself in physically-demanding activities after lipo surgery as your body will need to heal in the following month. Most bruising and swelling from liposuction surgery disappears within three weeks. In other instances, the swelling may remain for six months or more. Most people begin to feel better about a week or two after the liposuction procedure and return to work just a few days after the surgery. Cosmetic surgeons require lipo patients to follow up with them to monitor their progress and make sure that there haven't been any other liposuction complications that could require another surgery.
While liposuction patients may be anxious to see results, they must be realistic and remember that most improvements to their bodies start to become apparent some four to six weeks after the lipo surgery. In other words, results typically become noticeable when most of the swelling has disappeared. Liposuction patients can expect to see their new body contour take effect usually three months after the surgery. Once this new look takes shape, it is important for lipo patients to maintain a healthy diet and to exercise.
While liposuction is especially popular because of its ability to leave miniscule scarring, imperfections may exist after the surgery. As just one example, older patients have noticed that their skin surface has become baggy, irregular and disproportionate following surgery. Hips liposuction can help many women whose body contours are asymmetrical due to excessively large deposits of fat on the area of the hips. This is an area that is hard to reduce with exercise and diet alone. The woman with this problem will undoubtedly find it difficult to buy clothing that is becoming to her. Hips liposuction can more or less normalize the hips, along with the outer thighs and buttocks. If these areas are disproportionately large in comparison with the rest of the body, hips liposuction can remove much of the saddlebags and bring the lower body into better proportion with the upper body. Hips liposuction involves the removal of excess fat by the insertion of small cannulae, or stainless steel tubes, into an incision in the body. A powerful vacuum is attached to these tubes, and suctions out the fat. Generally the incisions are very small, only two or three millimeters wide, and are made in a place where the scars will be virtually invisible, such as in the fold of the buttocks.
Elective thigh and hips liposuction procedures are performed with several different techniques. Some of these, like the super-wet method, require a general anesthesia. If your hips liposuction is performed under general anaesthesia, you will probably need to stay overnight in the hospital or clinic. You may experience some nausea upon awakening, due to the anaesthesia. Other methods of hips liposuction, like the tumescent procedure, inject diluted local anesthesia into the surgical area to numb it, and to make the excess fat easier to remove. In this case, general anaesthesia is rarely needed.
Older patients who have been very heavy for a long time may find that hips liposuction leaves them with sagging skin in the area of surgery. This is because their skin has lost its elasticity, and cannot contract or shrink to fit the newly-reduced area. Hips liposuction in such cases may need to be followed at a later time with a procedure to remove the extra inelastic skin.
Abdominal "fat" actually does have relatively more fibrous (connective) tissue in it than most other fat on the body. back fat also has a lot; hip fat, deep thigh fat, and the deep fat on the lower stomach typically have less. The more fibrous the tissue, the less well it comes out, and this is particularly true on the upper stomach (epigastrium).
