Common Liposuction Myths

Posted Tuesday, January 24, 2012 to PROCEDURES > Body

By: G.D. Castillo, M.D.

Here are some common questions from our central Illinois, Champaign-Urbana and Bloomington, IL liposuction patients. Learn to separate the myths from the facts with my answers:

Is liposuction useful and effective only in areas with large accumulations of fat?

Answer: No. We carry out liposuction for small, medium and large bulges, and those can be in the face, neck, arms, stomach, hips, waist, thighs, buttocks, ankles, etc. Liposuction is a wonderful tool for body contouring, and in my practice in central Illinois, I have removed fat from all areas of the body with excellent results.

Should liposuction not be performed with other procedures?

Answer: Liposuction can be and is carried out with multiple procedures. Although it is true that removal of very large amounts of fatty tissue should probably not be combined with other procedures, most of our liposuction patients will have multiple surgeries performed. For example, facelift with facial and neck liposuction, breast augmentation with thigh liposuction, abdominoplasty with abdominal and hip liposuction, etc. For the most part, we try to keep procedures to less than 4 hours in length, which has created a rate of complications at very near zero.

Will removing fat through liposuction leave the skin looking wrinkly and saggy?

Answer: No. Areas that generally have some degree of wrinkling and/or sagginess, such as the abdomen after childbearing or the medial thighs after massive weight loss, would not improve through liposuction. Short of those exceptions, the skin contracts beautifully and we are able to carry out liposuction without any untoward effects in the skin and surrounding tissues. Experience is quite important. For example, when performing arm reduction with liposuction, we remove fatty tissue circumferentially from 360 degrees of the arm to avoid having any issues with loose, wrinkly skin.

After recovery from liposuction, will the fat return immediately?

Answer: Absolutely not. Our experience performing body contouring in Champaign-Urbana for more than 28 years reveals that as long as the patient maintains the pre-operative weight, the fatty tissue will never return. That is, fat cells have been removed, and those fat cells will not return. While other fat cells in the body can be increased in size, this could only happen if the weight of the patient increases beyond that of the pre-operative weight. After achieving excellent results with liposuction, most of our patients keep their weight stable by following a simple program of eating right and exercising.

Liposuction continues to be one of the most sought-after procedures, and there are good reasons for this. It provides immediate, outstanding results that are not obtainable through any other method and/or surgical procedure.

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