Reveal Your Best Shape Post-Weight Loss
You’ve worked hard to lose weight and make good choices for your body and health. But, what happens after all that hard work is done and you don’t feel good about your results? You should be proud of the work you’ve put in. You deserve confidence that matches how you feel on the inside! Sometimes plastic surgery can help.
Losing a substantial amount of weight through diet and exercise or surgery takes considerable effort and discipline. What is the reward at the end of that road? Extra skin. After human skin has been substantially stretched the elastic fibers can no longer shrink down to fit the smaller body underneath.
Unfortunately, there is no minimally invasive procedure to remove excess skin. The goal of a plastic surgeon in the massive weight loss population is to obtain the best contour and skin tightening possible while keeping the scars hidden in shadows or in areas normally covered by clothing.
Each patient has different priorities so there is no standard set of procedures. Additionally, the standard methods of performing the procedures (abdominoplasty, arm lift, thigh lift, etc.) have to be altered in the weight loss patient for the best results.
Massive weight loss patients and procedures have to be approached differently than standard plastic surgery procedures.
Some of those differences are outlined below:
The majority of arm lifts involve an incision from the arm pit to the elbow. In many cases, this is not sufficient for the massive weight loss patient as the surgery leaves behind excess skin at the elbow and does not address the excess skin on the chest just below the elbow. Dr. Hubbard will extend the incision past the under arm and combine it with his breast lift surgery incision, resulting in an impressive reduction in the upper back and flank skin.
As mentioned above, Dr. Hubbard prefers to combine this surgery with the arm lift to remove the skin that gets bunched up by the bra strap. For the breast lift itself, Dr. Hubbard has had the best results by adding volume at the same time. Often he can do this by rearranging your own skin and fat (called autoaugmentation), if that is not possible a breast implant is used.
Operating on the abdomen alone is often unsuccessful in someone that has lost substantial weight. Patients frequently have skin excess and a droopy appearance to the outside of the legs and the buttocks. Combining the standard tummy tuck procedure with a back lift and lateral thigh lift (sometimes called a lower body lift), provides a much greater improvement in the waist line, buttocks and leg contour.
Dr. Hubbard first must make sure the surgery is going to be safe. This includes both medical health and nutritional health. Your nutritional health needs to be optimal if we can expect your body to heal from surgery.
Assuming it is safe to consider surgery, Dr. Hubbard will review all of the problem areas and help the patient prioritize what procedures will have strongest impact on the patient’s overall look. Usually, patients desire more than 1 body area lifted. Sometimes these procedures can be done at one time, sometimes they have to be separated.
During your consultation Dr. Hubbard will discuss with you your goals and expectations and determine if this is the right procedure for you. To schedule your private consultation with Dr. Hubbard please email our office or call directly at 214.370.4813.
The surgical procedure and recovery vary greatly depending on what procedure or combination of procedures are performed. Please refer to the individual procedure pages for that information (i.e. breast lift, tummy tuck, arm lift, thigh lift).
The final result on weight loss patients is always impressive. It is amazing to see the small body frame that is revealed under all of the extra skin. With time the scars fade and are barely apparent. Most patients are so happy with their look in clothes that scars are no longer important.
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