Ventura Tummy Tuck doctors

First and foremost, congratulations on your weight loss! What a wonderful transformation. In addition to your improved health, your figure already looks terrific.

Second, even though you might think that your tummy has "unique" issues, nothing could be further from reality. I see at least one patient per week whose tummy looks like yours.

Third, go for a full tummy tuck.

• After 4 years, your skin is not going to shrink on its own any farther--no matter how much exercise you do.
• Liposuction will not be helpful to treat the upper tummy and bellybutton. Since liposuction is a fat removal technique (without any significant skin tightening), liposuction is the wrong answer. You are already skinny! The problem is too much skin without good tone, not excess fat.
• Mini tummy tucks are nonsense operations. I have never found the right patient for a mini tummy tuck--in 8 years of practice! A mini tummy tuck is for that very rare patient whose problem area is limited to her lower middle abdomen, just above her pubis. Obviously, this is not where you are concerned.
• A standard tummy tuck will work. To minimize "dog ear" formation on the bilateral hips, weight-loss patients generally get their best results when the tummy tuck is extended all the way around circumferentially. Whether you choose to keep the surgery just in the front or all the way around will be your decision. Both are good choices, but the circumferential technique generally produces better contours.
• Do not do a fleur-di-lis abdominoplasty. The vertical portion of the scar is ugly, and the operation is now recognized as obsolete. If a plastic surgeon offers you this surgery, run away! He is out of date!!

Fourth, make sure that your lap band port is exchanged from a high-profile to a low-profile. Now that you are thin, the low-profile port will be less visible. You don't need that extra prominence to find the port anyway; you've got no subcutaneous fat. (Congratulations again!)

Fifth, make sure that your surgeon is certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. And, better yet, research whether he specializes in weight-loss patients. I do a lot of post-bariatric contouring, and let me tell you that weight-loss patients are very different from "regular" plastic surgery patients. Your surgeon needs the expertise only garnered from years of experience with your peer group.

Good luck!

At the time of surgery, patients should be at their ideal weight. Sometimes, this is signficantly more than their primary care doctors tells them. I try to be realistic with my patients. While they might be most healthy at 135 pounds, that weight may not achievable. So, we accept 186 pounds.

I suspect that, at the time, Peachy, that you return to 186 pounds, your stretch marks will actually be worse. Sorry to be a jerk, but the fat in your tummy is "inflating" the skin, so that it is less wrinkled. When a grape loses water, it becomes a raisin.

At 186, a tummy tuck or circumferential lower body lift will be an optimal way to...

• tighten your six-pack muscles
• reposition and rejuvenate your belly button
• remove your excess roll
• lift your pubis
• flatten your tummy

Some of the stretch marks will remain, but your overall result will be a terrific improvement.

Any type of smoking will diminish the oxygen supply to your healing tissues. Smoking is especially important to avoid before any surgery that involves the creation of flaps (complex segments of tissue with their own blood supplies), such as face lifts and tummy tucks.

If you were about to undergo upper eyelid blepharoplasties, routine breast augmentation, or liposuction, you would probably get away with smoking and yet still have a good result. However, I would probably cancel your tummy tuck surgery unless you are willing to undertake a significantly higher rate of complications.