Miami Tumescent Liposuction doctors

The local anesthesia injected into the skin prior to making the incisions is, for most patients, minimally uncomfortable. These injections do nothing to blunt the sensation of the tumescent anesthesia as it anesthetizes the fatty tissue. How much feeling you have is a function of the ingredients of the tumescent formula, how quickly it is injected and what your pain tolerance is. I have experimented with different formulas for anesthesia and have found that no matter what is done to minimize discomfort, some patients are very uncomfortable and others find it minimally bothersome. The real stimulation comes from the liposuction and based upon my experience most patients will have intermittent discomfort in varying degrees of intensity. The more fat that is removed or the more fibrous the patient's fat - the more likely they will experience pain. Dr Harrell

Hi there-

As I find myself saying on this site and others all too often, it is very important that you maintain focus on the context of these decisions and constantly remind yourself of the goals you had when you set out on your plastic surgery journey....

When the idea of improving your body contour first sparked in your mind, you immediately had an impression of what you wanted your experience to be like and your outcome to approximate- you want to be safe, and you want to look your very best. 

If we can agree on this point, what I am going to say now will be easy for you to understand.

Is it possible to perform even larger amounts of liposuction under local with a bit of sedation? YES. 

Would I let my wife, sister, or mother do it this way? Unless it was a tiny area (like under the chin), ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Why?-

1. Larger volumes of local anesthetic (like those required to numb larger areas like an abdomen or thighs) will approach TOXIC levels. The fact is that the vast majority of women who have died during or after liposuction over the past ten years died because they received too much local anesthetic.
2. In an attempt to limit the amount of local given during the procedure, the doctors who prefer to do it this way (more on them later) offer to treat one area per day, having the patient return for multiple treatments. Aside from the inconvenience of this, treating area 2 while having to see through the swelling that has formed in area 1 will compromise your doctor's ability to deliver the best outcome...
3. There is no way to give you enough sedation or local that you are pain free. In other words, it's still going to hurt. And when it does, especially if you are sedated, guess what happens? I can no longer do my best for you- because you are moving, because you are expressing pain, and because the knowledge that I am hurting you causes stress and keeps me from concentrating on doing what you paid me to do- my best work. So what ends up happening is that you have a negative, painful experience, and then don't even look as good as you hoped because I couldn't do my best work for you.
4. For all of these reasons, you should stay away from doctors who are ONLY able to offer you the procedure under local. The majority of doctors who tell you that local is the way to go do so because it is quite simply the only option they can offer you. Why? Because they are not surgeons and therefore do not have privileges to do the operation under anesthesia at a hospital or accredited surgery center. The best way to weed these people out is to simply ask them- if I wanted to do it under general, could you do it? Where would it be done? What if you've given me all the local you can safely and I'm still in a lot of pain?

Again- to summarize, if your goals are to be safe, and to have the very best outcome possible, you are much better off dealing with a little hangover from the more safe general anesthetic so that your Board Certified Plastic Surgeon can do his best work for you.

Remember- Board Certified Plastic Surgeons have the credentials and ability to do liposuction under any kind of anesthesia known to man- there is a reason that the vast majority of us still think it's in our patient's best interests to do all but the smallest of areas under more than local with oral sedation.