Can lipo to breast fat transfer be performed under IV or local?

Thank you for your question.
I like to perform this procedure under LMA. MA stands for Mass Anesthesia the patient is inhaling anesthetic acids. The patient is asleep but is not paralyzed. The patient is breathing on their own. If this procedure is performed under IV sedation, there is a chance that in order to make the patient comfortable during surgery, they may receive too much IV anesthesia which could result in a patient not being able to breath. I personally believe that performing LMA for this procedure is safer for the patient. I use a machine that harvest the fat, cleans the fat and prepares the fat for injection in a very sterile manner. This helps in providing biable fat and minimizes the chance of infection. Surgery typically takes less than one and a half hours. I hope you find this information useful.

Thanks for your question.  I perform all of my fat transfer surgeries under general anesthesia because I can get the best liposuction results when the patient is asleep.  Even though the tumescent fluid has numbing medicine in it, the patient can still feel some pain if awake.  I can give the best results with the most comfort when the patient is asleep.  Be sure to see a board certified plastic surgeon who has done a lot of these procedures in order to have the expertise to give you the best results.  Best of luck.

Fat transfer can be done under local anesthesia. It all depends on the patient and what they can tolerate. This is something to talk about with your surgeon. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons is specific on where we should operate to be safe surgeons. These are good guidelines and should be followed. If you are getting IV sedation you should be in an accredited facility. Costs a bit more, but this is appropriate. You will hear lots of answers on the harvested question. I will quote the great Dr. Russell, who said that "when there is more than one way of doing something no one way is best." There are plenty of different ways of collecting the fat. Some things make a difference and some things don't. There have been some nice articles examining the various methods of washing and preparing the fat for grafting that show no significant difference between the methods. There are other articles that support one method or another. I don't think you can reasonably demand one method as best at this time. Remember, fat transfer is often a multiple stage procedure. A fair amount of what you inject gets resorbed, and this is different in different people. It is harder to be as accurate with the volume in fat grafting than it is with the volume in an implant augmentation. Get a consultation from a board certified plastic surgeon and talk over the specifics of your case. There are plenty of qualified surgeons in Atlanta.