Can you be awake during a tummy tuck?

 Surgery procedures can be done with patients awake but the proper choices of patients and procedures must be considered.  A patient must feel comfortable during surgery with being awake or perhaps with a slight amount of sedation.  The area to be operated on must be able to be numbed completely by a safe level of local anesthesia.  If the patient has no pain, a safe level of local anesthesia can be used and the patient can feel relaxed during the procedure then it could be accomplished.  The patient must understand that the local anesthesia must be injected into the areas to be worked on and this can be momentarily uncomfortable.  I would think this would work best for people with small amounts of tissue to remove.  The larger the area, the more local anesthesia would be required and this could lead to dangerous levels of anesthesia in the blood. 

The thought of an awake tummy tuck makes me very nervous.   One main difference between an average and outstanding tummy tuck is the amount of muscle plication.   It is impossible to get an equivocal muscle repair with a patient awake.   I use general anesthesia for all my tummy tucks and always ask my board certified anesthesiologist to give a medication to relax the muscles prior to repair.  This allows me to tighten the muscles very effectively while knowing the patient is safely monitored, comfortable, and stable due to the general anesthesia.  

Awake Tummy tuck requires very high doses of local anesthesia that can have significant cardiac effects even hours after administration.   In addition, it is important to ask your surgeon performing awake tummy tuck, if they have privileges to perform this same procedure in any hospital or accedited surgery center.   I would be very skeptical of any physician who does not have this.

I wish you a safe and healthy recovery