Worried about the recovery for a BBL and 360 lipo. Do lymphatic drainage massages hurt?

Dear Friendly902131,
I understand your concern. However, without a proper assessment, it would be difficult to determine what went wrong. It is best that you visit your plastic surgeon for further assessment or ask for a second opinion. Only after a thorough examination, you can get proper recommendations and advice.
Daniel Barrett, MD
Certified, American Board of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

Lymphatic massages are not the most comfortable thing in the world. If the masseuse is coming to you, or you have someone to drive you to the appointments taking a pain pill before is a good idea to reduce the discomfort. Lymphatic massages are great to ensure a faster recovery, healing and results. Don't skip them!

Thank you for your question! Having a BMI of 25 is close to ideal to achieve an excellent result. I advise you to continue to maintain your weight and keep a healthy diet to optimize and lengthen your results. Although the recovery after a BBL may be demanding, it will also be worth it when you achieve the results you're looking for. I recommend lymphatic drainage massages to start as soon as the next day and to continue daily for the first 7-10 days at least. Even though they may be uncomfortable, the majority of my patients feel a lot better after them. Again, it will all be worth it when you can obtain the best results possible. Hope this helps and best of luck!

The fat tissue that you have in your body will determine how much fat is possible to give to buttocks. Here we take the advantage of giving the curves with waist, back and abdomen liposuction.
Lymphatic drainage is a good way to relieve the body and get rid of the swellings faster. It also helps with the corret distribution of the free fat all underneath skin.

People perceive the recovery from this procedure differently and to some degree their recovery varies based on how aggressive the surgeon is.

Compared to other procedures the recovery is fairly easy. I think most people can tolerate taking 3 to 5 days off work and then taking it easy for the next week or two.

Our patients only take ibuprofen for pain relief and this is sufficient for 99% of our patients.

For those familiar with strenuous exercise many people describe this sensation after liposuction as feeling like having overdone it excessively at the gym with muscle soreness that eases up with range of motion.

Patient say the first and second day are the worst and the worst part is waking up in the morning feeling very stiff. Once patient’s getting moving they feel much more comfortable.

Of course the areas will be very tender just like if you badly bruised an area on your body.

So, yes massaging recently operated areas will hurt.

Personally I see no benefit to doing massage after liposuction and I personally do not recommend it. My practice has been focused exclusively and only Liposuction and fat transfer procedures for over 10 years. I’ve been a board-certified plastic surgeon doing liposuction and other procedures for 25 years.

I don’t believe massage has any impact on the final results and serves no real purpose after liposuction.

There may be arguments for why massage is appropriate. For example providers who use energy based equipment like V a SER and have a history of getting the fluid buildups called a ceroma may possibly be able to minimize these or manage them early on by massaging out fluid.

Typical well done Liposuction has an extremely low incidence of seromas and personally out of 8000 procedures I’ve yet to see one happen after liposuction. I’ve seen plenty of patients get seromas from other procedures though.

Each provider will have their own recommended postoperative protocol and I recommend patients follow their providers recommendations.

In the end they are only two variables that determine if somebody is going to get a great results from this procedure. They are the individual patience candidacy combined with the scale and experience of the surgeon.

There isn’t much you can do to change your own candidacy but you have full control over choosing the best surgeon for the procedure.

Different providers have different ideas of what results should look like and the outcomes or variance in outcomes of these procedures is quite substantial.

The difference in outcome depending on who does the procedure varies from permanent disfiguration to stunning body transformation.

Delivering consistent quality liposuction and fat transfer results is more difficult than most people believe. For that reason patients should put a solid effort into finding the most experienced and talented provider.

Do that by relying exclusively on in person consultations.

During consultations ask each provider to show their entire collection before and after pictures for the procedure you’re interested in.

Make sure that after pictures are always taken at least three months from the date of surgery.

Seeing a handful of representative pictures which in fact represent the best results of the providers career does not give you any idea of what average results look like.

Ask provider to show you examples of excellent results, average results and less than results.

Specifically asked them to show you results of patients with very similar characteristics to your body.

An experienced provider should have no difficulty showing you 50 or more sets of before and after pictures. Highly experienced surgeons will have hundreds or possibly thousands.

Continue having consultations until you feel quite certain you found the most talented and experienced provider in your community.

I also recommend reading all reviews on various physician review websites and avoiding providers for the significant number of justified negative reviews. The absence of justified negative reviews is more important and more telling than having an abundance of positive reviews.

Provider selection is paramount and getting quality results and not ending up regretting having this procedure which is permanent and more or less irreversible.

Best,

Mats Hagstrom MD

Although you may experience pain postoperatively, we have a regimen in place to manage your pain and make the recovery treatment as smooth as possible. The pain can be managed efficiently with medication, dietary modifications, and strategic planning. If you are a good candidate (less than 5L of fat) for a Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL), the optimal outcomes are achieved with: 1) use of VASER liposuction to harvest the fat, 2) a closed looped system such as Puregraft to process the fat, and 3) strategic micro-packet transplant technique. These three processes have demonstrated over 95% fat graft take. This means that your results will be stable as long as you maintain your weight. As an official VASER trainer, I am routinely referred unhappy BBL patients. One of the most common reasons for disgruntled BBL patients is that patients are not able to accurately communicate their desired buttocks goals to their surgeons. A buttocks assessment tool can be an invaluable tool to communicate to your surgeon the exact buttocks size and shape you are desiring. A Skype or FaceTime consultation with a BBL specialist can help you get an accurate recommendation and pricing.

Respectfully,
Arian Mowlavi MD,FACS
Realself 100 Hall of Fame Inductee