Can an abdominoplasty help with my fibrosis? (Photo)

Hello miaf77, and thank you for your question regarding whether an abdominoplasty can help with your fibrosis.

Thank you for sharing your history and pictures. Fibrosis is essentially scar tissue that can develop after any surgery, including liposuction. In your specific case, it seems that you have developed excess scar tissue following your 360 liposuction, which is not uncommon. I would agree with your plastic surgeon that a tummy tuck, or abdominoplasty, is an effective way to treat this fibrosis.

During a tummy tuck, much of the scar tissue in your lower abdomen can be directly removed. Additionally, the procedure allows the abdomen to be tightened, which can help eliminate wrinkles and create a smoother appearance. While a tummy tuck will result in a scar along your lower abdomen, most plastic surgeons would agree that this scar is a reasonable trade-off for improving the appearance of fibrosis.

Ultimately, the decision to proceed with a tummy tuck should be based on your personal comfort with these trade-offs. If you feel that the potential improvement in your abdominal contour outweighs the downside of the surgical scar, a tummy tuck could be a beneficial option for you.

Good luck with your decision, and I hope this helps to answer your question regarding the treatment of fibrosis after liposuction.

Sincerely,

J. Timothy Katzen, MD, FASMBS, FICS

Dear miaf77,
abdominoplasty will remove loose skin and fibrosis on that part of the skin. If you are considering surgery, I would suggest you consult a board-certified plastic surgeon. Only after a thorough examination, you will get more information and recommendations.
Daniel Barrett, MDCertified, American Board of Plastic SurgeryMember, American Society of Plastic SurgeryMember, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

After your liposuction, you have contour deformities and irregularities. You will need a tummy tuck to help smooth this out.

Best Wishes,

Gary Horndeski, M.D.

Contour irregularities can occur from liposuction. Your surgeon is correct that a tummy tuck is the correct procedure for improvement of the abdomen.

To make an assessment on the outcome of the plastic surgery procedure we always need to see proper before and after pictures. If you don’t have before, and after pictures then ask your surgeon to forward the pictures they took.
Delivering consistent quality, liposuction results is more difficult than most people realize. The number of plastic surgeons who have truly mastered this procedure are in a small minority. Improving upon poorly done Liposuction results is difficult, and sometimes not possible. Attempt at improving outcomes are generally done with Revision Liposuction, fat, transfer, a combination of both, and sometimes by converting the procedure to a skin tightening operation like a full tummy tuck for the abdomen.
The appropriateness of converting liposuction results to a tummy tuck procedure varies based on each persons candidacy for that conversion choice.
Generally speaking the best candidate for converting Liposuction results to a full tummy tuck are going to be patient who were good candidate for a tummy tuck in the first place. This means individuals who had significant abdominal skin laxity with or without muscle separation from previous pregnancies.
Patients become a better candidate for converting it to a tummy tuck if the problem areas are restricted to the lower abdomen preferably below the belly button. in the ideal situation the problem area is simply exercised and discarded, restoring the abdomen with intact, skin, and fat tissue.
Based on your pictures, it does appear that the worst outcomes were in your lower abdomen. At the same time you don’t appear to have significant skin excess, which will limit both the amount of skin that can be exercised and how low the scar can be set. The poor outcome of the previously done. Liposuction has also affected your waist area significantly, and this is typically not included with a standard tummy tuck. There are a lot of variables to take into consideration, and there’s no yes or no straightforward answer to your question. It may be a very reasonable option if you want to have a tummy tuck or would’ve considered that in the first place. It will partially correct some of the deformity caused by previous liposuction, but will still leave you with some problematic areas, and now a hip to hip scar, and potentially unnatural looking belly button.
The recovery from a full tummy tuck. It’s also pretty intense and not for everyone.
Attempt at improving your liposuction results are going to be inherently difficult, and any real success will require multiple procedures with attempted fat transfer. The amount of improvement possible even with willingness to have multiple operations is inherently limited.
I recognize that the decision to have Liposuction has already been made it. For those who are contemplating having liposuction, I would like to emphasize the importance of provider selection before, considering having permanent irreversible body contouring procedures. Most plastic surgeons are not as good at Liposuction as they think. The number of plastic surgeons are truly excellent and can deliver consistent quality outcomes for this procedure is far less than most people realize.
To find the right provider, I recommend patients have multiple in person consultations before committing to surgery. During each consultation, ask each provider to open up their portfolio and show you their entire collection of before and after pictures of previous patient who have similar body characteristics to your own. An experienced plastic surgeon should have no difficulty showing you the before, and after pictures of at least 50 previous patients. Being shown a handful of pre-selected images, representing the best results of a providers career is insufficient to get a clear understanding I would average results look like in the hands of each provider or how many of these procedures they have actually performed.
There’s no correct number of consultations needed to find the right provider. The more consultations you scheduled the more likely you are to find the best provider for your needs. Considering how much variation there is a Liposuction scale I suggest patients consider having at least five in person consultations before choosing a provider. I recommend patients avoid virtual consultations whenever possible, and highly recommend against traveling long distances for elective surgical procedures.
Improving liposuction results or doing revision work, is many times more difficult and complex than primary Liposuction. The need for finding a sufficiently talented and experienced surgeon because of that saying. While they are certainly advantages to staying with Current providers for having Revision Work patients should also recognize when providers simply lack skillet experience, and their needs are better served by switching to a new provider. Switching providers can be costly and disrupts continuity of care.
Generally speaking, if somebody’s unable to deliver quality, Primary Liposuction results, they are most likely incapable of doing quality revision work.
When it comes to finding providers for improving liposuction results, patients need to also consider if the Revision Work is going to be done using fat transfer. When that’s the case providers need to be vetted not only for liposuction skills, but also for fat transfer skills.
Decisions become more difficult, because the ability to see numerous before, and after pictures of previous patients, who have similar circumstances, or characteristics is going to be unlikely.
As mentioned earlier, there are certainly advantages to staying with your current provider. Most likely they would be offering you a secondary or revision procedure for free, or at a deeply discounted rate.
The fact that somebody doesn’t know how to do liposuction it there’s not mean that they are not capable of doing quality tummy tuck work.
Some plastic surgery skills are transposable, and some general statements may be able to be made regarding overall skill and competence. Still each procedure can be drastically different in the hands of a single provider based on that persons, training, skill, experience, and overall competence.
In the end, the decision is ultimately your owner. My best advice is to take your time and get as many second opinion consultations as possible by having in person consult with other plastic surgeons in your community.
Please obtain quality before and after pictures and bring those with you or for any second opinion consultation.
If Contemplating converting your outcome to a tummy tuck operation then you should have open discussions including exactly where the skin incisions will be made and how much skin the surgeon thinks they can remove.
I typically tell patients to judge tummy tuck results, based on who gets the most natural looking belly button with a very low, said scar that follows anatomic, contours, naturally and evenly on both sides, leaving the Torso, looking, balanced, appropriate and attractive from all angles, including from behind.
You will definitely want to vet your current provider for their tummy tuck skills and experience before letting them have another shot at improving the outcome with a conversion procedure. You should also have a clear understanding of the risks involved with tummy tuck surgery, and what having that recovery will entail.
In the end, I think your abdomen can be improved significantly by having a tummy tuck, but the disfigurement of your waist will not be helped by this procedure. In the end, the decision is going to be yours. Surgeons are going to be inherently biased and lead towards surgical solutions because that’s what we do.
I would be very apprehensive of anyone who claims they can easily improve your liposuction results especially if they claim they can do it using some device or technology.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of provider selection when it comes to having cosmetic surgery.
The single, biggest mistake most patients make is not having enough consultations, and assuming the providers who are board-certified, in plastic surgery with years of experience have mastered the procedures they offered.
Insist on seeing providers entire collections of before, and after pictures of previous patients, who had similar body characteristics to your own. Being shown only a handful of pre-selected images is insufficient to make an accurate assessment regarding someone’s skill and experience.
In the end, the single two most important variables are understanding your candidacy for surgery and choosing the right provider. Typically there isn’t much patience can do regarding the round candidacy what they do have control over his provider selection.
Considering patients will be living with the results for the rest of their life, I’m surprised patients are not more critical and put more effort in provider selection.
It’s not uncommon for patients to spend hundreds of hours browsing the Internet before scheduling surgery but often they schedule only one consultation before committing to permanent irreversible surgery.
I’m sorry find yourself in the situation you’re in. It is indeed very unfortunate. I wish you the very best in your decision making and hope that whatever you choose the outcome will be for the better.
Best,
Mats Hagstrom, MD