Is drainage always necessary with lipo 360/BBL?

Dear Thotti2hottie,
every plastic surgeon has his own postoperative protocol which he recommends to his patients. Most plastic surgeons don't use drains after liposuction and BBL. I would suggest you to discuss this with your plastic surgeon.
Daniel Barrett, MD
Certified, American Board of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

I have not used drains after liposuction or BBL surgeries as I have not found them to be necessary. The risk for infection with drains may be higher. I try to avoid them unless someone is having a problem with fluid collections

You are correct. Every surgeon has their own techniques.
I use a board certified anesthesiologist administer twilight anesthesia (sedation) and I NEVER use drains (Have been performing liposuctions for 28 years). The BBL does not require drains and I close all of my wounds so there is not drainage all over your clothes/bed etc.
There is no right or wrong here.
Dr. T

Different plastic surgeons have different ways of doing things based on their education, personal experience and personal philosophy.

Choose the most talented and experienced provider and follow his or her recommendations including postoperative garments, drain or no drain and type of anesthesia.

I presently do these procedures with my patients awake using local anesthesia with mild sedation. i’ve been in practice for 20 years and for the first 10 years of practice I used general anesthesia. at some .10 years ago I had plastic surgeon friends who were doing these procedures with patients awake and were kind enough to show me how to do that. I personally do not think compression garments are all that important and I do not recommend patients get lymphatic massage. I also do not use trains but other plastic surgeons are used them and for them it makes sense.
To describe everything that goes into the decision making for every variable when it comes to body contouring is far beyond what we can do on a post on real self.

Your best option is to focus all your effort and finding the most experienced and talented board-certified plastic surgeon in your community for this procedure. Don’t go chasing after which doctor uses drains are a witch doctor doesn’t.

The following are some recommendations for getting the best results and having cosmetic surgery be an overall positive experience.



I recommend patients avoid traveling long distances for elective surgical procedures. There are of course instances where there is a lack of local talent and traveling to some degree is inevitable. If traveling for the procedure patients should be ready to travel to have the consultation, post operative appointments and follow up should there be issues or complications.
Patients sometimes do not appreciate the importance of in person consultations, that complications do happen or the number of people who have issues with their results or need revisions.

Schedule multiple consultations with different providers in your area who seem to have a good reputation for the procedure you’re interested in. Starting with at least five consultations seems like a reasonable number to me.

Whenever possible schedule in person consultations.
During in person consultations ask each plastic surgeon to show all of their before and after pictures for the procedure you’re interested in.

The goal is not to see the best results of their career but to get an idea of what average results look like and get some type of confirmation of how many of these procedures that provider has performed.

Ask to see results that were not as good as the doctor would’ve hoped for and talk about the differences in outcomes.

Honest and experienced providers should have no problems presenting this type of information.

A highly experienced plastic surgeon should have hundreds of before and after pictures for the procedure you’re interested in. At a minimum at least 20+.

Read all the reviews on various physician review websites paying close attention and avoiding providers with any significant number of justified negative reviews. Providers with an abundance of reviews often have aggressive marketing campaigns.

The plastic surgeons I respect most all have the single variable of not having justified negative reviews on their online profiles.
In my opinion justified negative reviews are far more telling than an abundance of positive reviews.

Avoid scheduling for surgery or making a deposit on the day of the consultation. Give yourself some time to think about the decision and make sure you finished all scheduled consultations before committing to having surgery that will permanently and irreversibly change your body.

When in doubt slow down and schedule more consultations.

Choosing the right plastic surgeon is the single most important variable to having a positive experience.

Don’t go chasing after technology or names of certain equipment. Instead focus all your efforts on finding the most experienced and talented board-certified plastic surgeon.

Best,

Mats Hagstrom MD