Where is the scientific proof that sitting will impact your bbl/fat? Opinions? Links to studies?

Dear sreneesa,
I instruct my patients not to sit for 2 solid weeks. We provide them a specialized pillow that our patients can sit on during that time. They can sleep on their stomachs or sides. Fat viability depends a lot of surgeon technique. The fat has to be placed back into the buttocks as soon as possible so that it has a greater chance of survival. It has to be placed carefully so that not too much fat is placed in only one area.
Daniel Barrett, MD
Certified, American Board of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

Hello @sreneesa thank you for your question. Is important to understand that every specialist has his own technique for performing every procedure.; It's like when every person has a different way to do one thing but gets to a similar outcome. Depending on the concept and technique applied by the doctor the recommendations and indications are different. Also there will be different possibilities for improvement depending on the vision and approach of the treating physician. Best wishes! Alan Gonzalez MD, FACS.

There are no scientific studies that’s sitting after BBL has an impact on the results.

Doing a double blind study it would be extremely difficult and it’s unlikely patients would be compliant with the study.

If the standard of care and information online supports that most US doctors recommend not sitting immediately after the procedure and patients take part in a research study and are assigned to a group that are asked to sit after the procedure it is unlikely they would remain compliant if they believed that setting was not beneficial.

You can’t really do animal studies for this subject so it comes down to what we know about tissue grafting historically.

There’s been lots of research on grafting everything from nerves to bone to Cartlidge, fat skin etc. etc. we know that grafted the tissue does best if it’s immobilized and not disrupted physically early until the ingrowth of microscopic blood vessels called capillaries.

We know that not limiting range of motion reduces skin graft success and often a skin graft on a hand will be done in conjunction with placing a splint or a cast on the hand even though the hand itself doesn’t need a splint.

It’s basically following basic principles of tissue grafting that have evolved over many many years.

While fat grafting has been around for a long time it was not viewed as a legitimate viable procedure with consistent results until fairly recently by the main stream plastic surgery community.

It began taking foothold in the 1990s with good evidence showing that it worked and providers publishing techniques and how to get the procedure to give consistent results.

Doctors tend to follow local norms and this is true for a variety of factors. One of these is the use of lymphatic massage after liposuction which seems to be much more popular in some parts of the country while not in others.


There is also no evidence that lymphatic massage has any impact and there’s no evidence that compression garments have any impact.


Best,

Mats Hagstrom MD