I’ve had hydrogel injections six years ago. Never caused me any issues to this day but now I’d like a BBL

Dear laceysulli,
it is hard to tell for sure without an examination. You will most likely need a removal of hydrogel prior to fat transfer. If you are considering a surgery, I would suggest you to consult a board-certified plastic surgeon. Only after a thorough examination you will get more information and recommendations.
Daniel Barrett, MD
Certified, American Board of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

Hello, thank you for your question. I deal with these issues on a fairly regular basis. The substance will need to be removed in the first operation. In a second operation, fat grafting will be necessary to restore volume and contour. Consult via email or Skype with a board certified surgeon who has a lot of experience with removing silicone.

Many PS will not do a BBL on patients who have a history similar to you. Even though you have not had any issues up to this point, introducing bloody fat to those areas may lead to an infection or inflammation. It is best to talk to your PS about this.

Personally I would probably avoid doing a fat transfer on someone who has foreign body substances injected.

Things like HA fillers incorporate into the tissues and are never an issue but other filler materials do not incorporate into the tissues and make defined channels or empty spaces that have liquid in them. If that is grafted into these channels than it will not survive leaving the patient with extra volumes of fat necrosis. Should a foreign substance get contaminated you can also be very detrimental though this is pretty unlikely.

In order to avoid injecting fat into the spaces where the hydrogel is ideally the provider should have an MRI before the procedure.

Simply to keep things consistent and not have unexpected bad outcomes at this point in my career I would probably say no to you as a patient but I’m sure there are other providers who are more relaxed about these things. It’s going to be up to each individual provider. I suggest simply having multiple consuls like everyone should do before having cosmetic surgery and ask each provider if they had experience and what their approach would be.
Best,

Mats Hagstrom MD