Can fat be harvested from an area that had coolsculpting done 8 years ago and used for a breast fat transfer?

Fat can be harvested from these areas, but scarring could affect the amount available and the viability. If you have other areas available, fat from those areas might be more reliable.

The answer is maybe. The question is how much scaring and fibrosis is left behind from your Cool Sculpting procedure. I would not hesitate to perform liposuction of your upper abdomen. If the harvested tissues had minimal fibrous tissue and healthy fat, I would use it for fat transfer. If the tissues were scared with poor quality fat, I would not use it.
Fat grafting can be unpredictable. The harvested fat must be of high quality with minimal fibrous tissue to survive and provide long term volume for your breasts.

Unfortunately the answer to your question is that nobody knows. This is because fat transfer is such a hit or miss procedure regardless if what you may have been told . In general the results are mediocre at best from what I’ve seen

Dear Honest354013,
it is hard to tell for sure without an examination. 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, MD
Certified, American Board of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

Don't worry! Fat remaining after coolsculpting is still comprised of living cells and absolutely can be used for fat grafting. There may be a higher degree of scar tissue of collagen fibers in the fat, however all these fibers and scar tissues are removed when the fat is processed such that only healthy living fat will be reinjected into the areas you would like grafted. Hope this helps!

Johnson C. Lee, MD
Double Board-Certified Plastic Surgeon

Yes, fat can still be harvested, but you will have some increased scarring. The fat is still viable fat and can be used.

Dear Honest,
The persistent fat in the areas of coolsculpting that you had done should be fully viable fat available for fat transfer breast augmentation. As with fat harvested from any area, there would still be potential for absorption of none, some, or all of it. Good luck!

You bring up several important topics.
If the cool sculpting didn’t have much affect then that speaks for itself and your fat is probably more or less unchanged from the cool sculpting experience.
Breast fat transfer in conjunction with explantation is a tricky procedure.
It is tricky because patients will never be able to make an assessment on the outcome of the fat transfer.
Without knowing what your breast looks like without implants after having had breast implants you will not be able to make an assessment of the impact that transfer has to your breast.
Since fat transfer it’s very subtle and how much volume and can’t deliver and implants usually give a dramatic results patient or after the left pretty disappointed with fat transfer after removing the implants.
If you want larger breast then you should probably just keep your implants unless there’s a really good reason to remove them.
There are advantages to doing the fat transfer at the time of explantation. The surgeon will have more access and will be able to graft both from the inside and from the outside.
Technically that is slightly advantageous.
Delivering consistent quality liposuction and fat transfer results is more difficult than most people believe. The number of plastic surgeons to do the procedure well on a consistent basis is relatively few.
Breast fat transfer is the easiest operation to manipulate results by simply taking early postoperative pictures making the procedure look highly impressive.
When reviewing before and after pictures do you need to always confirm the exact timeframe between the operation and when the after pictures are taken.
After pictures should not ever be taken less than three months from the date of surgery and preferably six months or longer in order to represent the final results.
Fat transfer is also not particularly good at giving volume to any one part of the breast like the upper half of the breast or most women what is the volume please and where implants specifically given volume of the most.
There’s no reason you can’t have the proposed procedure but recognize that there are a number of things to consider when going that route.
From my perspective I would say you should first and foremost be a really good reason to remove your implants if you want larger breast.
If your implants are not causing problems then consider leaving them.
The other option is to do an explantation, heal up and then go back and do fat transfer once you know what your breast looks like after explantation.
This entire discussion is probably far too complex to really approach via posting on this website.
I recommend having multiple in person consultations with local board-certified plastic surgeons. When it comes to liposuction and fat transfer do you need to be far more selective than you think you need to be in reverse a surgeon with the fish and schedule an experience.
I recommend having multiple in person consultations with local board-certified plastic surgeons. When it comes to liposuction and fat transfer do you need to be far more selective than you think you need to be in reverse a surgeon with the fish and schedule an experience. being board-certified and plastic surgery with overall good reputation and years of experience does not confirm that somebody has mastered either Liposuction or fat transfer.
Doing these procedures really well on a consistent basis including the ability to make an accurate assessment and deliver results consistent with previously shown before and after pictures on a regular basis is rare and difficult.
Liposuction and fat transfer has more variation in outcome based on provider selection than any other plastic surgery procedure.
Patients need to be very selective when it comes to these two procedures.
Have multiple in person consultations at which time you should ask the providers to open up their portfolio and show you their entire collection of before and after pictures. An experienced provider should have no difficulty show me would be 50 set a before and after pictures.
Ideally you should only ask providers to show you pictures of people who have similar body characteristics to your own. This obviously is an issue if you’re going to have an explantation.
Critically judge all Liposuction results on every single before and after picture you look at it.
There should be no skin contour irregularities in any area treated. Review with the surgeon exactly what areas were treated and what areas were not treated and look very carefully a transition zone between treated an untreated area.
Personally I view the torso as a single anatomic units and generally recommended treating the entire tour so when it comes to doing Liposuction.
Partially treating the torso will leave people with an unnatural fat distribution of that does not look good or normal. This is one of the inherent drawbacks of cool sculpting. When it works it leaves awful transitions between treated and untreated areas. Because cool sculpting typically does not give impressive results the issue of transition zones often does not come up.
I suggest starting with at least five in person consultations and consider scheduling more before choosing a provider for Liposuction with that transfer.
Liposuction results are permanent and more or less irreversible. you’ve done poorly people are left disfigured. This happens in the hands of board-certified plastic surgeons with years of experience who have good reputation.
You need to confirm that provider has mastered the procedure before scheduling surgery.
This is best done by being shown an overwhelming number of quality before and after pictures with an honest, patient advocacy approach from the provider being willing to share a variety of outcomes and being honest can and cannot be accomplished with the procedure.
Good luck,
Mats Hagstrom MD