Best Option For Me- Butt Implants or Sculptra? (Photo)

Allow me to answer your question as best i can based upon your photo. However, please keep in mind that an in-person, or at least a virtual, consultation with physical exam is first necessary before any legitimate evaluation or final surgical recommendations can be made.

There are currently only two FDA approved surgical options for augmenting the buttock area: 1) Buttock Implants (which are soft semi-solid silicone rubber implants that cannot rupture &/or leak) and 2)Brazilian Butt Lift (aka BBL) - which utilizes the patients own fat from liposuction then transfers this fat into the buttock. Clearly you are not a candidate for BBL nor “skinny BBL”. Beware, if a surgeon asks you to purposely gain weight (i.e. fat) before BBL, know that the fat you lose first as you get back to your baseline weight after surgery is that very same fat that was transferred into your buttock, hence your new buttock shrinks first, the fastest, and the most...so please do not fall victim to this recommendation.

On the other hand, BBL using Sculptra is a dangerous, guaranteed waste of money, and is NOT FDA approved. Fillers such as Sculptra are cost prohibitive, provided enough volume is injected (i.e. at least 400 cc of active ingredient costing over $300,000) and last only 12 - 18 months.

So what it comes down to, like any surgery, is proper patient selection and long-term results. Implants provide the only guarantee for a sustained permanent result and tend to be ideal for perking up not only lean or deflated buttocks but also providing substantial projection to any butt, which is what every single patient wants. Please note that an extremely few number of board certified plastic surgeons specialize in buttock or hip implants, so you may need to travel far and away from home to find this particular surgeon. Glad to help.

You definitely appear to be a candidate for buttock implants. As for sculptra, you could also pursue that option, but depending on the amount of fullness you want to achieve you are looking at a lot of syringes and possibly close to the same amount or more than the buttock implants would cost you. It’s all your personal preference really. If you would like to be seen for a consultation here at Smith Plastic Surgery, feel free to reach out for a consultation.

Thank you for your question. You are an excellent candidate for buttock augmentation with implants. I perform this procedure on a regular basis. It definitely has its nuances. I believe that Sculptra is only a temporary solution with a very average result. My advice to use to seek out an experienced plastic surgeon who has considerable experience and buttock augmentation with implants. Best wishes to you.

I recommend you stay away from gluteal implants. A great majority of plastic surgeons in the United States. Don’t offer operations. There’s a very good reason why must plastic surgeons don’t offer this one single operation. Gluteal augmentation with implants has a very high complication and failure rate. The number of patients who have quality long-term outcomes without secondary issues like pain or other problems very low.
To me, your bottom looks great. I think you could have a very nice improvement with well done Liposuction your love handles and add some fat to your hips to create a more feminine curve if you wish. I don’t think you need to change to have a fairly ideal, female picture. Implant augmentation too much risk, and some of the problems can include it being left disfigured.
Finding the right provider for Liposuction and fat, transfer is not straightforward either. The outcomes of these procedures, very dramatically, depending who you choose as your provider. The number of plastic surgeons who truly mastered liposuction and fat transfer are in a small tea. Simply choosing a board-certified plastic surgeon with years of experience seems to have a good reputation. There’s not a guarantee that somebody has mastered any one single procedure and it’s certainly not a guarantee that somebody is even good at Liposuction or fat transfer.
I suggest you start the process by having multiple in person consultations with local board-certified plastic surgeons. Try to find plastic surgeons who have a lot of impressive, liposuction and fat transfer results on their website. During each consultation, ask each provider to open up your portfolio and show you their entire collection of before and after pictures of previous patient with similar body characteristics to your own. An experienced plastic surgeon should have no difficulty showing you the before and after pictures of at least 15 previous patients.
If you insist on getting with your implants very few providers who specialize exclusively in this procedure. The best way to minimize complications long-term quality outcome with the procedure seems to be related to placing implants intramuscularly, choosing implants that anatomically fit within the gluteus muscle. Using excessively large implants, increases complication rates and increases the chance of having undesirable outcomes.
Those who specialize exclusively in gluteal implant augmentation, will have a better chance of not having a procedure if that ends up failing, long-term than those who do them infrequently.
Finally, there’s nothing wrong with accepting your body the way it is, which looks attractive, proportionate and normal.
Best
Mats Hagstrom MD