Will I have a lopsided butt forever?

Dear hrb23,
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

The optimal BBL revision outcomes are achieved with: 1) use of VASER liposuction to harvest the fat since your fat has already been harvested 2) a closed looped system to process the fat in order to optimize transfer time and avoid your fat from becoming contaminated and 3) strategic micro-packet transplant technique that maximizes graft take. These three processes have demonstrated over 95% fat graft take. This means that your results will be stable as long as you maintain your weight. Finally, attention must be given to providing you the buttock shape that YOU desire. This means using our proprietary BBL assessment tool. As an official VASER trainer, I am routinely referred unhappy BBL patients. One of the most common reasons for disgruntled BBL patients is that patients are not able to accurately communicate their desired buttocks goals to their surgeons. Our buttock assessment tool can be an invaluable tool to communicate to your surgeon the exact buttocks size and shape you are desiring. A Skype or FaceTime consultation with a BBL specialist can help you get an accurate recommendation and pricing.

Respectfully,
Arian Mowlavi MD, FACS
Realself 100 Hall of Fame Inductee

Post operative infections do happen. The average postoperative infection rate for all surgeries combined in the United States it’s about 1/2% or one infection out of 200 operations.

Some operations have a higher risk for developing infection than others.

For most infections there is no underlying single reason it happens. It’s usually bacteria present on the patient’s skin that despite using surgical technique with sterile instruments manage to get into the wrong place and run havoc.

In order to treat an infection tissues require blood supply to bring The immune system defense of antibodies and white blood cells. Blood supply is also required for antibiotics to get to the infected tissues.

Early after grafting tissue the grafted tissue has not yet developed a blood supply and for that reason are completely compromised and need to be removed in order to control or stop the infection.

Leaving a vascular tissue in an infected field is literally like putting fuel on the fire.

There are different techniques of managing patients who get infected after fat transfer procedures. Radiographic studies with MRI or ultrasounds can be helpful to find the specific areas where the active infection is. plastic surgeons can also rely on other doctors like interventional radiologists to help them drain infections that cannot be seen from skin.

Developing an infection on one side is most likely going to leave someone with asymmetrical deformity.

Doing a second BBL after having had an infection should be fine as long as enough time has passed to allow scar tissue to mature and make sure that the infection is completely gone.

I think 12 months is probably a reasonable timeframe from the time that the infection cleared and all wounds we are healed.

Developing in an affection after a BBL is a terrible complication that plastic surgeons will do whatever they can to avoid.

It is however one of the risks surgeons typically review when discussing risks and benefits and is often included in consent forms.

Either follow up with the surgeon who did your procedure or schedule in person second opinion consultations.

When scheduling a second opinion consultation it’s good to come well prepared that means having with you copies of all before and after pictures and a copy of the operative reports from your last surgeon.

Discard tissue and damage created by the infection is going to make a challenging to create perfect symmetry but I would imagine that some improvements can be made.

This type of work can be technically difficult and for the best results sometimes requires having a few procedures.

Revision work is more challenging than Primary Liposuction or a fat transfer.

Being in the hands of experienced and talented providers goes without speaking.

Best,

Mats Hagstrom MD