How Much More Do You Usually Pay for a Twilight Sedation Instead of Local Anesthesia During Smartlipo?

Smartlipo can be done with local, sedation, or under general anesthesia. The important factor here is the training and experience of the Board Certified Plastic Surgeon. Make sure that your surgeon is a "real" Plastic surgeon. Our patients are offered all the options. The majority of our patients are done under local using the tumescent anesthesia and medication in a safe environment. Ninety percent of our patients return to work in 3 days. Sedation and General anesthesia are done in a hospital setting (additional cost). The risk of anesthesia is always there. The best thing to do is to consult with a Plastic Surgeon - not just a cosmetic surgeon. There is a real difference.

Good luck

SmartLipo is best used with tumescent liposuction.  If you have to have sedation with tumescent liposuction, then you are getting traditional liposuction and your recovery is going to be longer, you will have more bruising and the results won't be as spectacular as you should get.

I can tell you that of the thousands of cases I have performed of tumescent liposuction, pain was never an issue due to good technique and doing it the right way.  This means that either your surgeon is telling you they know how to do tumescent, but they don't or they don't have a staff that is attentive to detail.

You may want to consider going to have a second opinion where the expectations are better as to pain control.  Good luck.

The amount of discomfort from Smart Lipo of the ankles is really not very much, and the benefits of avoiding sedation far outweigh the extra comfort it provides.  You will feel some discomfort during the initial phases of injection of the local anesthesia, but if it is infiltrated slowly, the discomfort is minimal.