Dents after inner thigh lipo - What options do I have to correct this? (photos)

Thank you for your question. I see the area's of concern in the pictures you have provided. I would suggest seeing either your surgeon or see another Board Certified Plastic Surgeon in person to see what they recommend. Typically I would recommend going back in and doing a bit more liposuction to see if we could improve it. Best of luck to you.

Your dent's don't necessarily represent over-resection as much as under resection both above and below them. You still have objectively excess adiposity of the lower thigh/inner knee, and the upper inner thigh regions, and addressing those areas will give your inner thigh a more normal appearance.

Dear Awesome576435,
I understand your concern. However, without a proper assessment, it would be difficult to determine what went wrong. It is best that you visit your plastic surgeon for further assessment or ask for a second opinion. Only after a thorough examination, you can get proper recommendations and advice.
Daniel Barrett, MD
Certified, American Board of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

A fat transfer would help to add volume back into the dents. You could also get benefit with Sculptra injections.

To correct this result, you will need a combination of selective liposuction for the raised areas and fat autographs for the depressed areas. Over-liposuction of the inner thighs unfortunately leads to this issue.

Delivering consistent quality liposuction results is more difficult than most people believe and this includes plastic surgeons. There’s no shortage of board-certified plastic surgeons for the overall good reputations that are not good at Liposuction. The truth is a lot of plastic surgeons don’t like doing the procedure and never commit to mastering it.
If the problem is that too much fat was removed that you don’t need more fat removed.
Considering that revision Liposuction is many times more difficult than primary Liposuction your surgeon is not the appropriate person to be doing revision work.
If someone can’t do it the first time I guarantee you they won’t be able to do it by just doing more of the same.
On top of this inner thigh liposuction is a technically difficult area that often doesn’t deliver results nearly as good as patients and hope for even when done by really talented providers. indentation of the central mid thigh is a very common beginners mistake.
Liposuction results are permanent and more or less irreversible. Treatment options generally come down to revision liposuction(removing more fat) fat transfer a.k.a. fat grafting) or occasionally converting the procedure to a skin tightening operation like a thigh lift or tummy tuck for the abdomen.
None of these procedures are great in your opinion and there is no easy way to fix your lower extremities.
Fat transfer may be possible but the area where you need volume the most has the least post tissue causing the least amount of grafted fat to survive. In order to make it work patients usually needs multiple rounds of fat grafting done six months apart until correct fat distribution volume has been re-obtained.
Patients who’ve been disfigured from Liposuction are often apprehensive of trusting anyone to do Liposuction and you should understand that this type of revision work is difficult, many plastic surgeons can’t do it and it could become very expensive if the surgeon charges you for each round of fat transfer. to restore the contour of your thigh may require four rounds of fat transfer and may be more.
It’s very difficult to make an assessment based on pictures alone.
If you want to move forward and have revision work then you’re gonna have to put in some serious effort to find the most talented and experience provider willing to do the work.
You should recognize the taking on revision work is somewhat undesirable for a lot of plastic surgeons.
Patients who have been disfigured by previous providers are apprehensive and often require hours of time in the end often not having surgery.
It’s far easier to make a living just doing primary work rather than doing the revisions.
What’s most important is finding someone who has sufficient skills and experience.
The following are my recommendations for how to simply find a really talented plastic surgeon.
The same principle apply to revision will work with the exception that when it comes to revision work providers will not have as many cents before and after pictures.
To find the right provider I suggest patients first look through all the plastic surgeons in their community and see who has the most number of Liposuction before and after pictures on their websites.
Surgeons who don’t like or aren’t good at Liposuction aren’t going to be putting up a lot of pictures of those procedures
Schedule multiple in person consultations with the providers who seem to be doing a lot of liposuction.
Avoid virtual consultations whenever possible.
During each consultation ask each provider to open up their portfolio and show you their entire collection of before and after pictures. Being shown a handful of sample pictures which most likely represent the best results of the providers career is completely insufficient to get a clear understanding of what the average results look like in the hands of each provider.
Ask providers to show you examples of patients with similar body characteristics to your own. ask the provider to show you examples of excellent outcomes, average outcomes and less than outcomes. we all have them and it’s fair game for patients to ask to see them. an experience provider should have no difficulty showing you at least 50 sets of before and after pictures of commonly performed procedures.
Inner thigh liposuction is not as common as areas like the abdomen but it’s certainly not an uncommon procedure.
You should also ask the surgeon with the revision Radiesse and what their policy is in regards to revisions when needed. You may want to ask the surgeon to show examples of patients who needed revisions and what those looked like before and after.
All plastic surgeons do some revision work. It’s simply what’s required if you have the best intention for your patience and things don’t always turn out the way we had hoped.
You may not find plastic surgeons who have substantial numbers of patients with the exact same deformity and you may have to settle by simply reviewing with your primary Liposuction and your case fat transfer work looks like.
And experience provider should first and foremost recognize how difficult the situation is. Recognize that it’s unlikely to be able to be fixed with a single procedure and it doing more liposuction isn’t going to fix the problem which is that too much fat was removed.
Sometimes revision liposuction i’ve simply evening out the outcome by taking out more fat can be appropriate but I don’t think it’s going to give you the results you were hoping for.
Finally I recommend reading all the reviews on various physician review websites avoiding providers with any significant number of justified negative reviews. The absence of justified negative reviews is more important and more telling then having an abundance of positive reviews.
In your case you should also consider writing a review about your experience for your provider. reviews should be honest and written in a professional manner describing what your experience and outcome was. I am sure you would’ve appreciated reading reviews by other patients who had similar experiences from this provider before choosing that provider.
Continue having consultations until you feel like you’re found someone who can take care of your needs sufficiently. I don’t know how many consultations that may take but start with five and if you didn’t find one you had faith or trust and then simply schedule more consultations.
Look for plastic surgeons who seem to really like doing liposuction and fat transfer.
Look for providers who have collections of before and after pictures of both Liposuction and fat transfer that read like a telephone book.
Look for providers who are ethical and honest.
Ask your current provider for a refund.
Best,
Mats Hagstrom MD