Shaping with tumescent liposuction. How likely will it retain and accentuate my shape?

My recommendations for finding the right provider for liposuction are the following.
First and foremost, recognize that delivering consistent quality, liposuction results is more difficult than most people realize. The number of plastic surgeons who mastered this procedure, or in a small minority. Being board-certified and plastic surgery with years of experience, and an overall good reputation does not mean that somebody has or hasn’t mastered Liposuction.
Recognize that there are substantial differences in Liposuction’s skills among different providers.
The type of equipment used is not important, but results are.
Defined the best provider I recommend having as many consultations as possible.
Avoid virtual consultations whenever possible, and instead invest the time and energy into having in person consultations as much as possible.
During each consultation, ask each provider to open up their portfolio and show you their entire collection of before, and after pictures of previous patients who had similar body characteristics to your owner. If you had success for weight loss, then do you have skin laxity? If so, you need to see previous patient who had the same degree of skin laxative.
Major variables that determine somebody’s candidacy for Liposuction are going to be related to having skin laxity, pregnancy related changes, such as muscle, separation, excess visceral, fat, and the thickness of your subcutaneous fat layer.
The best candidates for liposuction are individuals who have excess subcutaneous fat as their only problem, keeping them from looking ideal. If you also have other variables contributing such as skin laxity, pregnancy related muscle separation, excess visceral fat then Liposuction results are going to be limited.
I sometimes describe the perfect candidate for Liposuction as individuals who are “young tight, and pudgy”.
Being a less than perfect candidate for Liposuction, it doesn’t mean you can’t have Liposuction, but requires having a clear understanding of what the procedure can, and cannot accomplish in order to maintain consistent high patient satisfaction.
An experienced plastic surgeon that should have hundreds or even thousands of before, and after pictures to choose from. During each consultation, it is reasonable to expect a reminder to show you at least 50 sets of before and after pictures.
Being shown a handful of pre-selected images, representing the best results of a providers career is insufficient to get a clear understanding of what average results look like in the hands of each provider or how many of these procedures they’ve actually performed. being shown pictures of patients, who don’t look like you do is not representative of what your results are likely to look like. it’s not a bad idea to bring pictures of your body or areas you want treated to use as a reference during a consultation.
Take careful notes during each consultation, especially regarding the quantity and quality of before and after pictures.
I typically view the torso as a single anatomic unit, and generally recommended treating the entire torso if somebody wants liposuction of their abdomen or midsection. I generally do not recommend spot treating or partially treating the torso. Doing so leads to unnatural transitions between treated and untreated areas. a full torso generally includes upper abdomen, lower, abdomen, love handles, waist, fullback, and under arms all the way to the side of the breast.
If general anesthesia is used, it’s very important to ask providers if they plan on turning you during surgery to treat the backside. Surgeons who leave their patients laying on their back during the whole procedures are inherently going to have limited results of the back waist and love handles.
Proper body contouring requires having access to the body from a variety of angles.
For this reason, I generally keep my patients awake for body contouring procedures relying on local anesthesia with mild sedation. Most plastic surgeons use general anesthesia and there’s nothing wrong with doing that if the provider can deliver, consistent quality results. This generally requires repositioning patients during surgery.
There’s no correct number of consultations needed to find the right provider. Considering how much variation there is a Liposuction skills I recommend patient start the process by having at least five in person consultations before considering scheduling surgery.
When, in doubt, slow down and schedule more consultations.
Recognized that poorly done, Liposuction can leave people disfigured, and these results are permanent.
The time to be critical of plastic surgeons, it is during the vetting process before you schedule surgery.
Best,
Mats Hagstrom, MD