Swollen Love Handles Normal After Tummy Tuck?

It is possible that you have some swelling in your love handles (flanks) after your surgery. However, it looks as if you would benefit form liposuction of those areas. As a standard procedure I liposuction the love handles of all the abdominoplasties that I perform. I feel that it enhances the results and prevents the issue that you are experiencing.

Hi there-

It does look like you may have benefitted from some liposuction... ON the other hand, it may also be that there remains some residual skin excess, or that because the skin that remains is of poor quality (because of your weight gain and loss history), you have this (possibly temporary) problem.

Rather than second guess your surgeon, I would recommend that you visit with them, openly communicate your concerns to them, listen to their thoughts and the plan for improvement, and decide how you would like to proceed. 

I bet your surgeon wants you to be happy and will help you come up with a plan for maximizing your outcome.

What you have are called "dog ears". When an ellipse shape of skin is removed, and the incision closed in a straight line, the two ends of the incision may pooch out as in your photo. This early after surgery, alot of this appearance may be do to swelling in this area. However, if this does not signficantly improve over the next several months, some revision procedure like liposuction may be necessary.

Any time a tummy tuck is performed the incision must end. Beyond the ends there is relatively excess skin that sometimes becomes engorged and more pronouced due to swelling from the surgery and redirection of lymphatic circulation due to the surgery. This dramatically improves with time. Rarely, it requires revision to remove excess skin.

It's too early to judge whether this will remain a problem so at this point I'd advise you to be patient. If in the long term (after waiting at least 3 months) your "love handles" remain prominent, you should discuss with your plastic surgeon whether this is due to excess skin, fat, or a combination of both.
If you have excess fat and good skin tone, further liposuction may be all that is required but with your history of weight loss suggests you likely have loose skin contributing to the problem so you may need further skin excision extending posteriorly in the form of an extended abdominoplasty or possibly a circumferential lower body lift.
Good luck.