Is It True That After Liposuction the Feeling and Hardness Can Persist Indefinitely?

hardness and firmness after any type of liposuction can occur but should be temporary.  I encorporate Cellupulse (extracorporeal pulsed acoustic therapy) in all my liposuction patients to aid in healing, drive the fluid out of the tissue (which leads to the hardness) and achieve the results my patients want more quickly.

Every body area treated by liposuction will develop some firmness and irregular bumps and lumps. This is an expected outcome of how the body responds to the healing process from the trauma of liposuction. It will take months until the treated areas return to a normal and softer feel of the tissues. It has not been my experience that body areas remain firm or hard indefinitely after liposuction. The relationship between how the treated areas feel and the final outcome is related however. I advise my patients that when all of the swelling and firmness goes away and the tissues feel normal, then you are looking at the shape and smoothness of the final result. 

After liposuction there is normally some decrease in skin sensation that is almost always temporary. Hardness and firmness is also normal, and usually more common in certain areas, such as the abdomen. This also is temporary and tends to resolve with time and massaging the affected areas. Sometimes patients mistake the firm feeling of the underlying muscle as something that is abnormal because they're used to only feeling a layer of softer fat on top of the muscle.

It all depends on the cause of the hardness.

Hardness due to fat necrosis (dead fat) may persist for a long time.  This is generally discreet and focal and may be associated with pain.  This is pretty uncommon with liposuction.

Hardness that develops soon after surgery and is widespread over the area of suctioning is generally due to edema and fibrosis of wound healing.  This common type of hardening is usually gone by 4- 6 months.  Massage may help.

Good luck.