How painful is Tumescent Liposuction under general anesthesia?

                  It’s
important to realize that significant misinformation seems to permeate this
discussion because of individual agendas. 
It’s safe to say that tumescent liposuction involves infusing fluid into
the subcutaneous tissue.  This
fluid is rich in epinephrine and local anesthetic and offers significant
advantages when performing liposuction. 
Patients have less bleeding and less post-operative pain with this
technique.

                  It’s
also true that Dr. Klein initially described the technique with local
anesthesia alone.  As with
everything else in medicine advances are made and techniques change over the
course of time.  A large number of
surgeons feel that in some cases general anesthesia in combination with tumescent
technique offers significant advantages over local
anesthesia alone.

                  There’s
no question that there’s risk associated with general anesthesia.  It’s also fair to say that there’s risk
associated with just about everything we do as surgeons.  In fact there’s risk associated with
lidocaine toxicity when practitioners are overly exuberant in their efforts to
avoid general anesthesia.

                  It’s
important to be honest when presenting the facts.  The best option for anesthesia varies from patient to
patient and depends on the patient’s aesthetic goals and anatomic
findings.  For some patients
general anesthesia is a good option. 
When this technique is utilized patients actually have less pain during
and after the procedure. 

The pain should be similar in 4-6 hours after the procedure.  Take pain medication and you should be comfortable. Thank you for your question and good luck with everything.

To give the simple answer, there is no pain when surgery is done under genral anesthesia.  You are asleep for the whole procedure and have amnesia of the event.. If tumnescent fluid is placed in your tissues, as it is nearly universally in liposuction cases, some remains after the liposuction is done and that will give you about 2.5 hours of pain relief after you wake up.  Then any discomfort is easily controlled by oral pain medications, iced compresses to the areas treated and compressive garments worn after surgery.  The larger the areas treated the more discomfort there is.  Having said that, if only small areas are to be treated a patient can have a very enjoyable experiance using only some sedation and the tumnescent fluid injected in the areas to be done.  This lowers the cost as no anesthesiologist is required.  Discuss this fully with your plastic surgeon to arrive at what will make your procedure an enjoyable one.