Tummy Tuck and Mini Face Lift Together - Is It Safe?

Your abdominoplasty is not just for loose skin. You need to have your rectus diastasis repaired and the umbilical hernia, which, if wide mouthed, will need reconstruction. Rectus repair is quite painful postop and you will be walking bent over double for a couple of weeks. It sounds like you don't need much liposuction with the abdominoplasty. That saves some time and discomfort. Rectus repair will make you stronger, improve any back pain you may have and also improve stress incontinence should you have that. Your posture will improve postop and you will have more energy. But I personally wouldn't do a facelift at the same time. These are quite unrelated areas that deserve separate operations. The abdominoplasty is a big surface area operation with fluid shifts and stress throughout the body. The facial operation is delicate and swelling needs to be minimised, along with straining and you are going to have both with a operation like an abdominoplasty. Sure, I'd do a mastopexy augmentation with an abdominoplasty but that's hardly a delicate operation either. Facial surgery is a different matter and I think the result could be compromised.

Assuming you are otherwise healthy and do not have a predisposition to blood clotting the risk of combination procedures comes down to the LENGTH of the operations.

There is nothing more inherently dangerous in combining these two operations EXCEPT for ending up with not so great results and cheating defeat out of the jaws of victory IF you are having Mini-operations when, in reality, you would get much better results with the non-MINI versions of these operations. In patients insistence on MINI operations and the willingness of surgeons to compromise their esthetic standards and let them have it rather than losing that income, our fruited planes are filled so-so to disappointing results produced by rushed through, combinations of MINI procedures.

Make sure these operations are the best options for your anatomy. If so, if you are healthy, there is no reason you cannot have them as long as conventional surgical practices are observed.

Peter A Aldea, MD
Memphis, Tennessee