Which Type of Liposuction is the Least Painful?

Tumescent liposuction, skillfully performed, can be totally painless during the actual liposuction procedure. A painless procedure is possible if the tumescent local anesthetic solution is distributed throughout 100% of the fat volume that is subjected to liposuction. Administering the local anesthetic can also be virtually painless.

I wrote the article "How to Maximize Patient Comfort During Tumescent Liposuction" (available at the "Web reference" link below) to describe these techniques. Also very important to patient comfort, as described in this article, is keeping the patient warm during the procedure.

After the areas to be treated are properly anesthetized, laser treatment prior to liposuction should also be painless.

In the vast majority of my patients pain medication (usually Tylenol) is not needed until after the procedure, when the local anesthetic effect wears off (up to 12 hours later).

Pain is more a patient preference issue. Even though most liposuction techniques have low levels of pain, if you are one of the patients that have a very low pain tolerance or threshold than expect some level of pain. Post operative pain medications are available. In my personal experience I believe Smart Lipo does offer less pain post treatment than VASER lipo. But that is my limited experience of over 1,000 cases. As for which lipo technique is better seek in person evaluations from boarded docs who offer both. I offer both and prefer Smart Lipo in my opinion.