Due to suction right behind my saddlebags, my butt & thigh dropped. Can I do something to fix this? (Photos)

Dear mybgtime,
I understand your concern. However, without a proper assessment, it would be difficult to determine what went wrong. It is best that you visit your plastic surgeon for further assessment or ask for a second opinion. Only after a thorough examination, you can get proper recommendations and advice.
Daniel Barrett, MD
Certified, American Board of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

Fat transfer might be the best choice, but you might get some benefit with minimally invasive radiofrequency treatment like ThermiTight or noninvasive micro-needling with radiofrequency like Secret to tighten your skin. Even both could be done with Thermitight being done first. You need skin tightening. I would try these first before adding fat. Filler is limited and will take several syringes and will not last long.

Based on your pictures, we must consider whether you will need a skin tightening maneuver such as a lateral thigh and buttock tuck that might be required if you have sagging buttock skin. Attention must then be given to providing you the buttock shape that YOU desire. This means using our proprietary BBL assessment tool. As an official VASER trainer, I am routinely referred unhappy BBL patients. One of the most common reasons for disgruntled BBL patients is that patients are not able to accurately communicate their desired buttocks goals to their surgeons. A buttocks assessment tool can be an invaluable tool to communicate to your surgeon the exact buttocks size and shape you are desiring.

The optimal BBL outcomes are achieved with: 1) use of VASER liposuction to harvest the fat, 2) a closed looped system such as Puregraft to process the fat, and 3) strategic micro-packet transplant technique. These three processes have demonstrated over 95% fat graft take. This means that your results will be stable as long as you maintain your weight. A Skype or FaceTime consultation with a BBL specialist can help you get an accurate recommendation and pricing.

Respectfully,
Arian Mowlavi MD, FACS
Realself 100 Hall of Fame Inductee

I have posted thousands of times on real self stating that delivering consistent quality results with Liposuction is more difficult than most people believe. Being a board-certified plastic surgeon with an overall good reputation is insufficient to confirm that somebody has mastered body contouring with Liposuction.

I encourage people to be highly selective of choosing providers for liposuction and fat transfer procedures because results vary so drastically and the learning curve is quite steep to mastered these procedures.

Most likely fat transfer or grafting fat back into the areas that’s the best way to reverse the outcome of the procedure and restore the volume. Areas of previously treated with Liposuction are devoid of host tissue to support fat graphs and for that reason smaller amounts of fat will survive per treatment.

In other words when grafting areas previously treated with liposuction the areas that need volume the most will have the least fat survive.

For that reason to restore volume or improve outcome significantly often requires multiple rounds of fat transfer and patients should not expect this to be resolved with a single procedure.

HA fillers is a laughable approach unless your doctor is paying for it with sufficient volume on an ongoing basis to actually correct the defects.

Considering that revision work is many times more difficult than primary liposuction and fat transfer the choice of provider becomes even more important.

For primary procedures I recommend patients have multiple in person consultations at which time they should request their surgeons to show their entire collection of before and after pictures for the procedure and anatomic area of interest.

Simply seeing a handful of selected representative pictures which in reality are most likely the best results of that provider‘s career is insufficient for patients to get a clear understanding of what average results look like in the hands of that provider.

This is why patients should insist on seeing the entire collection of before and after pictures for as many as the surgeon will allow.

An experienced provider should have no difficulty showing you 50 or more sets of before and after pictures of Liposuction results.

It may be tricky to find someone who has those kind of numbers of before and after pictures of revision work since revision work is not as common as primary procedures.

For revision work having quality Liposuction skills is a must but having good fat grafting skills is also needed.

The most important decision is who does the work for you and to recognize that it will most likely require multiple rounds of surgery.

Lastly when asking someone to assess the outcome of a surgical procedure patients should always show before and after pictures.

Without knowing what someone looked like to start with it’s very different quote to assess the outcome of a surgical procedure.

To have quality second opinion consultations patients should come prepared with proper before and after pictures and a copy of the operative report from the first or prior procedures. those should be available from your provider if requested.

Good luck,

Mats Hagstrom MD