How long is it necessary to wait between operations?

Thank you for the question. This comes up routinely with massive weight loss patients. The best answer is basically "safety first." What I mean is, the amount of surgical recovery and the duration of the anesthesia, plus your overall health, should determine the maximum plan that you elect. Facial procedures can be done together, and many of these can be done with sedation. For the body surgeries, general anesthesia is needed and there is generally more blood loss and stress on the body (due to fluid and tissue changes). Speaking with your primary care or specialty physician beforehand would be the best way to go. 

Thank you for your question.  Yes, multiple procedures can be performed at the same time.  A lot of weight loss patients are in a similar position to you.  They would like the procedure as close together as possible.  I perform my facelift and necklift under a local anaesthetic so there is minimal downtime involved.  Patients are back to work after a week.  They typically would have this first, then a few weeks after they can go onto having the general anaesthetic procedures.  You could perform multiple procedures such as: the breasts, lipo sculpting and abdominoplasty.  Then after 6 months have a follow up with your surgeon to ensure you are healed enough to have the other procedures.  The thigh and arm lift then could be performed.  This would obviously depend on your health and how long it would be advised from your anaesthetic, to be under a general anaesthetic.Please make sure you find a reputable and qualified plastic surgeon.  Good Luck. 

Dear stephiest,
Thank you for your question. It is possible to combine multiple cosmetic procedures together at the same time and will depend on the comfort level of your surgeon(s) and anesthesiologist. You may also need medical clearance from your primary care provider depending on your medical history, as undergoing surgery with general anesthesia for several hours can have certain associated risks. We recommend you seek an in-person consultation with a facial plastic surgeon or plastic surgeon who can provide a thorough evaluation and offer recommendations based on your treatment goals. 

Congratulations on your weight loss.  You are contemplating multiple surgical procedures, that cannot all be performed at the same time.  Often we combine breast and abdominal procedures with a BBL at one operation.  Facelifts are usually only performed with a small secondary procedure.  You should priortize what is most important for you. Good luck and discuss your options with your Plastic Surgeon.

It is best to keep cosmetic surgery procedures to under 6 hours.  A good combination is a facelift separately, then breast and body, and finally arms and lipsuction/BBL.  

Congratulations on your weight loss.  It sounds as if you wish to have a considerable amount of work done, and it would be highly inadvisable to have all of these procedures performed together.  I recommend separating the facelift from the body work and working out a reasonable time schedule for your specific surgical plan.  

Hello and thank you for the question. You cannot have all of these procedures at the same time, however, it's common to combine some of these procedures. For example, you can have a tummy tuck with a breast or arm lift. Surgery time should be kept less than 6 hours. Longer operative times are associated with increased perioperative complications.  In terms of sequencing and length of wait between procedures, it's best that you have a direct one to one consultation with a qualified plastic surgeon to discuss your priorities and develop a treatment plan. Best,Pejman Aflaki, M.D.Johns Hopkins-trained plastic surgeon

Thank you for your question and congratulation for your weight-loss. My advice is usually to write down a list of priorities and areas that bother you the most and start with those. I would not recommend too many procedures simultaneously as the risk of complications increases and so does the recovery time. It also depends on the experience of your surgeon.  Go for a few consultations with reputable and board certified surgeons and ask for their advice. Then see how the procedures could fit in your diary and commitments. All the best.Andrea Marando MDCertified, European Board of Plastic Surgery  Member, Am. Society of Plastic SurgeryMember, International Society of Aesthetic Plastic SurgeryManchester and London,  United Kingdom

Dear stephiest,
Thank you for posting your question.  The amount of surgery you are looking for in total is too much for one sitting - too long an operative time, too high risks e.g. deep vein clots, blood loss, too extensive a recovery required, best recovery practice for some areas incompatible with best recovery for other areas.
I will do combination procedures eg breast and arms, body lift and thighs etc but I look at the total estimated operating time involved and what is involved in recovery for each procedure. Some combinations work better than others.
I leave 3 to 6 months between procedures assuming recovery is good for each preceding procedure. Please bear in mind that wound healing problems are more common in very extensive surgeries and in surgery after significant weight loss as the skin quality is poorer.
Hope this was helpful and good luck with your surgery.
Best wishes

Congratulations on losing so much weight!In short, what you're interested in is too much surgery for one operation - it simply isn't safe.  I recommend my patients who have undergone massive weight loss to choose the area they are most interested in improving and focus on that first.  Typically, we wait 3 months between surgeries to allow for healing and normalization of nutritional parameters before performing a second procedure.