Wish I Knew About This.... A Long Time Ago!

Alright so... In December 2017 I was waiting to see my podiatrist and in the waiting room they had a video playing talking about some procedure (I think smart lipo) and I got curious and started looking at various cosmetic procedures. I was interested because of years and years of being mildly to very dissatisfied with some body areas, which fluctuated paralleling my weight loss or gain. It had never before crossed my mind to do anything, but I’ve complained for years about the “dents” in my hip areas and about cellulite. I’ve always been very active and was a college athlete but have always had a lot of body insecurities too - more so in recent years. While doing this research I learned about fat transfer and that it could be used to “smooth out” or “fill out” my hip dents (as I called them - also sometimes hip “valleys”, ha). I was so intrigued (aka obsessed) that I researched the procedure and possibilities for hours and hours. I also looked into various cellulite treatments. Anyway, I’m sure no one cares about this background story so I’ll skip ahead and just say that trough my research I came across Dr. Dass and liked all of is before/after pics the best. Most were very natural looking, which appealed to me because I didn’t want any dramatic or crazy changes. So I scheduled a consultation, which was $100. While others offered “free” consult, I was much more drawn to Dr. Dass because of the pictures of results. I went in for the consult on Jan 12.

Here are some before pics of what I wanted to address.
At the consultation, I shared with the Dr what I was hoping to achieve and asked a MILLION questions about different options. I did not feel like the Dr was trying to sell me on or push me to do anything, which made me feel comfortable. Ultimately, I gathered that most cellulite treatments aren’t very permanent and are mostly very pricey. I also learned more about how cellulite is caused. I learned that the “dents” in my hip areas wasn’t fixable by working out, and that working out can actually increase the unevenness, as the cause of the “dent” is actually a lack of muscle being present in that area of the human body. This made me feel better for some reason, like I wasn’t a freak I guess -ha! I do have a pretty muscular build so maybe that’s why mine was pronounced. Not sure.
At the end of the convo, I was presented with the best options for addressing the bothersome areas. What was recommended was: lipo to love handles, lower back, and saddlebags with fat transfer to hip area. I could decide to either do or not do lipo to the abdomen (which I ultimately decided to do). It was also explained that even just the lipo to the love handles and saddlebags would help improve the “dents”, as they sat right between those two areas. Removing fat in the surrounding areas would start the process of smoothing things out, with the fat transfer completing the job. I left the appointment with the options and pricing info and thought about/reviewed it overnight. The office assistant mentioned RealSelf, and that is when I started exploring on here. After all of this, I elected to do lipo to abdomen, lower back, love handles, and saddlebags with fat transfer to hips for $12,300 (yikes!). I scheduled my pre-op for Jan 25, 2018 and the procedure for February 8.

Adding these because the pics looked weird when posted with my last update.