30 Year Old Male, Vaser to correct lifelong hate of my flanks - Dr Grant Hamlet via The Private Clinic (Knightsbridge, London)

I am now 16 days post procedure and there is no pain except for if I jump up and down. I have had 6 sessions with Raddy Dimitrova (http://cosmeticbeautyuk.com) and she has been instrumental to my recovery - fantastic. Again, if you are in London, I can't recommend her highly enough. She offers so much more than MLD. Vaser can be quite a traumatic experience if you're not used to surgery or blood (as I wasn't) and she is a calm voice who has seen it all before and knows exactly what recovery should look like. By now, I am also confident that Dr Hamlet did a fantastic job. There are no lumps or bumps and the result is perfectly smooth and even.

I've now posted some progress pictures from pre and post procedure, as well as some gruesome pictures of the drain and the bag. The pre picture was taken 9 months ago. I've not been to the gym in 6 months because of a lower back injury and I therefore look much narrower in the upper back/lats in the after pictures because my muscles have atrophied. But I hope you'll agree that the results already look natural (and hopefully they will keep getting better as time goes on) and once I am able to start working out again and beef up my lats and shoulders, my silhouette will look great! I also added the pictures of the drain and bag to show you that the colour of the fluid can be extremely red - this caused me a lot of concern. I was advised by the nurses however that the colour of the fluid can vary from person to person and mine just happened to be bright red. That being said, I would definitely ask for a drain. I didn't leak a drop with it, so all of the padding and mattress and sofa protectors I bought ended up being unnecessary.

I've also now changed the status of the review to "Worth it" and I am glad that I did this. I got a bum-deal of being genetically hard-wired to gain fat in my love handles despite the rest of me being fairly slim. Although I probably could have lost them if I got down to an extremely low body fat percentage, I wanted to have a less feminine silhouette while being in a healthy and normal body-fat range. They are also now gone for good (unless I have gain an extreme amount of weight, which I have no intention of doing....)! The only continuing downside at this point is the compression garment. I have another 12 days in it with foam padding and can't wait to burn it...!

Just a quick update (and I will aim to post some photos soon). The procedure seems to have done the trick - i.e. all indications are that the love handles are gone and my silhouette will be as desired once the swelling etc has gone down. When I first looked at my body, I couldn't really believe it was mine.

But this process has been much harder than I could have anticipated, with the need to wear a drain, the foam vest and the compression garment, the post-surgery constipation and the general pain factor. There is also a lot of time to sit and think and to really ask yourself whether it was worth putting your body through the procedure. If you have any guilt or shame about having Vaser done (as I now know I did), there is plenty of time to ruminate on it.

That said, I've been having recovery massage sessions with Raddy Dimitrova and she is quite simply fantastic. If you are in London and can afford her, I cannot recommend her highly enough. Put simply, she is getting me through this and has been an incredible support. She trained with Dr Hamlet and is expert in post-Vaser recovery - there has not been a question I have had that she has not had a clear and reasoned answer to. She also does a deeper massage than just MLD and is able to help your body drain fluid faster.

So, let's see how the next few days go. For now, the compression garment is a real pain in the ass and is extremely uncomfortable...

I'm a 30 year old guy and was overweight as a child. I went on a diet at age 17 but lost weight the wrong way by eating very restricted calories and doing little exercise. After university, I didn't like what I saw in the mirror. I went for a first Vaser consultation at that point but didn't proceed. Two years ago I started working out with weights and my confidence increased a lot. The majority of the fat on my body sits on my love handles and lower back, however, so no matter how much work I did in the gym, I still had a pretty feminine silhouette in my view (there are some pictures in a Q and A I posted on my profile. I hurt my back and was laid off the gym for a while and had three weeks of vacation time to take over Christmas, so I decided to reconsider Vaser.

I heard great things about the Private Clinic from a YouTuber called Makeup by Jamie (search for his video diaries about Vaser - highly informative) and so had a consult with Dr Grant Hamlet. I also considered Dr Alex Chambers, Dr Ravi Jain and Dr Josh Berkowitz. I opted for Dr Hamlet on the basis of his experience and the fact he had a no-nonsense approach. He told me that my expectations were realistic. I also liked that the Private Clinic is established and a bigger company, which I found that reassuring. Cost was not the key determining factor for me but I also found the Private Clinic to be well priced. Reassuringly expensive but not a rip-off. My patient coordinator (Becki Zockay) was also always available to answer my questions and was very nice.

On the day of the procedure I arrived at the (extremely discreet) clinic and filled out the paperwork. I then changed into what can only be described as the most undignified underwear I've ever worn and went into theatre. After a while, Dr Hamlet came in and marked me up and took some pictures. I opted for sedation - highly recommended - and was then sedated. I was very nervous and the sedation was fantastic! I don't remember a thing about the actual procedure and I then woke up and was helped to the recovery room where I was given some biscuits and coffee. I was also at some point helped into my garment with foam padding. My SO was waiting for me and we got a cab home.

I was given a drain after my surgery (I had three incision sites on my lower back and the drain is in the middle one). I have read many accounts of significant leakage with this procedure but I have not leaked a drop. It's all gone into the drain bag. I had bought waterproof protectors for our bed and (beautiful cream) couch and they have so far not had to do their job. I was concerned that my drainage was very bright red and that I had drained around 1 litre and so I called the on-call nurse at 7pm and also again at 12.30am for reassurance. The nurse was great and I really appreciated her support.

As for the pain levels, it is painless while the anaesthetic is in your system. As that has worn off (I had my procedure yesterday at 2pm, it's now 10am) the pain has been maybe 4/10 with medication (Paracetamol (Tylenol in the US?) and during the night 30g codeine phosphate.) As Dr Hamlet warned me, it feels like a combination between the pain and stiffness from over-exertion in the gym and being punched, though I only had flanks and I have heard that other areas are more painful.

I have my first massage appointment with Raddy Dimitrova tomorrow - she is Dr Hamlet's preferred specialist, so I look forward to that. My drain should come out at that appointment too.

On the whole, the experience has been more involved than I thought it would be. I found the drainage to be quite traumatic because I am not used to or good with blood, and I have therefore felt pretty nauseous on one or two occasions. It's also not particularly dignified wearing a nappy under the garment to catch any leakage (there has been none) but that will come off tomorrow too and I can have my first shower. But it's actually not that bad. That said, at this point I have pretty much forgotten about the results and am hoping that I haven't been mutilated and instead am concentrating on recovery. I also haven't yet seen what I look like, hence the "Not sure" rating. I will post some further pictures in due course to update you guys if you are interested. I find the process of writing this to quite helpful, so comments and support welcome!