If you’ve had children or lost a good deal of weight, odds are your abdomen isn’t what it once was. Loose skin and a little pooch — that’s the usual condition. Why? Because when skin and the connective tissue beneath are stretched, due to pregnancy or weight gain, they can only maintain the ability to return to the former tautness for so long. After that, the elasticity is lessened. The result? The tummy pooch or worse. Even the normal sagging that comes with aging can give you a pooch, and you don’t have to be overweight at all.
At Elite Plastic Surgery, Drs. Armstrong, Cullen, and Martin can get rid of the pooch with a tummy tuck, giving you back a tighter, firmer, more contoured tummy.
For this procedure, our patients have some different options.
Mini tummy tuck
Also known as a limited-incision abdominoplasty, a mini tummy tuck targets the lower abdominal area. It can be an ideal solution if you have very little excess skin, but still want to eliminate that pooch in your lower belly. The mini tummy tuck is far less invasive than its traditional counterpart, so recovery is easier and scarring in minimal.
Full tummy tuck
A full tummy tuck is recommended for those women with a good deal of loose abdominal skin. During a full tummy tuck, a larger section of excess skin and fat is removed, and the underlying muscles are tightened to produce a shapelier waistline. The incision for a fully tummy tuck usually stretches from hipbone to hipbone, descending down to the panty line. There is also a second incision within the belly button if more sagging needs to be addressed above the naval. For full tummy tucks, the naval is usually moved to a higher position in response to the amount of skin that is trimmed.
Muscle repair
To create the tight, flat abdomen that everyone wants, we not only remove excess skin, but we also repair your abdominal muscles. These muscles often become separated due to the localized weight gain of pregnancy. We can bring these muscles back to the center of your abdomen, slimming your waist in the process.
Liposuction
There was a time when women chose between a tummy tuck and liposuction, but now the two procedures usually overlap. In addition to loose, saggy skin, most people also have pockets of fat that don’t respond to exercise or dietary changes. Liposuction removes these pockets and it can be added to a tummy tuck without the need for additional incisions.
You’ll have your kids the rest of your life; you don’t have to have the stomach pooch to remind you! Contact the team at Elite Plastic Surgery by calling (866) 331-0612 to set up a consultation for a tummy tuck.
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