Summertime and the water is our friend here in Michigan. If we’re not out on Lake Michigan, we could be up at Crystal Lake or Traverse City. And one thing we don’t want when we throw on the swimsuit are unwanted bulges of stubborn fat that seem about as indifferent to diet and exercise as the Lions are to making the playoffs.
Maybe it’s time you got rid of the fat for good with liposuction at Elite Plastic Surgery.
Popular procedure
Make your own assumptions about the reasons, but whatever they are liposuction has become more and more popular over the last decade. It now ranks in the top three cosmetic surgeries every year in the U.S. That could be because the procedure has become much less invasive than when it first debuted in the United States in the 1980s.
That original liposuction used large cannulas that had to be moved about quite violently under the skin to break loose and suction out the fat cells. Patients had to be under general anesthesia, and the tissue trauma was such that it could cause bruising that took months to fully resolve.
Today, our Elite surgeons use very small cannulas. This is because prior to inserting the cannula we now inject the areas to be treated with tumescent solution. This is a mixture of saline solution, lidocaine, and epinephrine. The lidocaine anesthetizes the area, and the epinephrine acts to shrink blood vessels to create far less blood loss than former methods. The epinephrine also constricts the fat cells, making it easier to break them loose and suction them away.
For certain areas, we also add laser or ultrasound energy to liposuction to help liquefy the fat before it is suctioned away.
The end result is that today’s liposuction at Elite Plastic Surgery is far less invasive, and dictates only minimal recovery. And the incisions to insert the cannula are so small they can usually be closed with just a bandage!
Not for weight loss
It is important to remember that liposuction is not a weight-loss procedure. Sometimes people equate liposuction with bariatric surgery, but they are not remotely similar. At Elite, we require our patients to be within 30% of their ideal body weight at most. This procedure is meant to remove stubborn pockets of fat that are very resistant to dietary changes and exercise.
Want to get rid of that stubborn fat for the summer? Call us at Elite Plastic Surgery, (616) 459-1907 to schedule a consultation.
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