1. Risks of Liposuction Surgery: Any surgery involves the risk of infection, bleeding, scarring, or severe injury. However, tumescent liposuction has an excellent safety record. One reason that this technique is safer than other liposuction techniques is that general anesthesia is not required. The most significant risks of liposuction are those associated with general anesthesia. Eliminating general anesthesia reduces the risks in liposuction.
2. Risk of Irregularities of the Skin: Tumescent liposuction using small cannulas is the least likely to cause any significant or noticeable post-surgical irregularities of the skin. The Tumescent fluid increases the fat compartment volume. It allows more accurate removal of fat, with greater assurance that the cannula will not inadvertently approach too near the skin's undersurface, which would cause irregularities. Thus, the tumescent technique helps to minimise the risk of post-surgical irregularities or rippling of the skin. Liposuction might improve pre-existing irregularities of the skin such as dimpling. Still, prospective patients should not assume that there will be a significant improvement. It is unrealistic to expect perfectly smooth skin. Patients should expect that their skin will have approximately the same degree of dimpling and irregularities as existed before the procedure. However, it is still possible that a noticeable irregularity of skin may result and require touch-up surgery.
3. Risk of Scarring of the Skin: Incisions for liposuction may result in scarring. The incisions made for inserting the cannulas are usually less than 2 to 3 mm in length and are generally virtually invisible once healed. Although you may be able to find them upon close examination, most other people would not be able to see them. Some patients may experience temporary hyper-pigmentation (darkening) that usually fades after several months. Some patients may have an inborn tendency for persistent discolouration at the incision sites. Patients with a prior history of hyper-pigmentation or hypo-pigmentation might also expect to experience it with these incisions. Certain areas of the body, such as the back or upper flanks, may be more likely to have pigmentation changes.
4. Cellulite: Cellulite results from the pull of fibrous tissue that connects skin to the underlying muscle, causing a subtle puckering in the skin. While improving the silhouette, liposuction of the thighs does not necessarily eliminate this puckering. Tumescent liposuction is unlikely to get rid of Cellulite but should not worsen Cellulite.
5. Postoperative Healing: Normal healing after tumescent liposuction involves a limited but definite degree of soreness, swelling, bruising, and lumpy firmness. Temporary mild numbness of the skin may persist for up to 4 months. Most patients can see visible improvement of their silhouette within one week after surgery. However, because of the slow resolution of post-surgical swelling, the ultimate results following liposuction usually require 3 to 6 months to be achieved.
6. Realistic Expectations: Although liposuction results are often quite spectacular, it is not realistic to expect perfection. It is impossible to guarantee the precise amount of improvement that will result from Liposuction. Patients should not have unrealistic expectations. Although patients can usually expect to achieve at least a 50% improvement, it is unreasonable to expect a 95% improvement or near perfection. For the perfectionist or Liposuction of an extensive area, the maximum result may require a second procedure for which an additional fee may apply. Patients who would be satisfied with a 50% improvement would be reasonably good candidates for Liposuction. If a 50% improvement would make a patient happy, Liposuction will likely meet these expectations. Consider this:
-
Start with 100 Large fat cells
-
Liposuction removed 50% resulting in 50 Large fat cells left
-
Dieting/Exercise (after Liposuction) can shrink these into 50 Small fat cells
-
Resulting in Amazing Transformation due to Partnership between the Liposuction procedure and the Patient.
Perfect symmetry and evenness may not result from this procedure
7. Longevity of Results: The fat cells that are removed by liposuction do not grow back. If the patient later gains or loses weight, the change tends to be distributed proportionately over the entire body. Although one can expect some aging changes, provided that the patient does not gain large amounts of weight, the new, more pleasing silhouette is relatively permanent.
