Weight Loss Journey
Whether you’ve completed your weight loss, you’re in the middle of it or you’re just planning, weight loss is a journey.
For some, this journey will include major lifestyle changes, bariatric surgery and, possibly body contouring after weight loss. The purpose of this site and our group, is to help you navigate from as early as possible in the journey so that you can have greater confidence and comfort in your decisions along the way and, ultimately, fewer surprises. Our focus in on education around the procedures that many patients desire after losing a significant amount of weight but our years of experience looking after patients means that we have the knowledge and connections to help you at any point of the journey.
What To Expect After Weight Loss
There is no question that you will feel great. Losing weight will make you healthier, more mobile, more energetic and help you to feel comfortable and confident in your body. The only potential downside to significant weight loss can be remaining, stubborn areas of fat and/or loose skin. Everyone is individual in this. Factors that may influence remaining fat deposits and loose skin include how much weight you lose, how fast you lose the weight, how old you are, other medical conditions you look after and the general condition and distribution of your skin and fat. The spectrum is wide. Some patients lose weight and are completely comfortable in their new body without the desire for treatments or surgery. Some patients require multiple extensive surgical procedures and skin treatments to optimize their comfort and confidence in their new body. Of course, there are many patients in between.
Patients that have lost a significant amount of weight may benefit from non-invasive treatments to help decrease stubborn fat deposits, tighten minor skin laxity or improve overall skin quality. In some cases, minor surgical procedures are recommended in addition to these and in many cases, more extensive surgical procedures are required to remove excess loose skin, lift and recontour areas that have lost weight.
How Do I Choose The Right Team?
Body contouring in patients that have lost significant weight is a highly specialized procedure. In principle, procedures like abdominoplasty, thigh lift and breast surgery are common for all plastic surgeons. Performing these procedures on patients that have lost significant weight requires very specific training and expertise. There are a number of very important factors that need to be considered in patients that have lost significant weight:
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Different skin quality and laxity
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Healing and Recovery secondary to nutritional changes
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The effect of laxity in adjacent areas
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Combining multiple procedures/areas in one operative session
Experts in body contouring after massive weight loss are able to modify each procedure to accommodate these differences. Perhaps more importantly, however, is the experts ability to sequence and plan your procedures and their practice’s ability to look after you after surgery.
Factors That Ensure Good Oucomes
The Patient
Your surgical team will assess your past and present medical history to ensure that you are optimized for surgery and healing. Factors that may specifically impact your healing and final results include:
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Weight Stability
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Adequate Nutrition
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Diabetes / Sugar Control
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Smoking
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Other medical conditions
The Team
The Surgeon
The plastic surgeon looking after you must have expertise and experience in assessing your general health, your goals and your body. They must be able to take these factors into consideration in designing a plan over a single surgery or multiple surgeries, that will safely and efficiently look after your concerns. From a technical perspective, your surgeon must have a team in the operating room that is expert in positioning patients, ensuring comfortable surgery and working with the unique tissues of a patient after significant weight loss.
The Operative Team
Surgery after massive weight loss often requires specialized position changes thoughout the surgery that must be managed by experienced teams in the operating room. A team that is comfortable with this will take less time and ensure that patients are comfortable. This ultimately leads to safer, more efficient surgery.
The Administrative Team
So much of looking after patients that have lost significant weight is about patient education, decision making, expectation management and constant communication. A team dedicated to this will help you with your questions early on in the journey, help navigate various treatment plans with your, prepare you for your surgery and ensure that all your questions, concerns, goals and dreams are translated to the surgical team
Nursing Care
Patients who undergo body contouring surgery after significant weight loss have a long list of instructions to follow in order to optimize their outcomes. Examples of these include instructions on how to prepare for surgery, what types of dressings, padding and garments should be worn after surgery and what to do if you feel your recovery is not ideal. A dedicated nursing team will address all these concerns with you in real time. They will be present prior to your surgery to review all your instructions and they will be present immediately after surgery and for weeks and months following surgery to ensure that you are never left wondering if you are following instructions appropriately.