Archive for February, 2010

Leg Liposculpture

By Christine, 7 February, 2010, No Comment

Ladies are often displeased about their legs, especially when fashion trends promote skinny jeans or mini skirts. Few of us are born with perfect pins, and exercise alone often fails to improve the overall shape.

Aside from generally large thighs, most ladies either complain of saddle bags or fat inner thighs. The latter rubs when walking, resulting in chafing of the skin and hyperpigmentation. Saddle bags are the unsightly protrusions on the outside of the upper thighs. These distort the silouette and make it difficult for ladies to wear mini skirts or trousers.

Sometimes, the thighs are just generally fat, so no abnormal lumps of fat shout for contouring. The entire thigh needs to be reduced all over. Perhaps this situation is really normal? But as most ladies want to wear mini skirts, short shorts, and don’t want to look like they are exploding out of trousers, some form of reduction is often desired.

So leg liposculpture can simply be trimming off the saddle bags or inner thighs, or a complete circumferential revision of thigh shape. Thunder thighs can be changed to slender pins with leg liposculpture!

Recovery from leg liposculpture, especially if circumferential liposuction is performed can be tricky. There will be some degree of discomfort when sitting or getting up, especially when sitting on hard toilet seats! Water retention can be extreme, leading to swollen knees, ankles and feet. For traditional liposuction, bruising can last for several weeks! All in, mobility is affected to some degree, and clothes may feel tight before they become loose.

However, the degree of satisfaction is often huge after the recovery process is complete. Leg liposculpture is one operation that can totally change the types of clothes an individual is able to wear and wear well!

Hi Def Liposculpture

By Christine, 7 February, 2010, No Comment

Recent advances in liposculpture technology, particularly with VASER (ultrasonic assisted liposelection) has resulted in the development of Hi Def Liposculpture.

Hi Def Liposculpture refers to the use of the VASER technique to not only remove unwanted fat, but also create muscle definition. This gives the patient a lean, toned look, something many folks exercise hard to attain, but fail to achieve.

Most well known for the tummy area, Hi Def VASER not only reduces the fat in the abdomen and flanks, but also continues to thin out the skin over the rectus muscle lines, creating six-pack definition. It can also be used in the arms to define the deltoids, biceps and triceps.

Hugely popular all over the world now, this technique does involve more discomfort than standard VASER liposelection. Drains are also required, as is a special sponge suit that has to be worn under the normal compression garments.

However, most patients are delighted with the results of the procedure, as they can finally see the muscle definition that they’ve worked so hard but failed to see naturally.

Hi Def Liposculpture costs more than standard liposculpture as each procedure takes around six hours to perform! General anaesthesia is often required, as the operation is too uncomfortable when done under tumescent anaesthesia alone.

There are certainly pros and cons to this technique, and only you can decide if muscle definition is your ideal goal, and whether it justifies the additional cost, discomfort and downtime. Ironically, Hi Def Liposculpture is best for athletes, but can stop vigorous training for many weeks.

Tumescent Liposculpture

By Christine, 7 February, 2010, No Comment

Tumescent liposculpture refers to the use of tumescent fluid to distend and numb fat tissues prior to sculpting with liposuction.

The tumescent technique has revolutionised fat reduction surgery. The infiltration of tumescent solution serves many purposes:

  1. Numbing the tissues, so minimal intravenous sedation is required
  2. Stops bleeding by constricting blood vessels in the area
  3. Distends the tissues, allowing easier surgery

The tumescent fluid comprises local anaesthetic, epinephrine and sodium bicarbonate in normal saline. For more techniques, the volume infiltrated is equal to the anticipated fat extraction volume.

The solution is injected into the tissues by a high pressure delivery system. Generally, this is administered to the areas of operation only.

Although tumescent liposuction has greatly increased the safety of liposuction surgery, it does contain some inherent risks of its own, primarily related to its local anaesthetic component. To numb the area completely, large amounts of local anaesthetic are used. However, because it is administered with epinephrine, the local anaesthetic stays in the operative site, rather than goes into the circulation. As the epinephrine wears off some 12 hours after the surgery, the local anaesthetic can slowly be released into the circulation and taken to the liver for metabolism.

Occasionally, a large amount of local anaesthetic is absorbed into the circulation at one time. If this is over the safe dose, some toxicity reactions can be observed. These include timgling around the mouth, fingers, drowsiness and heart arrhythmias. These are fortunately rare.

In general, tumescent liposculpture is safe and greatly enhances the results of liposuction surgery.

Facial Liposculpture – Define Jawline, Reduce Double Chin

By Christine, 7 February, 2010, No Comment

Facial Liposculpture is used for defining the jawline and reducing double chins. Fat accumulation can occur in these areas even in young people. Often it is related to obesity, but this is not always the case. Fat can deposit in this area disproportionately, which is obviously distressing to the individual.

Even if lack of jaw definition is not a major issue, excessive fat accummulation in the chin area can be. Shoud this increase in size, gravity often pulls the skin down, creating an unsightly overhang. It is important to catch the situation before it gets too bad. Once the skin is over-stretched, lipoosuction alone is inadequate. Skin excision surgery will be needed to cut off the extra skin.

Although all liposuction techniques can be used for facial liposculpture, it may be best to opt for one which combines skin tightening as well as fat reduction. Examples would be laser lipolysis (smart lipo) or ultrasound-assisted liposuction (VASER).

Laser lipolysis has the advantage in that should fat suction not be employed, recovery is swift, no facial compression is required, and the results are seen gradually over the following few months. Plus it has a skin tightening effect, so turkey neck results are less likely.

Liposculpture is rarely used above the jawline, as there are vital nerves and other structures in this area. Some doctors have used laser lipolysis to reduce the naso-labial folds through the skin tightening effect of the laser, or reduce eye bags by shining the laser straight into the pockets of fat under the eyes.

Done correctly, facial liposculpture can take years off by tightening and defining the jawline and chin areas, as well as removing excess fat from this region.