If you’ve lost a dramatic amount of weight, whether, through serious lifestyle change or bariatric surgery, you’ve reached your target weight, but your skin decided to stay in its stretched out form. This is because skin that is stretched for too long has trouble “snapping” back to a former, slimmer contour. While you are now dramatically smaller, your skin is sagging and loose all over. It can make you wonder what the point of losing all that weight was.
If this is your story, body contouring with the Drs. Carlotti at Austin Cosmetic Surgery is the answer.
Body contouring reduces excess fat and skin that remains in multiple body areas. The result is a firmer, more contoured overall appearance.
Problem areas
When your skin has been severely stretched and is now unsupported by the expanded tissues and fat while you were heavy, it will sag in pockets. These are the most common areas:
- Face, neck, and jowls giving a droopy, sad appearance
- Upper arms giving a “bat wing” appearance
- Breasts, causing the nipples to point downward and the breasts to flatten
- Abdominal area giving you an apron-like overhang
- Buttocks, groin, and thighs leaving hanging pockets of skin
What surgeries are involved in body contouring?
As with any procedure at Austin Cosmetic Surgery, the situation is unique for every patient. During your body contouring consultation with Dr. Michelle Carlotti or Dr. Albert Carlotti, we’ll have a give and take discussion about what areas you want to address and realistic expectations about outcomes you can expect. These are the plastic surgeries that may be involved:
- Lower body lift to correct sagging of the abdomen, buttocks, groin, and outer thighs
- Breast lift to correct sagging, flattened breasts
- Arm lift to correct sagging of the upper arms
- Thigh lift to correct sagging of the inner, outer, and mid-thigh
Recovery
These are major surgical procedures with many different areas being targeted at one time. This makes for an involved recovery, as you would expect. There will be swelling and scarring. You likely won’t be able to strain or lift anything for several weeks. If your abdomen and thighs have been addressed, you may have to avoid standing fully upright to prevent stressing the internal sutures.
This will be difficult at times, but it’s important to keep the end goal in mind. The prospect of having a firmer, contoured body that matches your new smaller size is the goal.
If you’ve lost dramatic amounts of weight and aren’t happy with the sagging that remains, contact us at Austin Cosmetic Surgery, (512) 688-8000, and let’s discuss total body contouring.
The post Losing Extra Weight Shouldn’t Mean Sagging Skin appeared first on Austin Cosmetic Surgery.
