Plastic Surgery News

How Long Does It Take to Recover from Liposuction?

Liposuction is one of the most popular plastic surgery procedures there is, and we get many questions about it at Atlanta Plastic Surgery. One of the most common concerns is how long the recovery might take. This is a fairly simple question with a more complex answer; plastic-surgery recovery time can vary from person to person, and several elements go into determining how long someone’s liposuction recovery might take.

Debunking the Myths about LiposuctionOne of the main components of the recovery length of a liposuction procedure is the extensiveness of the surgery. Liposuction is typically performed as an outpatient procedure, and in general, the recovery process is relatively quick. No two cases are the same, but many patients can return to work after three to ten days of recovery, then gradually resume normal activities within two to five weeks. Still, some swelling, soreness, and bruising may persist for longer, and you’ll need to be especially careful about heavy lifting and strenuous exercise until you’ve fully recovered.

Depending on the volume of fat cells removed, the location and amount of surgical site(s), and the body type of the patient, different liposuction procedures may require varying amounts of aftercare and recovery time. While you recover, the treated area may be covered by elastic bandages and a compression garment to help control swelling and guide the body to heal evenly according to its new contours.

It’s imperative that you follow your plastic surgeon’s pre and post-op instructions exactly, and be thorough in discussing any questions or concerns you may have throughout the process. Your surgeon will give you specific instructions on how to clean and dress your surgical site, as well as how to promote the fastest, safest plastic surgery healing process. Furthermore, he or she will likely prescribe medications to take orally and/or apply to the surgical site to reduce the likelihood of infection and aid in the healing process. You’ll need to know what to look out for to ensure everything is healing properly, as well as schedule a follow-up appointment with your surgeon.

With many plastic-surgery procedures, recovery time can vary person-to-person, procedure-to-procedure, etc. “It depends” is never a satisfying answer, but it’s often the only honest one, especially before you’ve had a consultation. The only way to get a better idea of how the procedure might go for you personally is to be evaluated by an expert. If you’re considering plastic surgery and would like to speak with an experienced plastic surgeon about your options, please contact one of our Atlanta Plastic Surgery offices to schedule a consultation. There, in addition to discussing your prospective procedure, we can go over our available financing options with you, and in some cases, even offer simulations on what you may look like after the procedure. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest plastic surgery news.

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How Smoking Can Damage Plastic Surgery Results

We have good news and bad news for smokers considering plastic surgery. The bad news? Your surgeon is going to strongly recommend, if not require, that you quit smoking at least two-to-three weeks prior to and after your procedure. The good news? After a total of four-to-six weeks without nicotine, you’ll be in a good position to permanently quit. In fact, a study conducted by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), published in 2017, found “an association between cosmetic surgery and smoking cessation at long-term follow-up.” That is, plastic surgery may help people quit smoking for good.

How Smoking Can Damage Plastic Surgery ResultsIt can be difficult to talk about the reality of smoking’s detrimental effects without coming off as preachy. While we don’t believe it’s our place to tell people what choices to make with their bodies, we strongly believe everyone should be aware of nicotine’s negative impacts on plastic surgery results. Our intent is only to convey the facts and ensure we’re doing everything we can to help people make informed decisions about their plastic-surgery procedures.

It’s ill-advised to undergo any sort of surgery with nicotine in your system. This is because nicotine causes the blood vessels to shrink, constricting the flow of blood, and therefore oxygen, to the skin. Your skin needs oxygen to stay viable during a plastic surgery procedure, as oxygen-deprived skin has little chance of healing. Nicotine also contributes to higher risk of infection, fat necrosis (a condition in which fat cells die and form hard lumps), longer wound-healing time, thicker, more pronounced scarring, blood clots, and increased levels of pain. Notice that we’re using the word “nicotine” instead of “smoking;” this is because anything containing nicotine, including cessation tools like gum, e-cigarettes, and patches can cause these issues.

“But my surgeon didn’t say anything about not smoking before my knee surgery,” you might say. Plus, you might have fared well during your standard-surgery healing process, despite having continued to smoke heavily both before and after your non-cosmetic procedure. At Atlanta Plastic Surgery, our surgeons put surgical patient safety and wellbeing before anything else.

When performing most cosmetic surgery procedures, the surgeon needs to be able to lift the skin up, keeping it healthy and viable the whole time. This allows them to stretch, relocate, and/or remove portions of the skin. Having nicotine in your system makes this entire process more difficult and, potentially, more dangerous. In other words, your plastic surgeon needs a good canvas with which to render his masterpiece, and the best canvas is a healthy one.

We often say that plastic surgery—especially liposuction and body-contouring procedures—should be regarded as extra motivation to stay fit, not a replacement for healthy lifestyle choices. You wouldn’t want to negate the results of your procedure, after all. Similarly, since you need to quit nicotine products prior to your procedure anyway, we advise trying to use your plastic-surgery preparation measures to permanently get over your nicotine addiction.

If you’re considering plastic surgery and would like to speak with an experienced surgeon about your options, please contact one of our Atlanta Plastic Surgery offices to schedule a consultation. In addition to discussing your prospective procedure, we can go over our available financing options for plastic surgery with you. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest plastic surgery news and updates.

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Common Misconceptions that Keep People from Getting Plastic Surgery (Part 1)

At Atlanta Plastic Surgery, we consult every day with prospective patients who have all kinds of questions and concerns. There tends to be confusion among the general public when it comes to plastic surgery, but we can usually clear it up with people who decide to take that first step of scheduling a consultation. In this first part of a two-part blog, we’re using our experience to deflate some of the common misconceptions that make some people reluctant to have cosmetic procedures:

Debunking the Five Most Common Plastic Surgery MythsMyth 1: Only shallow people get plastic surgery.

This plastic surgery misconception is likely due to portrayals of plastic surgeons on television and in movies, as well as the perceived culture of vanity around celebrities and Hollywood in general. Many people who elect to get plastic surgery do so to help boost their confidence in their appearance, but even more people do it to correct for disfiguring medical conditions, birth defects, and/or accidents. At Atlanta Plastic Surgery, we perform reconstructive procedures every day to correct damage done by cleft palates, post-cancer mastectomies and tumor removals, work-related injuries, and more. Some people do get plastic surgery for purely cosmetic reasons, but we don’t believe there’s anything wrong with valuing your appearance and taking steps to improve your self-image.

Myth 2: Plastic surgery is just for women.

It’s true that the majority of plastic surgery patients in 2017 were women, but men accounted for a healthy 13% of those procedures. However, many types of plastic surgery have been on the rise among men for the past several years. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS)’s 2017 statistical report shows a dramatic increase in men’s plastic surgery, with men’s filler injections rising 99% and men’s Botox up by 397% since 2000. As medical science and technology continue to extend the productive phases of men’s lives, more and more men are opting to look as young as they feel. The amount of men having liposuction and tummy tucks has risen steadily over the past five years, growing by 23% and 12%, respectively. Many men also opt to have male breast reduction surgery for gynecomastia, a condition in which excess fat and glandular tissue in the chest give the appearance of breasts. It seems that the stigma around males and plastic surgery is steadily dissipating as this misconception continues to be proven wrong.

Be sure to come back next week to learn about three more areas of confusion that make people reluctant to have plastic surgery. If you’re considering plastic surgery and would like to speak with an experienced surgeon about your options, please contact one of our Atlanta Plastic Surgery offices to schedule a consultation. In addition to discussing your prospective procedure, we can go over our available financing options for plastic surgery with you. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for the latest plastic surgery news.

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Clear Communication in Your Plastic Surgery Consultation

Choosing the Timing of Your Own Breast ReconstructionDuring your consultation at Atlanta Plastic Surgery, your plastic surgeon will ask you questions to get a better idea of what you want, invite you to ask any questions you might have, and possibly even have imaging done. The initial plastic-surgery meeting is unique among other medical consultations; there’s a high level of collaboration between you and your surgeon as you discuss your potential procedure. Therefore, today we’re discussing four major steps you can take to ensure that you achieve peak patient-surgeon understanding. In addition to arriving 15 minutes early and filling out your paperwork ahead of time, optimizing your communication level is the best thing you can do to make sure your consultation is smooth, productive, and pleasant for everyone involved.

  1. Research each surgeon’s section of our Atlanta Plastic Surgery.

On the Atlanta Plastic Surgery website, you can browse through the Procedures, Biography, and Before-and-After sections of each of our experienced plastic surgeons. This will help you determine which surgeon is best for your desires and requirements, and it will also help you get an idea of what types of questions to prepare for your consultation. You can read previous patients’ testimonials and other reviews to help you narrow down your choices, and you might even decide to schedule meetings with multiple surgeons to explore all of your options.

  1. Research your procedure ahead of time and prepare questions.

Online resources can be great starting places for getting general ideas about what types of questions to ask. Remember, however, that the internet contains a lot of misinformation, and anyone can say whatever they want about anything online. When it comes to self-education in a specialized, dense field like plastic surgery, it’s best to air on the side of caution. Your consultation will be a fantastic opportunity to ask one of our highly credentialed surgeons about any research you may do. The information in the Atlanta Plastic Surgery Procedures section and Blog is reviewed or written by our practicing surgeons, so that might be a good place to start your journey.

  1. Write down anything you want to ask or chat about.

Plastic surgery is complicated. That’s one of the many reasons that our surgeons spend the better part of a decade learning about their areas of expertise in school, then attain several years of experience before taking on maximum responsibility. Even if one of our highly credentialed plastic surgeons were considering having a procedure done on an area on which he or she routinely operates, we would still recommend that he or she come into the consultation with a list of questions and concerns for the surgeon performing the procedure. It’s in your best interests to get every question and concern out in the open, and checking off a physical list is the best way to ensure that you and your surgeon cover your bases, achieve a mutually beneficial dialog, and get the most out of your plastic surgery consultation.

  1. Bring in visual aids like photographs and clothing.

If you’re trying to get back to a past weight, or you want your face to look like it did fifteen years ago, showing your surgeon a photograph of yourself from that time will be helpful for a few reasons. The more ways you have to fully explain your plastic-surgery goals, the closer your results will likely be to those goals. Furthermore, seeing exactly what you want out of your procedure will help your surgeon explain just how close he can get to your desired result. Hollywood and internet folk-wisdom can give people unrealistic—either overly optimistic or irrationally skeptical—expectations, and that isn’t helpful in a doctor-patient relationship.

The primary goal of any medical consultation is to exchange the maximum possible amount of information from patient to doctor, and vice versa; each party needs to leave the meeting with a new and satisfying understanding of the situation. It’s the medical professional’s job to explain the details of a potential upcoming procedure, and it’s the patient’s job to make his or her concerns and goals as clear as possible so that expectations are realistic. At Atlanta Plastic Surgery, we take pride in the fact that our surgeons and staff make open and productive communication a priority.

If you’re considering plastic surgery and would like to speak with an experienced surgeon about your options, please contact one of our Atlanta Plastic Surgery offices to schedule a consultation. There, in addition to discussing your prospective procedure, we can go over our available financing options with you. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for the latest plastic surgery news.

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