Liposuction

Okay, so on Tuesday I experienced my first liposuction procedure. Liposuction is pretty interesting. It is cool in a gross sort of way. So the pt was prepped, the areas to have fat removed were marked (flanks, lateral thigh, medial thigh, lower and upper abdominal areas), and the pt was prepped for surgery. Now the pt is not completely asleep during this procedure, just heavily sedated. Dr. Williams nurse, who usually is first assist in these cases had to run to the office so I was the man. :)

Now if anyone ever said that plastic surgery was easy (not sure if that has ever been said) they are dead wrong. Why don't you try rolling a completely limp pt, who is not light by any means, from one side to the other on a very thin table that they completely cover? Oh, and add in the fact that they are also kind of wet from the prep and you are wearing vinyl gloves, kind of slippery. I just kept hoping the pt wouldn't slip off the table, either onto me or the doctor, yeah, don't think I would get a very good review if that happened.

Anyway, we started on the flank, then went to outer thigh, flipped the pt to the other side and did the same; put the pt on their back and did the internal thigh and last but of course not least, the abdomen. The procedure is started by making two small incisions at both ends of the area to be lipoed out. The area is filled with a solution made up of lidocaine (to numb), epinephrine (to constrict the blood vessels), and normal saline, this combination causes the fat cells to loosen and helps reduce bruising as well. You then have to wait 10 minutes for the medication to do its job. Then comes the fun part, the suctioning out of that nasty manteca (Spanish for lard). Dr. Williams inserted the cannula (a narrow metal probe that acts as a mini jackhammer); it vibrates and rotates breaking up the fat which is then suctioned out down a long tube, and collected in a nice canister (hence the picture, which is not from the actual pt, just something I found on-line). This was a long process, if you think about injecting the solution, waiting the 10 minutes and then sucking it out. Each area took about 35 minutes. It is also important to go back and forth as you do this, cris-crossing all the areas, this helps to reduce the risk of dimpling. There are also 2 sizes of cannula that are used, one larger for the deep fat and the other is smaller and used for the more superficial fat.

It was pretty crazy to see all of that fat slowly creeping down the tube and collecting in the canister. Our pt had a total of 2350 mL of fat collected, that is about 5 lbs 3 oz, the size of a small baby. Pretty crazy!! I'm sure this pt will be very happy.

I have to admit that I am still finding it hard to understand why people want to undergo these painful procedures. I mean really, the Dr. is ramming a metal probe in and out of your body, over and over again, back and forth. Wouldn't it be a lot less painful to just get a personal trainer at the gym and workout, focus on those problem areas, eat healthy? Now I went on-line and found some prices (not the prices of where I am rotating) and going on the low end of what this pt had done it would be about $8,600. You could hire an amazing personal trainer, buy special meals, do it all for that price. But then again, that would require effort. Okay, I'm going to stop now. I just erased a lot of stuff, I was going off on eating too much and exercising too little. That is a post for another time.

Well, like I said, it was an interesting procedure, and if any of you reading this blog want to go through it, more power to you. I don't think I ever could, it is tempting, I have that little roll around the middle that just won't go away no matter how hard I try. Okay, lets be honest, I haven't tried that hard, I like my sweets and I hate doing sit ups, so yeah, a six-pack is never going to happen for me. Oh well, I guess I will never have the body of the Calvin Kline underwear models, but then again, who does, I mean really, are those guys even real? :)