Am I A Candidate

Approximately 50% of my practice involves what is called revision liposuction surgery. I utilize a number of techniques to improve a poor result, but it takes good judgment and experience to know and understand when to proceed with revision and when not to.

Revision liposuction surgery is almost always more difficult. It is harder to perfect a poor result than to have it done right the first time. Not every patient I evaluate for revision is a candidate, but in about 90% of cases, I can make a significant improvement and make the decision to proceed with revision surgery. With over 15 years of experience, I have never made a revision area worse. In the other 10% of cases, those who are not a candidate for revisional surgery, there exists other non-surgical options that in most cases can make improvements.

If you are searching to have results from a previous surgery corrected or improved upon you may have undoubtedly lost some faith and trust. It is important that you understand as much as possible and have sensitive, experienced guidance in order to proceed with revisional surgery. This site has been created primarily to educate you and help you with your choices so that you will ultimately become pleased with your final result. Please also refer to my other website, www.expertliposuction.com, which goes into further detail regarding my overall philosophy and approach to the fine art of well done liposuction.

It may be startling to find that approximately 50% of surgeries that I perform are in fact revision liposuction to improve on poor results. These numbers make it imperative that you do research on the procedure and the surgeon before even considering revision. Oftentimes, substandard results are attributed to poor evaluation of the patient, or poor technique. In most revision liposuction cases I see, I can make significant improvements to help patients achieve their desired results. If in the rare circumstance, I am unable to make the desired changes, I will convey that to the patient. I am very meticulous in my work and I take extreme caution to ensure each of my patients achieve an optimal end result.

Revision liposuction is a surgical procedure used to correct irregularities that persist following prior liposuction surgery. Typically, revision liposuction is performed a few months or more after the initial liposuction procedure, if the procedure leaves an asymmetrical or undesirable end result.

The reasons for revision liposuction are broken down by Dr. Amron into the following categories:

1. Disproportion
   On my other website I have talked extensively about the fact that liposuction is primarily a balancing and reproportioning procedure. It has little to do with who is overweight, underweight, or out of shape. These are the patient’s responsibility. The liposuction surgeon’s main responsibility is to target areas of genetic disproportion to create a more proportioned body. Yet all too often it is done for the wrong reasons or without a comprehensive evaluation about where to truly target. An example of this may be a person who is 30 pounds overweight yet perfectly in proportion that had liposuction to target one or two areas. The surgeon then aggressively removes fat from these areas and throws the patient out of proportion so that they are now storing fat in other places. This patient should have probably have never had liposuction in the first place. (Liposuction is a tool to make a disproportionate patient proportionate.) When I approach this type of patient I like to target the now disproportionate areas and balances their subcutaneous fat storage so that they achieve a balanced, natural proportionate appearance.
2. Creating an Unnatural Shape
   The liposuction surgeon must have a very artistic eye for what a proper feminine or masculine shape is to create for each individual. For example, one reason why the calves and ankles area is so difficult to do is that the surgeon must have a lot of respect for how he or she creates the proper 3 dimensional shape to the body part all the way from the knee to the ankle. In other instances, I often see the area around the buttock or upper thigh done in a way that creates an unnatural or masculinized buttock in a woman, or possible an unnatural flattening to the thighs. In these cases I look to re-establish a more natural body shape by either revision to adjacent areas or fat transfer to build up the unnaturally done area.
3. Asymmetry
   If asymmetry is due to the uneven removal of fat from one side of the body vs. the other, it can be one of the simpler types of revisional surgery to correct by simply targeting the fuller side to create more symmetry.
4. Not Enough Fat Taken Out
   Another common mistake some liposuction surgeons tend to make is to err on the conservative side, resulting in an outcome that often pales in comparison with the patient’s expectations. Although it is much better to be too conservative than too liberal when removing fat from the body, it can still reap mediocre results. This can be easily alleviated through revision liposuction to remove excess fat in a manner that works in helping you achieve your desired end result.
5. Too Much Removed
   One of the most common and naive approaches to liposuction is to be too aggressive on a patient during his or her liposuction procedure, especially in certain areas where elasticity of the skin is very poor. While a desired end result can be achieved through a revision liposuction procedure, it is more complicated than other revision surgery. If you dissatisfied by the end result of your liposuction as a result of the surgeon removing too much fat, I can discuss your options with you. Usually I can make significant improvements to the area through a combination of fat grafting and skin tightening procedures.
6. Indentations, Rippling, & Ridging of the Skin
   Another common mistake made by liposuction surgeons is the tendency to poke or jab parts of the skin or otherwise being too aggressive during the procedure. Rippling may also result from approaching certain areas from the wrong direction and not having respect for the direction of gravitational settling of tissue. An example of this is the outer thigh being approached horizontally instead of vertically and getting a ridging in the outer thigh skin. (I feel the outer thigh should always be approached vertically).
   For rippling of the skin or when the surgeon has been too aggressive with skin with reduced elasticity, Thermage or radiofrequency induced tightening of the skin can play an additional beneficial role in smoothing out skin irregularities. Especially among patients with poor skin elasticity, indentations, rippling, and an uneven texture may appear. Depending on the patient and his or her unique case, I can perform revision liposuction on the entire area with a spatula cannula to smooth out irregularities, and if necessary, perform a fat transfer or skin tightening procedure to create an aesthetically pleasing outcome.
7. Shelves or Drop Off
   This occurs because the liposuctioned area was not properly blended with the surrounding area during surgery or there was aggressive retraction of the skin adjacent to an area of no retraction. This is usually quite an easy fix in terms of softening the unnatural transition.