As more women and men want to look and feel better about themselves, body contouring and Lipo-sculpture continue to grow in popularity, making Liposuction the most popular cosmetic surgery performed today.
Tumescent Liposuction
is performed by instilling diluted solutions of Lidocaine and epinephrine into the fatty areas to be treated. This fluid anesthetizes the selected areas, plus it decreases bleeding very significantly. Therefore, the procedure can be performed while the patient is awake. There is very little discomfort with this procedure, which also offers a quick recovery. Many people can return to work and normal activities within one to a few days.
Modified Tumescent Liposuction
This method of Liposuction uses the Tumescent procedure (described above) with the addition of IV sedation or general anesthesia, which must be administered by an anesthesiologist. These procedures are often combined to provide the best results for removal of the fat, for improved skin smoothness, and to tighten the skin.
Liposuction™
This Liposuction procedure uses laser technology to melt and liquefy the fat within the fat cells. In addition, it smoothes and tightens the skin to decrease the looseness that is sometimes seen with traditional Liposuction. It can be utilized alone to treat smaller areas of fat, such as below the chin, or in combination with liposuction to remove larger areas of fat such as in the abdomen, flanks and thighs. A very small cannula, or tube, containing a laser fiber is inserted into the skin. The cannula is moved back and forth delivering the laser's energy to the fat cells, causing them to rupture and easily drain away. The laser energy also interacts with the dermis (the inner layer of skin) resulting in collagen shrinkage. Due to the cannula's small size, liposuction™ is a minimally invasive procedure and can be performed under local anesthesia. The laser causes small blood vessels to clot immediately on contact, resulting in less bleeding, swelling and bruising, and a quicker recovery time than conventional Liposuction. Because general anesthesia is unnecessary, the procedure is very safe with only minimal side effects.
Other Liposuction Laser Technologies
Additional Liposuction methods include the CoolLipo Laser Lipolysis and the ProLipo. These produce fatty dissolution by heating the water within the cells and exploding them. The liquid fat can then be removed with cannulas. All these techniques normally utilize tumescent fluid to provide the anesthesia, minimize bleeding, and decrease infection. Tumescent Liposuction procedures can be performed in an office-based setting while the patient is awake. Patients no longer require general anesthesia, nor does it require admission to a hospital. Moreover, these new techniques, allow patients to return to normal activities more rapidly than when the older methods were used. These Liposuction techniques are safer, providing improved results for smoother and tighter skin, and therefore, are the procedures of choice by most physicians and patients.
