Females AND male: No more love handles with Flank Liposuction

The trunk area is a very commonly requested area for liposuction. One of my favorite areas to do liposuction is just the hips so that we can actually, define somebody's waistline or just get rid of a bulge area that somebody's unconcerned about. If someone wants a little bit of a more whittled waist, we can certainly do that on the sides. But also a very common area that's requested even by men is the flank area, commonly known as the love handles. That tends to be an area just right above the buttocks and the hip bone, that's an area that tends to just hold on to the fat despite exercise, so that's actually an excellent area for some for liposuction. 

I wrote a very detailed post about how I perform liposuction previously if you want to check out that post, as flank liposuction is very similar to what I wrote there.

Flank Liposuction Recovery

Just like everywhere else when we perform a liposuction procedure, we do require a compression garment for about four to six weeks. Downtime is minimal. I ask patients to take it easy for about one week afterwards and which gives your body enough time to begin recovery.

I often pair “trunk” liposuction together with patients undergoing a tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) because a tummy tuck just works on the front area but does not work on the wraparound side of the trunk. So it's an area that we can often add together at the same time as a tummy tuck. 

Caution: Reduce Specific Belly Fat

Just a word about liposuction the lower abs, that's often requested, but I also caution patients who request liposuction of the lower abdomen that have a lot of intra-abdominal fat. 

Often times area of the fatty tissue is not underneath the skin, but it's actually underneath the muscle layer and inside the abdomen, and that's an area that's going to require diet and exercise, in order to improve.

Liposuction should certainly never be performed intra-abdominally. 

We want to stay very safe above the muscle layer. I reiterate, it's very important to go to a board-certified plastic surgeon who's thinking about the patient's safety first. 

Another limitation about liposuction on the lower abdomen is this is also an area where we also tend to carry a lot of excess skin, especially in postpartum women. Now we're kind of segwaying into mommy makeovers. Liposuction alone cannot remove excess skin. Sometimes it can exacerbate the excess skin that's hanging over the moms pubis area. Those patients are much much better served with either a mini tummy tuck or a full tummy tuck or abdominoplasty.

Patients who have what we would typically call “saddlebags”, a pocket of fat hanging on the outside of the hip area, that area tends to respond really well to liposuction as well. What doesn't respond to liposuction is usually if somebody wants a 360-degree slimming of the entire thigh - thighs and legs are more of a spot treatment than going all the way around the leg.

Like I said, this is not a procedure for weight loss, it's a spot treatment, so that wouldn’t be a good application and would be more of a situation where diet and exercise would be better. 

If you are interested in getting flank liposuction in Columbus, contact Dr. Okada and schedule an in-person consultation.