New Alternative to Liposuction
For decades now, the mainstay for body sculpting and contouring has been conventional liposuction for the removal of targeted areas of fat. Many patients have had very gratifying results with conventional liposuction, but the great majority of the general population has shied away from this procedure, because it is not without its drawbacks and risks. For example, over a hundred patients a year die from complications of liposuction in this country alone. Many of these tragedies are related to complications from general anesthesia, bleeding, damage to organs or major fluid shifts within the body.
In addition, conventional liposuction can be very painful, create major bruising and require a long postoperative recovery, along with many restrictions of activity. Additionally the cosmetic results with conventional liposuction can be very unpredictable, leaving irregularities, dimpling of the skin, asymmetry and an unnatural appearance.
In recent years we have found a fabulous alternative to conventional liposuction. It's called SmartLipo.
Benefits of SmartLipo
SmartLipo is the FDA approved alternative to liposuction. SmartLipo is performed as an outpatient, requiring no general anesthesia, and very little discomfort. The patient is wide awake, usually talking throughout the procedure, in good spirits.
The difference between conventional liposuction and SmartLipo is this:
Conventional liposuction utilizes a large bore metal suction cannula in order to suction out solid fat. The problem is that the instrument is very large, traumatic and can causes bleeding under the skin in the area of the suctioned fat, as this solid fat is attached to blood vessels, connective tissue and nerves. This is why the patient is asleep during the procedure.
With SmartLipo, a couple of tiny incisions are made, through which a very small instrument is inserted, which fills the area under the skin with a liquid which contains a local anesthetic. This numbs the area to be treated and it also causes the blood vessels to close off. Next, through the same tiny incision, a VERY FINE instrument is inserted which uses LASER to turn the solid fat into a liquid by heating up the tissue. This heating also kills the fat cells at the same time. The next step is to again use these same tiny incisions and insert a small suction instrument into that same area and now suction out what is now liquid fat. Any fat that is not able to be suctioned out will leave the body from the small incision sites and/or be excreted by the body, since those fat cells are now dead.
The patient is ready to go home a few minutes after the procedure with minimal discomfort. The incisions are so small that they generally don't even require any sutures. Most patients are back to work the next day, although heavy exercise should be avoided for 2 weeks.
The results with SmartLipo are very impressive and conventional liposuction no longer has any advantage over this procedure.
I'll have to warn you, though, since you'll be awake and in good spirits during the procedure, you may have to be subjected to my bad jokes!