Liposuction

Any areas of the body that have excess fat (lipodystrophy) can be addressed with liposuction. The most common areas are the belly (abdomen) and sides/love-handles (flanks) however, the neck, arms and thighs can also be treated.

Anyone who has excess adiposity or fat in areas that they would like to improve the contour of, however there cannot be a significant laxity or looseness of the skin or extra, hanging skin in the areas to be contoured. Patients also should not be on a blood thinner and their weight should be relatively stable.

For an outpatient procedure, where you’d go home afterwards, we are limited to removing 5 liters of fat and fluid in one session.

This is a very common question that gets asked because there is a lot of misinformation on the internet. Once the fat cells are removed from your body they are gone forever however, not all the fat cells from that area are removed. So should you gain weight in the future, these remaining fat cell will get larger but you’ll never have the same degree of adiposity in the treated area again. In untreated areas, you can see fat cell enlargement if you continue to gain weight as your body attempts to store those excess calories somewhere but only happens when your weight is increasing.

The short answer is no! Depending on the locations and volume of fat to be removed this can be done with you awake under local anesthetic called tumescence. If multiple or larger volumes of fat are to be removed or this is combined with other procedures then we often recommend general anesthesia for your comfort.

There is always swelling, soreness and bruising in the treated areas but the degree of each varies from patient to patient. Many people require minimal pain medications and can return to work the next day. You’ll be asked to wear a compression garment in over the treated areas to help with swelling and to also encourage the skin to contract to improve the overall contour.

Generally, the bruising lasts 1-2 weeks with the swelling remaining 6-8 weeks but this varies greatly on the areas treated and volume of fat removed.

Patients should expect to begin seeing results as early as the 2 week mark but usually notice a marked difference in the 6-8 week timeframe once a majority of the swelling begins to resolve.

Yes! Whether you decide to treat one area multiple times because of the limits on how much fat and fluid can be removed at once or decide to treat multiple areas a small amount, this can be done multiple times.

There are several factors that go into pricing of liposuction, including number of locations and amount of liposuction performed.

With that in mind, the cost of liposuction ranges from $3000 - $4000 for the first area and increases from there, not including OR, add ons (i.e. SMART lipo) or anesthesia fees.