Getting started

There are many ways to harvest fat via liposuction and ways to reinject into the buttocks. But the technique demonstrated below is my favorite. First, it’s a closed system. The fat is never exposed to air. While I don’t have any research to back up my assertion, it makes sense that any floating dust or bacteria in the air can’t reach the fat if the fat is never exposed to the air. Thus leading to lower infection rates.

I also like how the system measures everything. From the graduated canister that measures fat output to the machine that regulates and measures fat input. This is important because you want to avoid removing more than 5 liters of fat at a time. That could potentially lead to a severe form of dehydration called hypovolemic shock when too much fat is removed.

And you of course want to measure how much fat is going into the buttocks to ensure symmetry. The machine that infuses the fat also has a regulator. What this means is that if there’s too much pressure propagating through the tubing back towards the machine, that suggests there’s enough fat in the area. This can also potentially reduce the risk of accidentally injecting fat into blood vessels in the pelvis. This can lead to another complication called fat embolism.

To see this technique for yourself, check out the video below.

Video of what you need for a BBL

If you’d like to check pricing on this procedure from a doctor near you, click here. Dr. Kaplan has no financial interest in any of the products shown in the video.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post A primer on the Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) for surgeons [video] first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.

1. If I get liposuction to one area, fat will come back in another area

I don’t care how many times you read it or say it, it still isn’t true. This is how it works.

By the end of your adolescence, your body forms a certain number of fat cells. They don’t multiple after that. That only expand or shrink depending on your fat intake. So after liposuction, you have a fewer number of fat cells. You can still eat fatty foods and what fat cells you have left after lipo will absorb that fat.

However, the fat that you take into your body isn’t smart enough to say, “oh, they did liposuction to the abdomen, so I’m going to go to the arms.” It doesn’t work that way. Your body is genetically predisposed to have more fat collect on the hips or the thighs or the bra chub or wherever. We’re all a little different. So whether you’ve had liposuction or not, fat will continue to deposit in those same areas. Simply having liposuction won’t change your genetic predisposition and therefore won’t change where your fat tends to deposit.

2. Once I get liposuction, I can eat whatever I want and not get fat

You can, but you shouldn’t. Don’t use liposuction as a way to lose weight. Use it as a way to motivate yourself to work harder to stay in shape. And as mentioned above, eating more after liposuction won’t increase your number of fat cells, it’ll just make your remaining fat cells swell.

3. Liposuction can treat cellulite

It can’t. Cellulite, the dimpling often seen on the outer thighs near the buttocks is not caused by fat only. There are fibers that extend from the deep tissues of the thigh up to the skin. Those fibers pull on the undersurface of the skin, and the fat in between those fibers give the skin that characteristic dimpling. So if you only get rid of fat, the fibers and the dimples will still be there. The treatment is to cut the fibers.

There are several treatments for this but the problem is that the fibers can regrow and reattach to the undersurface of the skin. So while there are new good treatments for cellulite, like Cellfina, it’s not clear how long the improvement lasts.

4. You’re left with sagging skin after liposuction

Luckily, if you have good quality skin with lots of collagen and recoil, the skin will tighten after liposuction. But it’s also up to your surgeon to exercise good judgement to know when you have so much skin that you need the skin removed (like in a tummy tuck) vs only liposuction. And contrary to popular belief, laser liposuction does not tighten the skin better than regular liposuction. However, laser lipo certainly can increase the risk of you getting 3rd degree burns of the skin from the inside!

5. Liposuction is an easy way to lose weight or cure obesity

While you certainly do lose a few pounds with aggressive liposuction, that’s not the point. Liposuction is there to help sculpt your body, not weight loss. In fact, removing too much fat in an effort to help you lose weight can be dangerous. By removing too much fluid, you can go into an extreme case of dehydration calling hypovolemic shock. Even if you don’t know exactly what that means, it certainly sounds bad. So don’t go through lipo to lose weight. Do it for the right reasons.

And here’s a bonus myth of liposuction debunked:

Liposuction is expensive!

See for yourself, check pricing on liposuction from Dr. Kaplan by clicking here.

Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Jonathan Kaplan for BuildMyBod.

The post 5 myths of liposuction first appeared on Plastic Surgeon San Francisco | Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery.