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GalleryTummy Tuck (Abdominoplasty)
What is an Abdominoplasty (Tummy Tuck)?
A tummy tuck or abdominoplasty is a fascial and skin surgery. The function of abdominoplasty is to make the stomach flat. The patient who needs abdominoplasty is a patient who has a round protuberant stomach with redundant abdominal skin with stretch marks. A person with good tone of the abdominal skin few stretch marks and tight abdominal muscles and fashion may do better with liposuction. Liposuction is the procedure that narrows the waist and makes the curve.
What Does a Tummy Tuck Do?
What you are physically doing is tightening the muscles on the stomach, which may have been stretched apart during pregnancy or sometimes without pregnancy. This is the main thing that makes the stomach flat. The second thing you’re doing is taking away redundant skin. You are removing more or less the skin from the navel to the pelvis and stretching the top half of the skin to cover the entire stomach. When you stretch something to twice its length it would decrease its thickness by one half. These are the techniques that are used in an abdominoplasty to make the stomach flat.
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Dr Perry is the absolute BEST, I cannot express how amazing my experience was!! Dr Perry changed my life and my body ! Totally recommend him!
MoreWho is a Tummy Tuck Candidate?
Tummy tuck candidates are those with extra skin on their abdomen due to aging, heredity, pregnancy, prior surgery, or weight fluctuations. Ideal candidates will be non-smokers at a stable weight who are physically healthy. It is also important that patients be finished having children, as future pregnancy can undo results. Internal or external scars from any previous abdominal surgery may also affect candidacy. Overall, the best way to determine if a tummy tuck is right for you is through a consultation with Dr. Perry.
Featured Procedure Video:
Video Transcript:
Today we’re going to do an abdominoplasty with liposuction and flanks. The function of the abdominoplasty is to tighten the muscles in the abdominal wall and remove excess abdominal pannus.
We have excess loose skin on the abdomen. So what we’ll do is we’ll move the skin, really, from above the belly button down, and then stretch the top half of the skin and then cover the entire abdomen. That’s going to help stretch the top of the skin and thin the top of the skin.
Once we do that, once we elevate the pannus, then we’ll tighten the abdominal wall muscles. We’ll start off…You know, the muscles are loose, like this, and separated. We’ll use sutures to pull the muscles together and imprecate. That’s what’s going to make our stomach flat.
The function of abdominoplasty is really to make the stomach flat. It does not make a waist. We will use liposuction on the flanks to bring in the flanks and bring in the waist.
And now, what we’ve done is, we’ve raised a flap from the pelvis to the ribs, exposing the fascia below. And then, after we did that, tightened the muscles.
What we’ve done is we’ve started off, and did liposuction of the flanks. We did that. We brought the waist in, and that’s really what made the curve in the figure. Then we made an incision low down their pelvis. Our idea is try to get this incision low, right where the underwear’s going to be, right where a bikini would be, so the scar’s not visible.
Now, after that, we raised her flap from the pelvis, all the way up to the ribs. The ribs are here. Once we raised that flap, then we tightened the muscles. So the muscles were separated apart. We use the sutures to pull them back together. That’s the real thing that makes this tummy tuck flat.
This area of the skin is actually the skin that was above the belly button before, and we’ve stretched this down. So, theoretically, if you stretch the length of the skin to twice the length, then the thickness should decrease by half. So that’s what we’ve done. A low scar. A scar in the belly button in the inside. We don’t like a scar on the outside where you can see it. Scar in the inside of the navel, in the inside, low scar, and a flat stomach.
So this is our conclusion. Thank you.
Tummy Tuck Recovery
The recovery from abdominoplasty is painful. The first 48 hours are no fun. On the third day most people begin to feel better, they are moving better and having less pain. At one week the patient’s bent over when they walk in moving slowly. By two weeks most patients amputating normally and are ready to return to work. At two weeks patients are able to do light treadmill level of activities. Heavy lifting and heavy exercise cannot be done for 4 to 6 weeks. Most people take 2 to 3 months for the swelling to resolve and see the final results.
Tummy Tuck Complications
The complications associated with abdominoplasty include pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis, infection, hemorrhage, wound healing problems and flap loss.
Abdominoplasty should only be considered when no future pregnancies are planned. After abdominoplasty the fascia and abdominal musculature may not stretch enough to accommodate a pregnancy.