Excess skin: torsoplasty will help tighten a thin body

Over the years, the skin loses its natural elasticity and begins to sag. This can happen even in young people, for example, after pregnancy or a sharp large-scale weight loss (especially after bariatric surgery).

Skin can sag anywhere: on the face, neck, chest, abdomen, flanks, back, buttocks, arms, thighs, and calves. A lot of people don’t like the way it looks. Also, excess skin can lead to problems associated with the difficulty of hygiene: irritation, abscesses, infections. In this case, you can do torsoplasty or bodylifting.

A comprehensive lift covers all areas of the body, combining a lift of the abdomen, inner and outer thighs, buttocks, as well as a circular body lift. The purpose of the method is to remove excess fat and skin, and thus achieve the best possible shape.

First of all, a circular lift is indicated for people after massive weight loss, which amounts to tens of kilograms. For example, it will help improve the result of surgery to reduce the volume of the stomach. Also, torsoplasty is able to shape the abdomen after pregnancy and childbirth.

It is important to take into account that torsoplasty is a very traumatic operation, which has a high risk of subsequent complications. The better the patient’s health before the operation, the less problems there will be during and after the intervention.

“I always recommend that you come to the first consultation with a complete blood count,” says the surgeon. – This allows you to assess the state of the body as a whole. For example, often patients have anemia, which becomes an obstacle to the operation.”

After the initial examination and conversation, the surgeon prescribes an examination. We must be prepared for the fact that the list of preoperative studies will be much larger than what is recommended by the Ministry of Health in such cases. In particular, it will be necessary to check the condition of the vessels of the lower extremities, do an ultrasound of the abdominal cavity, take tests for thyroid hormones, make a cardiogram, and so on.

“Day X” is determined by the schedule of the surgeon, because torsoplasty is a complex process, and the surgeon tries to schedule a maximum of one such operation per week in his schedule.

The extra pounds are gone, but the excess skin remains. It is clear that a person’s acute desire to get rid of him as soon as possible and finally see himself as he dreamed. But the surgeon is unlikely to approve this impulse. You will have to wait a few months, and preferably a year, for the weight to completely stabilize, the plastic surgeon recommends.

Before contacting a surgeon, the patient must be at the same weight for several months. To do this, you will definitely need to limit yourself in food and exercise.

“A person who has lost a large number of kilograms, say, after bariatric surgery, must first get used to a new lifestyle, because torsoplasty itself does not guarantee the absence of problems with excess weight in the future,” warns surgeon Svetlana Gagarina. “If after the operation the patient continues to actively lose weight, this is also bad, in this case, a circular body lift can be considered ineffective.”

And only when the weight has returned to the required norm, you can sign up for a consultation with a plastic surgeon.

There is another reason why you should not rush into the operation. After emergency weight loss, a person may acquire some health problems, such as prolapse of internal organs, stress urinary incontinence, benign breast formations, etc.

“Few people know that during torsoplasty or abdominoplasty, it is possible to simultaneously eliminate the prolapse of internal organs and other pathologies,” says the professor. – For this operation, a laparoscopic surgeon is specially invited. A vaginal lift can treat stress urinary incontinence, a breast lift can eliminate benign neoplasms of the mammary gland. Preparing to operate on such complex patients, I always try to take into account everything that may be required in such a case, and sometimes consultations with these patients are carried out by urologists, and facial and abdominal surgeons. After all, not only aesthetic beauty is important for each patient, but also health care.”

Like all plastic surgeries, torsoplasty has a number of contraindications, including: acute infectious diseases and exacerbations of chronic ones, diabetes mellitus, oncological and autoimmune diseases, pathologies associated with blood clotting disorders, cardiovascular, liver and kidney failure, severe forms of hypertension , predisposition to the formation of keloid tissue.

Relative contraindications are: deep vein thrombosis in history, somatic pathology.

Smoking can also be a reason to refuse surgery. The fact is that in smoking people, the tissues are in a state of chronic lack of oxygen, that is, hypoxia. Under such conditions, necrosis of areas of exfoliated skin is possible, and the likelihood of blood clots increases. Also, smokers should not expect rapid tissue regeneration after surgery.

First of all, a circular facelift is indicated for people after massive weight loss. Torsoplasty is extremely necessary when the patient underwent bariatric surgery (stomach reduction). In this case, there is a rapid shedding of tens of kilograms.

Very large excess skin may remain after pregnancy and childbirth. For these patients, torsoplasty will help bring their body into an aesthetically attractive appearance.

The operation takes four to six hours and is performed under general anesthesia.

“It is important that the surgical intervention last no more than six hours, otherwise complications may arise, for example, anemia of the lower extremities, a decrease in blood clotting factors, because the patient’s body on the table is literally open and constantly cooled, although we use special mattresses heated and heating liquid,” says the expert.

Swelling, hyperemia (redness) and bruising are the body’s natural response to intervention. You should not worry about them, they will pass on their own within a few days. However, some complications are also possible, for example, the occurrence of hematomas, seromas, tissue necrosis, abscesses and phlegmon.

Thrombosis of the lower extremities, abdominal compartment syndrome, pulmonary embolism and pneumonia may begin. In the future, the patient may have a displacement of the navel and the occurrence of defects in scar tissue (retraction, asymmetry).

Navel migration is a predictable complication and involves displacement of no more than one to two centimeters. If a more significant shift occurs, this can cause significant discomfort for the patient. As well as cicatricial tissue change, which occurs in the case of strong skin tension during stitching. These problems can be corrected surgically.

One of the main consequences of the operation is scars. Typically, the sutures are pulled in the lower abdomen, around the thighs and under the buttocks, and after the inner thigh lift, they remain in the groin.

The first week of rehabilitation is the most difficult, fluid comes out of the wounds, for which doctors put drainage. After a week, the patient can already go home, where he must follow all the doctor’s instructions and be sure to wear compression underwear without removing it for two to five weeks.

A more or less full life resumes after four to six weeks. You have to be prepared for the fact that the scars will remain for life, although after 6-12 months they will become much paler, but if you put a barely noticeable scar on one scale and a skin apron on the other, then the patient’s choice of surgery will be very obvious.

Additional sources:

1. Torsoplasty After Important Weight Loss
2. J torsoplasty: a novel approach to avoid circumferential scars of the upper body lift
3. Torsoplasty – Post-operative period