Body Contouring: Removing Excess Skin
After a person loses massive amounts of weight – 100 to 300 pounds – stretched, baggy skin usually hangs on the person’s body like a suit of overlarge clothes. The operation to take that skin off – body contouring – is becoming increasingly more popular, experts say.
(PRWEB) September 28, 2004 -- After Maria Beal, 38, of Pittsburg,
Pennsylvania, had stomach stapling and dropped 175 pounds in a year from her
352-pound, five-foot-five frame, she thought she would make a fine looking
bride. After all, she went from a size 32 dress down to an eight.
What
she didn’t expect: loose, hanging skin all over her body that flapped around
when she moved and ruined a chance to wear newer, stylish clothes. There was so
much excess skin on her upper arms – doctors call it “bat wings” – she stood no
chance at all of wearing a sleeveless dress at her wedding. As it was, the
excess skin made it difficult for Maria to get her arms into any sleeve of any
garment.
So she took a $20,000 second mortgage on her home to undergo a
surgical operation known as body shaping to remove the excess skin.
Known alternatively as a “body lift” when skin all over the body is
removed, the procedure is already one of the fastest growing areas of plastic
surgery as more people give up on failed diets and exercise programs and opt for
the gastric bypass operation made famous by NBC’s Al Roker and other notables.
Gastric bypass – it’s also called “stomach stapling” and “stomach
banding” -- creates an egg-sized pouch in the stomach so a person eats
drastically less, causing the loathsome pounds to finally come
off.
However, in most cases where the person has lost at least 100
pounds, the skin has been so stretched, no amount of exercise can ever again
reduce it back to a normal size. The gastric bypass patient is usually left with
massive hanging skin running from the chin to the knees. In a few extreme cases,
the patient pulls up the hanging skin like a long skirt to allow unobstructed
walking.
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, about
52,000 people had some type of body shaping surgery in 2003, the first year the
association has tracked the category. While The American Society of Bariatric
Surgery reported 103,000 stomach stapling operations in 2003, they expect
144,000 such procedures for 2004. And, as more people choose gastric bypass,
ever more plastic surgeons will be removing excess skin.
Moreover, the
procedure is not cheap; a total body lift in most parts of the nation averages
about $30,000 with the low end of the spectrum priced at about $20,000 while in
plastic surgery hot spots like New York City, a total body lift by a top doctor
can cost upwards of $50,000. Medical insurance coverage is iffy, with many
companies turning down any purely cosmetic operations.
Benjamin Hornik,
M.D., a plastic surgeon at the WISH (Weight Intervention and Surgical
Healthcare) Center in Downers Grove, Illinois, has seen such an increase in body
shaping procedures in the last year; he offers seminars so patients can learn en
masse about the procedure.
“According to our best estimates, upper arm
skin contouring was up 1300% in the last decade,” says Dr. Hornik.
Also
seeing increases in 2003 over 1992 levels were breast lifts, up 700 percent,
while buttock shaping and tummy tucks rose 500 percent and thigh shaping
patients increased 400 percent.
“You could almost call the skin reduction
operation a ‘facelift for the figure,’” says Dennis Hurwitz, M.D. the Pittsburg
plastic surgeon who performed the six-hour operation on Maria Beal, taking off
almost 20 pounds of skin.
“After I dropped 155 pounds, it was like having
a size 26 skin on my size 8 body,” says Sally Stewart, 42, an administrative
assistant at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg. “After I got dressed in
the morning, I found myself tucking excess skin back into my clothes; plus, it
seemed like I always had a belly button infection, caused by all the skin folds
making it very hard to get that area clean. And, my excess skin flapped all over
when I jogged.”
Sally says after body shaping, she now wears with
confidence shorter skirts, goes to yoga daily and takes aerobics four to six
times a week. And nobody looks at her oddly any more.
Fairly clear
guidelines apply to both men and women who want body contouring, experts
say.
“The person should have lost at least 100 pounds, had a stable
weight for 12 to 16 months after the gastric bypass operation, be in good health
and not planning on becoming pregnant,” says Dr. J. Peter Rubin, M.D., an
assistant professor of plastic surgery at the University of Pittsburg Medical
Center. Good candidates for a body lift should also have no medical problems
that prevent them from going under anesthesia and should not smoke, a habit
which decreases blood supply to all tissues in the body and slows
healing.
The most common – and usually first –body shaping procedure
after massive weight loss is often the tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) which removes
the apron of skin hanging from the stomach.
The average woman’s skin loss
is about seven to 15 pounds, says Dr. Rubin who also runs a research program,
studying the metabolism of human fat, donated by his thankful
patients.
The WISH center offers a hint of what weight loss patients may
see during their course of treatment: Prospective body shaping patients are
screened for their tolerance to exercise, have a minimum of two visits before
surgery to learn about risks, complications, recovery, diets and exercise and
the psychological aspects of maintaining a new weight and
appearance.
Other weight loss patients want excess skin removed from
their sides and back and their buttocks reshaped. Yet others need a lower body
lift, which includes removing and lifting the skin up from the knees to the
crotch, almost like pulling up a pair of pants. Some surgeons do all the
procedures at once while others complete the job in two to four
sessions.
Recovery usually includes several days of hospitalization. In
four to six weeks, the patient can return to work, with other normal activities
being resumed at about eight weeks. Scars can take a year to completely heal and
usually fade after about three years. One possible downside is when surgeons
tighten the skin too much. Then, the patient will have difficulty bending
forward and feel constrained until the skin stretches somewhat.
According
to Valerie Ablaza, M.D. of the Plastic Surgery Group in Montclair, New Jersey,
celebrities like Queen Latifa, Carnie Wilson and Patti Parshall (the once
300-pound actress seen on “Everybody Loves Raymond”) who have had gastric bypass
operations and then body shaping procedures have captured more of the public’s
attention.
“I have several middle age patients who once weighed over 300
pounds,” says Dr. Ablaza. “And now they feel confident enough to wear low rise
pants that show their belly button. One or two women – with grown children --
have had their belly buttons pierced with diamond studs.”
Says Susan
Downey, M.D., a staff plastic surgeon at the University of Southern California:
“The body shaping operation creates long scars down the arms, up the legs and
across the lower stomach,” “We hide the scars as well as possible, putting them
under bikini and bra lines and on the insides of arms and legs about where
clothing seams would be.”
Adds Pasadena, California, plastic surgeon
Jeannette Martello, M.D., editor of Skin Deep Magazine, a consumer magazine
about cosmetic and plastic procedures: “Many female body shaping patients have
reported back to me that sex is better. Patients no longer worry about special
positions because of overweight and too much skin getting in the way, so they
are able to get closer to their partners. And, when I do a tummy tuck on a
woman, the clitoris is brought higher, toward her stomach, where it receives
more stimulation and friction during sex.”
Remember our bride Maria Beal
and her problems fitting into clothes because of too much skin?
After her
body shaping, she wore a blue sleeveless gown at her wedding, wowing the 400
guests.
Medically Reviewed by David M. Metzner, MD (http://www.cosmeticsurgery.com/find/cosmetic-surgeons/Louisiana/r~131/dr~info/)
For
more information, http://www.cosmeticsurgery.com
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/10/prweb161534.htm