This young lady lost over 100 pounds just with diet and exercise. She has a new healthy lifestyle, is eating right and exercising every day. She felt that her body just didn’t match what she felt inside and she was bothered by all of the extra skin that was left by her weight loss and her sagging “empty” breasts.

She had a facelift the year before by Dr. Collins and was delighted with those results, so she returned on the anniversary of that surgery to have her body contouring procedures done.

Often when people lose a significant amount of weight (usually more than 50-100 pounds), there is a significant amount of skin that tends to drape and sag because of the years that it had been stretched. Additionally, fat creates a higher level of estrogen which makes the connective tissue and skin stretch. These patients often seek body contouring surgery to trim the excess skin. The effects tend to be far reaching with skin laxity commonly removed from the abdomen, breasts, thighs, arms, buttocks and even face. This patient lost over 100 pounds with diet and exercise. Her sagging breasts and abdomen were bothersome to her, so we did a tummy tuck with a mastopexy/augment procedure. A 450 cc silicone gel implant was used.

Although the problems that she faced were not due to pregnancy, we see a lot of the same problems of loose abdominal skin and deflated sagging breasts in women who have had babies. As such, she was a great candidate for a “Mommy Makeover”, which in her case meant that we lifted and augmented her breasts with implants and did a tummy tuck (abdominoplasty).

During the tummy tuck, Dr. Collins takes great care to pay attention to details. Often with people who have lost a significant amount of weight, there is a sagging of the area above the pubis. This was lifted during the tuck to avoid a bulge in this area once the upper and lower abdomen were flattened.  Her breasts were lifted and  450 cc smooth round gel implants were placed to give form and volume to the upper pole of her breasts.

This patient plans next year to do some work on her buttocks and thighs. As in any body contouring procedure in patients who have lost significant weight, there are often multiple procedures required to address different areas. Dr. Collins puts safety first and multiple procedures are limited for purposes of recovery and limiting time on the operating room table.