Patient 176 Gallery

Before and after liposuction of the inner thighs under local anesthesia in a 38-year-old woman.  She was really only bothered by her upper inner thigh fat, which resulted in her inner thighs rubbing together when she walked and wore out her pants in this area only a few wears after buying a new pair.

Liposuction of the inner thighs was performed in the office operating room.  After she took an oral anti-anxiety pill and breathed laughing gas, we injected local anesthesia first, followed by a liter of warmed tumescent solution into her inner thigh fat.

Tumescent solution contains three things:  (1) normal saline (sterile salt water) to help puff up the area to be treated and create more space to go through; (2) lidocaine, a local anesthetic to numb the area further and provide comfort during awake surgery and postoperative numbness in all cases of liposuction; and (3) epinephrine (adrenaline) to constrict blood vessels and limit bleeding/minimize bruising.

Next, a blunt-ended wand called a liposuction cannula that is connected to a vacuum machine moves through the fatty tissue and carefully removes excess fat.  It’s not how much fat you remove in liposuction that makes a difference, it’s where, how it’s done and how much is left behind which makes all the difference for body contouring surgery.

In this patient’s case, over 900 cc of fat was removed in a procedure that took less than an hour.  After surgery, she wore compression in the form of biking shorts or yoga pants for a full six weeks to limit swelling and bruising and encourage her skin to contract to the new contour underneath following surgical fat removal.

Follow up photos are shown 5 weeks after surgery, with a greatly improved contour already.  It takes up to a full year to appreciate the final results after liposuction, or any Plastic Surgery procedure.  The last image shows the actual fat that was removed – it rises to the top of the cannister and is layered over reddish tumescent solution, which is the bottom layer.