A Full Body Lift: A Dramatic Procedure that Removes Excess Skin

Many who are loosing weight, either through exercise or gastric bypass surgery, may experience another problem after. Many who loose the weight naturally by exercising and dieting, tend to not have the problem of sagging or loose skin as much. Because they take the weight off slowly, their skin will tighten up through exercising. Those who have gastric by pass surgery tend to loose their weight very quickly. Because of a dramatic weight loss, the person may experience a lot of sagging skin. Usually, no amount of exercise will tighten up this skin. A more drastic alternative is usually taken to remove this excess skin.

When someone looses a good deal of weight and has sagging skin, there is usually only one way to get rid of this extra skin. This procedure is called a body lift. Depending on where the extra skin is, will determine what kind of body lift you will need. The types of body lifts are upper, mid, and lower body lifts. If someone who has a significant amount of extra skin through the midsection, lower body, and their extremities, then a combination of these procedures will be used. This is called a full or total body lift.

Choosing which of these body lifts will depend on which area of your body you feel needs to be done. Talking to a plastic surgeon will help you to determine what procedure will work best for you. The plastic surgeon may only want to focus on your arms, giving you an arm lift, or thighs, which will result in a thigh lift. If a more drastic body lift is needed, like a full body lift, your surgeon will discuss this with you, how this procedure is done, and what parts of the body are involved.

If you need a full body lift, this procedure will include the upper, mid, and lower body. This procedure is done to eliminate excess skin from large areas of the body. Areas that are focused on are usually the arms, breasts, hips, thighs, abdomen, and buttocks. When a surgeon performs a total body lift, they cut and remove the extra skin off the body. After removing the excess skin, they suture or staple the skin together. This leaves the skin recontoured and will leave the patient with a smooth and trim lifted appearance. Since this procedure is a drastic measure to rid someone of excess skin, it is usually done in two procedures. The full body lift can create an entirely new body. Recovery from this procedure can be very painful and take weeks of recovery, but this procedure gives the best result of a slimmer, trimmer body.

Having this drastic procedure done doesn't come without risks. A full body lift can take about 7 to 10 hours. With this procedure, some patients may require a blood transfusion. There is also a risk of infection, just like most surgeries. Patients also run the risk of forming blood clots. Because this is such a drastic surgery, a patient may experience wound separation. Taking extremely good care of yourself and not over doing it, should help prevent wound separation. Last, this procedures will cause significant scarring.

Before choosing to have this procedure done, weigh the pros and con's. Talk with a surgeon and have an understanding of what all this procedure entails. Also understand that you will be putting your body through a lot and that there will be a lot of pain involved.