Bariatric surgery can be life-saving, but many patients are hesitant to do it because they are concerned about how they will look afterward. They shouldn’t be! There are so many options to remove the extra skin and give the body a better post-weight-loss shape.

My massive-weight-loss patients are usually the happiest of all because they’ve gone through a total life and body transformation that they know will give them a longer, healthier and happier life. Cosmetic surgery added to this mix just gives that extra bit of confidence about this huge weight loss success.

Here are some of your cosmetic surgery options after bariatric surgery or large weight loss:

The tummy tuck procedure is a cosmetic surgery to remove extra skin and fat from the abdomen. I often combine it with liposuction to get that last bit of stubborn fat out and I will also often extend the tummy tuck incision around to the back (or flank areas) to raise and fill the buttocks as well. This is called a belt lipectomy or body lift.

A brachioplasty (or arm lift) removes skin and fat from the arms, eliminating the dreaded “bat wings.” The incision can also be brought down along the lateral chest to get rid of the extra skin that hangs over the bra strap area.

A breast lift (with or without an implant) is the most common option in weight loss patients for breast surgery. With the large loss of fat, the breast can be left with no volume in the “upper pole” of the breast. Many of our female patients will generally opt to put in an implant to give their breasts better shape overall, unless they have a fair amount of breast tissue that allows for just a standard breast lift.

A thigh lift uses an incision down the inside of the leg and along the groin to remove extra skin and fat and give back a prettier thigh shape — possibly even with that thigh gap you’ve always wanted.

For more information about how to get your new body firm after weight loss (whether with or without the bariatric surgery), call us for a complimentary consultation.

Board Certified plastic Surgeon, Michael Frederick, MD, recently joined Hass Plastic Surgery completing the prestigious Harvard Plastic Surgery Residency program at Massachusetts General Hospital. He hails from California where he completed his undergraduate degrees in Marine Biology and Spanish at UCLA followed by his Medical Degree at the University of California at San Francisco. He has published many peer reviewed articles and presented at multiple national meetings including the AAPS and ASPS. He is also fluent in Spanish.

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Bariatric surgery helps people who are severely overweight. The surgery can help them lose weight and regain their health.

Doctors remove part of the stomach, so the patient is forced to eat less food. It is a difficult, life-changing operation. Yet some doctors think it should be done more often, before patients become severely obese.

Shaun Rogers struggled for more than 20 years to control his weight while he battled the disease diabetes.

“By just dieting and continuing …with the insulin, I was never going to lose the amount of weight I needed to, to change …and get the diabetes under really good control,” he said.

Diabetes patients take insulin to get blood sugar, or glucose, into their cells. However, insulin can make people feel hungry, making it even harder to lose weight.

Costly treatment

Bariatric surgery is costly. In the United States, insurance companies will not always pay for the surgery. They require a patient’s body mass index (BMI) to be at least 35, even if a patient’s diabetes is uncontrolled. BMI is the measure of body fat based on the person’s height and weight.

Stacy Brethauer is a surgeon at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, Ohio. He says the BMI number does not always show how a patient is reacting to treatment for diabetes.

“BMI is not really a fair …representation of who should be getting therapy,” he said.

Brethauer added that the rules for who gets bariatric surgery need to be changed.

“The patient who doesn’t get the operation, we know very well that their disease will progress, their lifespan will be shortened if they don’t get effective treatment,” he said.

The American Medical Association identifies obesity as a complex, chronic disease that requires medical attention. If it is not treated, obesity can lead to heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Brethauer believes early treatment is necessary for both obesity and diabetes.

Double standard?

“No one asks somebody with cancer or heart disease to ‘just do it themselves…’ but there’s also effective therapy being offered to those patients at the same time,” he said.

Since he had surgery to reduce the size of his stomach, Shaun Rogers has lost a lot of weight. His diabetes is also under control. Rogers no longer needs oral medication. And he has cut down on the use of insulin, going from nearly 500 units a day down to about 10.

“It’s changed my life so much,” he said, “I would tell anyone do it.”

Diabetes is a health issue worldwide. More than 400 million people have the disease. That number represents one in 11 adults. The World Health Organization estimates that number will rise sharply in the near future.

If people with diabetes have bariatric surgery early on, their diabetes can be cured. For those who have had the disease for 10 years or more, and need insulin, bariatric surgery will not cure their diabetes. But as Stacy Brethauer notes, it can greatly improve their health.

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32 year old woman in Hanoi with the weigh of nearly 90 kilogram admitted that she bumped into difficulties and was ashamed of her weight.
Therefore, she went to the infirmary for treatment of obesity where physicians decided to conduct the bariatric surgery after examination and diagnosis. Military surgeons and their Korean peers performed the difficult surgery because positions of the woman’s organs were reversible; for instance spleen is normally in one’s left but the woman’s spleen in the right whereas liver in the opposite side. Nevertheless, the operation was a success; two months after the operation, she lost 19 kilogram feeling better than before. Surgery Department Deputy President Colonel Nguyen Anh Tuan said that the Department has carried out such kinds of surgeries on six obese patients from March, 2019; one of them weighing 130 kilograms and they were all in good condition after the operation. According to the Ministry of Health, the number of obese people in Vietnam increased substantially in adults and children. As per the National Nutritional Institute’s report, obese people aged from 25 to 64 account for 16.3 percent of the whole country’s population. Worse, the rate of obese people has gone up by ages and more female become fat than male and city dwellers are fatter than their peers in countryside. Factors are attributable to obesity are high-fat diet, eating in fast food, less exercise and alcohol abuse. The obesity epidemic is driving up the burden of several non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cancers, heart disease and diabetes. Fat people should take regular exercise and take heed of their diet. In cases that exercise and less fat diet prove no effectiveness, bariatric surgery can help very overweight people who have tried but failed to lose weight and face serious medical problems. Patients undertaking the surgery will be under physicians’ monitor. Globally, obesity is increasing quickly. Statistically, around 1.9 billion overweight people in the world and 609 obese people. It is estimated that 57.8 percent of the world population will be obese by 2030 leading to high medical cost.

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