How Reverse Abdominoplasty Differs From a Tummy Tuck
There are different kinds of abdominoplasty procedures available to plastic surgery patients. Easily the most common type is the standard tummy tuck, which gives you a flatter belly and better contouring around your middle. Another far less common type is the reverse abdominoplasty. This procedure is similar to a standard tummy tuck with a notable difference – it focuses on the upper half of your abdomen instead of the lower half.
How a Plastic Surgeon Considers Your Tummy
Your abdomen is a significant part of your overall figure. How your abdomen looks plays a big role in how your body looks. When a plastic surgeon is looking at your tummy, they’re considering how changing your tummy could affect your overall appearance. They look at things like loose skin, fat deposit locations, and stretch marks while they assess you.
The abdomen can be divided into two halves – the upper half and the lower half. The upper half usually covers the area from your navel up to the bottom of your chest, while the lower half covers everything below your navel to the top of your pubic bone. The lower half is typically the focus of abdominoplasties because gravity causes fat and loose skin to settle around the top of your hips. However, there are instances where you might have excess skin and fat around the upper half of your abdomen as much or more than you do around the lower half. In this case, a reverse abdominoplasty will be helpful.
What a Reverse Abdominoplasty Does
In a standard tummy tuck, the surgeon makes an incision along the tops of your thighs and across your pubic bone. The soft tissue is lifted up so the surgeon can remove fat deposits and make any repairs to your abdominal muscles. The excess soft tissue is trimmed away before the skin is pulled back down to the incisions and sutured in place. Removing the excess fat and soft tissue helps smooth out your tummy to give you better definition around your hips and a slimmer figure.
A reverse abdominoplasty is basically the same procedure, except that the skin is pulled up instead of down. The incisions in this procedure are made at the top of the abdomen. For female patients, the incisions are made at the inframammary fold, or the spot where the breast creases. For male patients, the incision may be made across the bottom of the chest.
Like a standard tummy tuck, the surgeons uses the incision sites to remove extra fat and tighten the upper abdominal muscles. Excess soft tissue is trimmed and the remaining tissue is pulled up to the incision site. This is why the procedure is called the reverse tummy tuck – the abdomen is tightened upward instead of downward.
Why You Might Need a Reverse Abdominoplasty
Significant weight loss and pregnancy are two of the biggest reasons why people seek out standard tummy tucks. They are also the two biggest reasons why people get reverse tummy tucks. Weight gain and pregnancy cause the abdomen to expand, causing the soft tissue to stretch and create more room for fat deposits. If your skin stretches far enough, it can’t shrink back again even if you lose weight or are no longer pregnant. The result is significant skin laxity that gives you a poochy belly. Skin laxity is usually a problem around the lower half of your abdomen, since that’s where fat tends to settle and where your baby grows. For some people, however, the skin is loose around the upper half of the abdomen. A reverse abdominoplasty will be able to correct this problem and smooth out the top portion of your tummy.
A reverse tummy tuck can also be combined with a standard tummy tuck. Skin laxity is not only confined to one half of your abdomen; it can be a problem for your entire tummy. If a standard tummy tuck won’t be enough to improve the look of your abdomen, your surgeon may also recommend a reverse abdominoplasty.
For patients who are also concerned about their breasts, a reverse abdominoplasty may also be combined with a breast augmentation. The incisions for both procedures are made in the inframammary fold, which prevents the need for additional incisions and thus prevents additional scarring.
Scheduling an Abdominoplasty Consultation
At Spalding Drive Plastic Surgery, we offer multiple types of abdominoplasty, including the reverse tummy tuck. You can learn which abdominoplasty will benefit you the most by scheduling an initial patient consultation with one of our expert plastic surgeons. To schedule your consultation, contact Spalding Drive Plastic Surgery at (310) 275-2467 today.