Tummy Tuck vs. Fleur-De-Lis
Abdominoplasty is a popular cosmetic surgery used to slim down and contour your tummy. It’s very popular among men and women of all shapes and sizes, and it can do everything from removing stubborn areas of fat to completely reshaping your whole abdomen. There are different types of abdominoplasty available to cosmetic surgery patients depending on the exact needs of your tummy. For those who have a significant amount of extra skin and tissue around their middle, a fleur-de-lis abdominoplasty could be the best option.
Why You Have Extra Skin
Your skin is very adaptable and flexible – it has to be to accommodate all the changes you experience in your life. Skin grows as you grow and usually manages to keep up with your body. However, there are circumstances where your skin is forced to grow faster than normal. When a person gains a significant amount of weight, the tissue has to stretch to contain the extra fat cells. This can happen anywhere around the body, but the majority of the stretching tends to occur around the abdomen and hips. Another circumstance that would require the skin to stretch is pregnancy. When a woman is pregnant, the skin around her tummy stretches to accommodate the growing fetus. Pregnancy can also cause stretch marks to appear around the hips and thighs.
While you are pregnant or carrying the extra weight on your body, the stretched skin isn’t an issue. That comes when you are no longer pregnant or have lost a significant amount of weight. Without the baby or the extra fat cells, there is no longer any internal pressure on your skin to stretch it out, allowing it to relax. For some people, the tissue is able to relax back to a point where your tummy is close to what it was before. For a lot of people, however, the skin has been stretched so far that it can’t just bounce back. Often gaining weight or having children also causes your abdominal muscles to separate, making it difficult to tighten your tummy even with a healthy exercise regimen. The extra skin is left hanging loose on your body instead. This leaves room for fat deposits to lurk and makes it difficult to show off your smaller figure with confidence.
What an Abdominoplasty Does
There are different types of abdominoplasty surgery, but they all have the same goal: slimming and contouring your tummy. A standard tummy tuck does this by making an incision along your pubic bone towards your hips and lifting the skin up to access the abdominal muscles. The muscles can then be repaired if needed to help add some tone to your abdomen. Extra fat deposits will also be removed from around your tummy. The excess skin is then trimmed away and the remaining tissue is pulled back down to the original incision and secured with sutures. This will flatten your stomach and give your abdomen a much slimmer appearance.
A reverse abdominoplasty is basically the same procedure, but it focuses on the upper half of your tummy instead of the lower half. The incisions are made at the crease where your breasts meet the rest of your body instead of along your pubic bone. A mini tummy tuck is a smaller version of the standard tummy tuck which addresses problems with the area below your belly button. The incision for this one is much smaller, usually just a straight line along the very top of your pubic bone instead of extending outward towards your hips.
How a Fleur-de-Lis Abdominoplasty Fits In
This tummy tuck sounds really fancy, but it really is just an enhanced version of the standard tuck. The procedure is geared more specifically to those individuals who have lost a substantial amount of weight, either through a strenuous fitness program or a weight-loss surgery. These patients often have a very high level of skin laxity around their middle that typically manifests in sagging folds or rolls of skin. This can also happen for moms who were pregnant with more than one child. For these patients, vertical skin tightening through a standard tummy tuck isn’t going to be enough to fully address the problem.
A fleur-de-lis abdominoplasty closes that gap by providing horizontal skin tightening on top of the vertical skin tightening. The procedure has two incisions – one along your pubic bone, like in the standard tummy tuck, and a vertical incision that runs along the middle of your abdomen. The length of the vertical incision will depend on how high the skin laxity goes on your abdomen. This extra incision allows the surgeon to tighten your skin from the sides as well as up and down, which will drastically improve the look of your abdomen.
The Fleur-de-Lis Consultation
Talking with a plastic surgeon is always the first step to any procedure. The fleur-de-lis abdominoplasty consultation is just like any other tummy tuck consultation. The doctor will examine your abdomen and consider the amount of excess skin present, plus they will have a discussion with you about your overall health and your goals for surgery. The doctor will then determine which type of abdominoplasty will give you the best results and discuss the actual procedure with you. You can ask questions and voice any concerns you may have during this time, too. The doctor wants you to be confident in them as well as the procedure before your surgery.
If you have extreme skin laxity after losing a significant amount of weight or being pregnant with more than one child at a time, you can schedule an abdominoplasty consultation by contacting Spalding Drive Plastic Surgery at (310) 275-2467.