You Did It!
Losing a lot of weight is the beginning of a new life. When you still have folds of loose skin left over, however, your body may be smaller but not be any more pleasing than before your bariatric surgery. Because of the loose skin, you may still feel inadequate and embarrassed. Fortunately, a unique plastic surgery program is available to you. Through the FORM program, we can tighten sagging skin after weight loss and give you the body shape that you have worked so hard to achieve. This specialty of plastic surgery is known as Bariatric Plastic Surgery or Body Contouring after Extreme Weight Loss.
Looking Your Best
Plastic surgery is often the final step in the surgical weight loss process. The overstretched skin is damaged, has lost its elasticity, and cannot conform to the new shape of the underlying body. This can result in sagging neck, breast, arm, stomach, back, and thigh skin. This excess skin poses cosmetic, hygiene, and comfort issues. Nothing can restore the skin’s elasticity, the excess skin must be removed and each body area reshaped. For some patients, only one or two excess skin areas are of concern. For others, sagging skin is present from the neck to the knees.
Your New Body
Through the FORM program, a series of body contouring surgeries is done, each targeting a specific area of loose and sagging skin. These operations require a high degree of surgical skill and attention to detail as well as an aesthetic eye to ensure that you achieve a pleasing body contour. Procedures include:
Abdominoplasty (Tummy Tuck)
Body Lift (Tummy Tuck and Back Lift)
Brachioplasty (Arm Lift)
Breast Augmentation (Breast Implant)
Facelift (Neck and Jowl Lift)
Mastopexy (Breast Lift)
Thighplasty (Hip and Thigh Lift)
The key to successful post-bariatric body contouring is to select not only the right operations but how to stage or sequence the body areas being contoured to safely obtain a good result. The FORM body program helps guide you through these decisions, choosing those surgeries that are of most importance to you.
Your physical and mental health is of utmost importance, both must be in good shape to undergo intensive surgery that can last up to six hours or more under general anesthesia. While dramatic body changes are possible, you must be willing to accept scars in place of the loose skin.
Surgical Expertise
The FORM program was developed by me as a method of approaching the cosmetic problems of the bariatric patient who has undergone massive weight loss. Through an in-depth consultation and thoughtful treatment planning, a safe and realistic plastic surgical plan can be created for your body to meet your goals and be done with attention to the needs of your home and work life.
Insurance and Body Contouring
The increasing number of bariatric surgeries performed has created many patients seeking body contouring procedures. Just because insurance has covered your bariatric surgery is not a guarantee that they will cover any body contouring surgeries. If there are medical problems that the loose skin is causing, then the surgery may be covered. This can only be determined, however, through an insurance predetermination process. We routinuely handle this insurance step for you. As a general rule, loose abdominal or thigh skin may be eligible for coverage; neck, arm, and breast problems are usually not covered.
Dr Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana