When looking for liposuction, it is important to find a qualified surgeon. While any M.D. doctor is technically qualified to perform liposuction, it is advisable that you look for someone who is more specialized and more qualified. In fact, the most qualified doctor should be one that practices cosmetic surgery.  He would have the right extensive training to handle not only the procedure but to cope with any complications that might arise.

There are cases where normal M.D. doctors would perform liposuction as ways to supplement their main income. As a result, the outcome of the procedure is not as satisfactory. In fact there be liposuction side effects such as leaving liposuction scars. These scars are likely to be permanent and will need laser treatment to remvoe it.

Another side effect might be that the patient is left with sagging skin especially for people who are over 40. This is because the inexperienced surgeon might not be able to treat the excess skin in the right manner, hence resulting in creating another problem for the patient.

We can compare the analogue to why your family doctor doens’t deliver babies. It is all due to specialization. As a medical student studying cosmetic surgery, I would not think I could perform a heart surgery even if I might be qualified to do so. Liposuction is a rather complicated procedure that requires infusion of large volume of fluids and liposuction of fat and fluid. Therefore, the person performing liposuction should be familiar with trauma and fluid resuscitation.

In summary, the person most qualified to perform liposuction is a cosmestic surgeon. I would recommend that you seek a Board Certified Plastic Surgeon to be your doctor for the performing of any liposuction procedure. This is to ensure that you get the best result for the money that you will be performing.

How is laser liposuction and tummy tuck different?

• Laser lipo is good mainly for the removal for abdominal fats while tummy tuck can help to remove the excessive skin as well. For people who are overweight, recovering from pregnancy or old age tend to have the problem of excess skins that only tummy tuck can help to overcome. If you are unsure whether you have excess skins, just ask your surgeon to do an assessment.  This can be easily done by a simply pinching you skin and seeing how much the skin will recoil. The stronger the recoil effect, the more excess skin you have.
• Laser liposuction is generally a less invasive procedure when compared to tummy tuck. The latter is a full blown surgery that will result in internal bleeding and cuts which will need time for recovery. Laser lipo on the other hand only requires a smaller opening to be made in your body so that the laser device can be inserted. If you want to know how laser liposuction works, please read my post that explains what is laser lipo.
• For patients who just want to remove their excess skin, you can consider the mini tummy tuck procedure that is developed to do just that.

How is laser lipo and tummy tuck similar?

• They can both help to remove body fats from your body. While both procedures might not be similar, they do help the patient to lost their body fats.
• Prices wise, the average cost of both tummy tuck liposuction and laser lipo is around USD5,000 to USD6,000. If you want to know about pricing information, please refer to my post on laser liposuction prices.

I know that through this guide, you will know what are the main differences between tummy tuck and laser lipo.

Liposuction is good for people who have difficulties losing weight only certain part so their body that they couldn’t off anyhow, even after exercising. Good examples include your facial areas such as your neck and chin, your arms and your inner thighs. These are tough areas to lose weight in, even after rigorous exercising and a healthy diet. Doing laser liposuction is then a fesiable and fast way of losing weight.

For women who want to lose weight before, during and after pregnant should do this as naturally as possible. Avoid surgical liposuction procedures as this had an impact on your body which you will want to avoid future complications. If you really want to use liposuction, there is a new non surgical liposuction procedure called Zerona laser treatment. I have talked about laser liposuction vs zerona liposuction in previous post before. You can click on the link to read more about the difference.

As I have said many times before, laser liposuction is not a magical cure to your weight loss problems. There are certain situations where it is helpful but you should always adopt a healthy lifestyle as the right approach for maintaining your wight over the long run.

In a related question, people with heart problem should avoid any liposuction procedures as well. This is because any liposuction produce clots and this has the potential to close off blood flow down that arteries that send blood to your heart. If that happen then what we call a heart attack will happen. Hence, for those people wth heart attack problems, you should avoid doing any kind of laser liposuction.

Chip liposuction techniques
The latest microcannular chin liposuction technique is good for patients as they suffer fewer side effects. Chip liposuction uses tiny skin incisions compared to the very long incisions earlier used in traditional facelift surgery. The cannula can be as small as 2mm in diameter, and is not much longer than the lead of a #2 pencil.  Such a small inclusion is not possible with previous techniques. In this procedure, no general anaesthesia is required for chin liposuction as a local anesthetic will suffice. This means patients are awake and comfortable throughout the procedure.

Chip liposuction recovery time
This laser technique can dramatically reduce tissue trauma and bleeding can be decreased by as much as 90%. Swelling and bruising are also minimal to moderate and rapidly subside after liposuction chin surgery. This is why patients can have faster recovery time. In fact, most patients can normally return to work sooner, usually within the next 2-3 days, due to a quicker recovery rate.

Chip liposuction costs
The average costs for chip liposuction is $2,500 and above. The components within the costs usually comprise of the surgeon’s professional fees, the anesthetic and anesthesiologist’s fees as well as the clinical facility lease. The first 2 type costs depends very much from doctor to doctor. The third however depends on the clinic’s the clinic’s locale and the costs of living in that area with regards to the operational costs of the facility itself.

Chip liposuction risks and complications
The risks involved with laser liposuction are extremely limited but, as with all surgical procedures, a death rate of one in five thousand still exists. Hemotoma, asymmetry, lumpiness as well as numbness are all possible as well. It should be noted that women who are pregnant and nursing should never go through with this procedure, and it is crucial that all potential patients bear in mind the fact that this is actual medical surgery.

Choosing the right surgeon
As chin liposuction is dealing with the most visual part of our appearance, our face, the slightest makeover is noticeable. Hence, picking the a reputable surgeon is important. Before the surgery, it is recommended that the patient consult a doctor. The doctor and the patient should contemplate varrious scenarios during the consultation. For example, individuals wanting a stronger profile may consider combining chin liposuction with a chin implant. All questions and concerns regarding the surgery should be addressed during the initial visit; it is the doctor’s advice that will determine if chin liposuction is in your best interest.

Benefits of laser assisted liposuction

One obvious benefit of laser liposuction is the increased rate of recovery. Patents using this technique can cut to one to two days of recovery time and decreases blood loss during the procedure. In fact, some test results have shown that after surgery, patients can leave immediately or after a couple of hours. For some, they can even return to normal activity with only small discomfort. In some of the cases the subject was requested to wear a compression garment for a week.

More importantly, laser assisted liposuction also reduces the post-operative pain. In order words, you suffer less when the operation is done through laser, rather than through traditional matters. The reason is because laser assisted liposuction only targets the “yellow material”, or fat, in the body, allowing the body to absorb up to 500 mL on its own without any suction.

Finally, laser assisted liposuction can have the positive effect of tightening the skin. This means the patient need not go for other operations that are designed to ‘tuck away’ the excessive skins. Less operations mean less money and less pain.

Disadvantages of laser assisted liposuction

Laser liposuction is not really suited for large surface areas. Too large an area would mean a more intense laser with longer duration, which could result in the skins being burnt. This means people with large layers of fats need not apply. For this group of people, having a healthy diet and regular exercise is a better way to go. For laser assisted liposuction, it is more suited for the following:

• chin liposuction
• neck liposuction
• facial liposuction
• tumescent liposuction

The other disadvantage of laser assisted liposuction is its costs. This is the result of new technologies and new processes. New equipment have to bought and training has to be conducted for these new procedures. All these will drive the initial costs high. However, I expect the cost to come down over time and this disadvantage might not be relevant in a couple of years.  a result of the “minimally invasive” cannula (Hui 2008).

Conclusions

We should recognise that laser liposuction is not a magic cure for obesity. In fact, I recommend that  healthy people consider this procedure to remove fats in difficult areas.  Do bear in mind that surgery always possesses certain health risks, even though the risk factors may be low. Hence, to repeat, only if you have a well balanced diet and exercise regiment but has a couple trouble spots that won’t disappear, then the ideal solution would be laser assisted liposuction.

Laser liposuction Benefits

The best thing about laser liposuction surgery is that it is taking the suction out of the equation. In regular liposuction, a wand is placed under the skin which vibrates at very high frequency to liquefy the fat. That liquefied fat is then suck out with a small vacuum hose and discarded. If that sounds really painful and awkward, it is. Compared to how straight  laser liposuction is, traditional liposuction is a bit messy.

In laser liposuction surgery , instead of using vibration energy to liquefy the fat, light energy is used to instantly zap the fat cells. A laser, which is an intense, focused collection of light energy, is used to instantly vaporize the cells at which it is aimed. The small blood vessels that are broken and leak blood during regular liposuction are instantly cauterized by the laser during laser liposuction.

What does all that mean? Well, for one thing, there will be definitely be less bleeding and bruising with laser liposuction versus regular liposuction. People who like this approach also comments that laser actually helps to tighten the surrounding skin, meaning that laser liposuction surgery does not result in baggy, excess skin sometimes present after traditional liposuction.

Another strong benefit is that laser assisted liposuction is that it can be performed under local anesthesia rather than general anesthesia. This means that the area to be treated is completely numbed by injecting the area with an anesthetic while the patient is awake during the procedure. Patients can sit upright or stand during the laser liposuction procedure. In certain cases this is highly advantageous. For example, if belly fat is being removed, having the patient stand during the procedure will allow the surgeon to see how gravity layers the fat in the abdominal region. When the patient is standing, the surgeon can target all of the fat areas appropriately. Laser liposuction may not be for everyone.

Finally, the entire procedure for laser liposuction is relatively brief as it lasts for only 30 to 60 minutes. The recovery is quite quick, also, even compared to regular liposuction. The procedure is performed on an outpatient basis meaning the patient can arrive at and leave the office on the same day. In fact, it is not unusual for most people to  return to work after 24 hours.

Laser liposuction risks

While it is quite safe, laser assisted  liposuction is not suitable for patients with diabetes, liver or kidney problems or blood clotting problems.  Also, it is also more suitable for areas that do not contain much fat such as the inner thighs, face and neck, chin and other smaller regions. This is because laser liposuction  may not remove as much fat as the patient would like. For users who might want to remove large amounts of fats,  traditional liposuction may be more appropriate.

Updated:  Somewhat related to this.  Laser treatment for acne is also getting popular. This site has more information on acne laser treatments.

Before you go off thinking laser liposuction is a miracle drug, don’t. Results for laser liposuction before and after the surgery  are not instant. In fact, it will likely take 6 to 8 weeks for the fulls benefits of laser liposuction to be seen completely. Laser liposuction is one of the newer fat removal techniques and may offer certain advantages to traditional liposuction for some patients. For larger collections of fat, traditional liposuction may still be the best approach. Talk to your plastic surgeon to find out more about both techniques.