who should get liposuction

this is a reallycommon question. can i get awaywith liposuction alone, which a lot of peoplewould prefer, or do i need a tummy tuck? there's basicallythree things that i look at to help me determinewhat you're gonna need. first of all,how much excess fat there is. second, and this is probablythe most important factor. what's your skin toneor your skin elasticity like?

do you havetight skin or loose skin? do you have cellulite? do you have stretch marks,et cetera. and then finally, what's happeningwith your abdominal muscles? are they tight togetheror are they spread apart? you see, the problemwith liposuction alone is we make a little incision and then we takethat long silver cannula,

we put that in there, we suction out your fat. but we're not really doinganything to the skin. we're relying on the skin'sown elasticity, or skin tone, to retract and stick back downnice and smooth. if you don't havegood skin tone, the problem is thatyou're likely gonna end up with more dimplingand rippling. which will actuallylook worse, okay?

so, if you're an individualthat has excess fat, but the skin is really tight,okay, and great elasticity and your stomach musclesare tight together, liposuction isprobably the way to go. but if you're a personthat has excess fat, but you've got loose skin withstretch marks and cellulite, your abdominal musclesare spread apart, you're gonna needa tummy tuck. now, occasionallyi'll see patients

that fall betweenthese two categories. and, these are individualswho have excess fat, but their skin isonly a little loose. i mean,it's not a lot of loose, a little loose. in them,i may employ a technique called ultrasonic liposuction. ultrasonic liposuctionis very similar to standard liposuction exceptthere's one additional step.

we treat the tissueswith an ultrasound probe first. the ultrasound probe actually looks likea liposuction cannula, but the tip of it vibrates at a very high frequencycreating energy. now that energy can be usedto break fat down. but i also use it to treatthe under-surface of the skin, trying to stimulate itto contract a little bit. [music]