It’s time to celebrate – well almost! All that weight is gone, but your unsightly belly still hangs over the top of your jeans and jiggles when you’re in a bikini. No matter how many abdominal exercises you do, that flabby skin and stubborn fat just won’t budge. Time to look into a tummy tuck.
A tummy tuck removes excess skin and fat and also corrects the muscles inside the abdomen that hold the internal organs in place. These muscles may have become weak from pregnancy or surgical procedures. The technical term for a tummy tuck is called an abdominoplasty.
Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide have tummy tucks each year. It is a major surgery performed under general anaesthesia. The surgeon makes an incision around the navel (belly button). The size of this incision is determined by the amount of excess skin and fat to be removed. Any loose muscles are tightened with permanent sutures to hold them in place.
The skin above the navel is stretched down to meet the skin below. The two areas are stitched back together with the navel re-positioned to look natural in the now-smaller abdomen. The scar will be from hip to hip in the natural crease just above the public hairline. For many patients it will hardly be noticeable. After a few weeks, the patient may be fully recovered and back on the beach with a new flatter tummy.
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If you are planning on losing a lot of weight, it is important that you lose the weight before getting a tummy tuck. Once all the weight is gone, the surgeon can remove all the extra tissue and smooth out the abdominal area.
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If you are considering having an abdominoplasty, you should keep in mind that there are some risks involved:
- General anaesthesia always carries a degree of risk
- There will be scarring to some degree
- There could be infection
- Some health conditions increase the risk of less than perfect results, such as diabetes, smoking, excess weight gain
- The surgical area may experience some loss of feeling
Yes, a tummy tuck is major surgery, so why do people do it? Commonly it is done to improve the overall appearance of the body and improve self-esteem. Modern advertising makes a slim, toned tummy desirable and unfortunately few people have the motivation, ability or the right body type to fit into that ideal. For those who are prepared to commit to the surgery, a tummy tuck offers a solution to this problem.
Often an abdominoplasty is the final stage of a difficult journey of weight loss – for those anticipating the freedom and confidence of a new slimmer body, the tummy tuck is needed to remove that excess skin to reveal a thinner, trimmer person, In this way a tummy tuck can be considered as more than just cosmetic; it marks the beginning of a total transformation.