Aesthetic Plastic Surgery Blog | Dr. Linderman

Gynecomastia is the medical term for male breast enlargement. This condition can occur in young boys as well as older men. Various causes exist from drugs, hormone imbalance, and tumors to obesity. The composition of the breast tissue may be primarily glandular, fatty or a combination of both. Some cases of gynecomastia will improve or disappear after puberty. Others will not. Surgical treatment with ultrasonic liposuction and occasional direct excision through small periareolar incision is very effective.

While skin grafts are a method used by plastic surgeons to replace skin damaged by burns, trauma or cancer removal, they are only one method. An attempt is always made by your plastic surgeon to replace skin with similar tissue of the same color and consistency. For smaller defects, adjacent tissue may be transferred to reconstruct the area of skin loss with an excellent color match. This is particularly the case in defects of the head and neck following cancer excision. Skin graft do not always supply a good color match and tend to be drier to the lack of oil glands. Microvascular tissue transfer is another treatment for large defects. Skin grafts are most commonly used in the treatment of burns because of the large areas of skin damage.

With all the promotion and popularity of cosmetic surgery, it is difficult for the average consumer to determine a surgeon’s qualification. Board Certification by a member board recognized by of the American Board of Medical Specialties is a benchmark for determining a surgeon’s qualification. This member boards certify training and residency requirements as well as examinations to be board certified. To find out if your surgeon is boards certified in plastic surgery go to abms.org, register your name and do a search of your surgeon. This will identify if he or she is certified and which recognized board. Be safe. Check out your surgeon’s qualifications.

Combining plastic surgery procedures is actually a fairly common practice. In certain situations, it's even encouraged. For example, if you'd like to have a mommy makeover involving work on your breasts as well as a tummy tuck, it makes sense to have these procedures done at the same time.

Advantages to Combining Procedures

There are several advantages to combining plastic surgery procedures. Hospital costs and anesthesia fees will be reduced, since they're only charged once instead of multiple times as they would be if you had the procedures performed separately. In addition, recovery time is reduced, and your final results will be even more dramatic.

Disadvantages to combining procedures are minimal, but should be discussed with your doctor. If the procedures take longer than around six and a half hours, complications with your anesthesia become more likely. Multiple procedures also have a slightly higher risk of complications.

Overall, the possibility of combining procedures should be discussed in detail with your physician. Dr. Richard Linderman believes combining procedures to usually be in the best interests of the patient, but this decision should be made based on your individual needs and considerations.

To discuss the possibility of combining plastic surgery procedures, please contact Dr. Linderman at 317-848-5400 to schedule a consultation at our Indianapolis, Indiana offices.

Although women have a much greater number of body contouring techniques and liposuction performed each year, men make up an increasing percentage of liposuction patients. The three most common areas of liposuction requested by males are chest, abdomen and so “love handles” or flanks. Other areas include facial cosmetic surgery and liposuction of the neck. Men tend to have fibrous fat that is more difficult to remove with traditional liposuction. Ultrasonic liposuction is particularly effective is removal of fat from the abdomen, chest and flanks. Many men will present with protrusion of the upper as well as the lower abdomen. With a good physical examination and by having the patient contract his abdominal muscles, an accurate determination of the location of fat can be determined. In many cases this fat is located around the abdominal organs and deep to the muscles. This type of fat is not amenable to removal and failure of the plastic surgeon to emphasize this to his patient will result in disappointment.

Certainly there are risks and complications with any type of surgery including cosmetic surgery. However when performed by a surgeon board certified by The American Board of Plastic Surgery who follows appropriate guidelines, complications are few and results predictable. An examination of most high profile problems in the news and on television usually reveals a surgeon with poor training, an inappropriate patient, poor surgical judgment, an unsafe surgical facility or a combination of any of these factors.

Current tummy tuck surgery techniques with the addition of liposuction can produce a dramatic improvement in your figure. However I occasionally see patients with acceptable results that could be so much better with proper incision placement. It is my approach to mark patients so the final skin will fall within the lines of a two-piece bathing suit. Once in a while a small vertical incision is required which may show just above this line, but this is a small trade off for an incision that is placed too high and shows completely. Placing tension on the anterior thigh instead of the pubic area prevents pubic hairline distortion with the additional benefit of some lift on the anterior thigh skin. I ask my patients to bring their bathing suit bottom on the day of surgery for proper incision placement.

Labels: tummy tuck