After significant fluctuations in weight, such as with pregnancy, lax stomach muscles and stubborn fat can develop — and they won’t go away with crunches and diet. In fact, exercise and further weight loss can sometimes accentuate the loose hanging skin in the tummy area. That’s what makes tummy tucks popular for Oakville, Brampton, and greater Toronto patients. A focal area of excess fat alone can often be addressed by less invasive treatments, like Liposonix (high frequency ultrasound fat reduction) or liposuction, but these procedures cannot address looseness of skin or poor muscle tone. Pregnancy, for example, often puts pressure on the abdominal wall muscles such that they are stretched and separated.
What Makes a Tummy Tuck So Effective
During a tummy tuck procedure, both loose skin and fat are removed, and what many people often don’t realize is that the abdominal muscles are then tightened and sewn back together. The procedure is often accompanied by liposuction to smooth out the area over the tummy and the hips. Finally, the remaining skin is stitched back down over the abdominal wall.
Why Drains?
As part of the healing process after surgery, the affected tissues typically produce fluid which, in a conventional tummy tuck, tends to accumulate in the space between the skin and the muscle wall where the skin was lifted and separated during the procedure. In order for this fluid to drain, plastic tubes called drains are usually inserted beneath the skin in conventional tummy tuck, left in place during the initial recovery period, and then removed several days after surgery.
With Dr. Weinberg’s new “No Drains” procedure, because of the use of a novel type of suture called a Quill suture, his tummy tuck patients in Toronto and Mississauga can enjoy improved results and a quicker recovery. The sutures have small barbs that firmly stitch down and adhere the overlying skin flap to the muscular abdominal wall. This has several advantages, including a firmer, tighter muscle repair, as well as reduced surgical time, which means added safety as any potential for complications is lessened when surgery is faster and shorter. It also means there is no longer a potential space between skin and muscle for fluid to accumulate, so there is no need for drains! This adds considerably to the comfort of the recovery period, making patients more easily mobile after surgery, and of course they do not have the discomfort sometimes associated with drain removal.
If you think you may be a candidate for tummy tuck, liposuction or Liposonix® treatment, call us at (905) 273-3045 and book a consultation.
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