Liposuction: when to have it and can fat return afterwards?

If you’re considering liposuction, whether on your tummy, thighs or arms, you might be concerned as to whether the fat can return after the procedure. Are you also wondering just when during your weight loss journey is the correct time to have liposuction? Thankfully, one of our leading plastic, aesthetic and reconstructive surgeons Mr Paul Roblin answers these questions.

Is there a ‘right time’ to have liposuction?

There is no specific time that you need to have liposuction and when you choose to have the procedure is your individual decision. Our recommendation to patients who are still losing weight would be to reach your target weight first.

If you have lost and are still losing a significant amount of weight, we recommend a three to six-month period of being stable at that weight. There is no point in having liposuction and then losing weight again afterwards because you may lose some of tone of the skin. 

In terms of timing for liposuction and other types of cosmetic surgery, patients may have an event that they want to go to or even have a holiday booked. That is taken into consideration but most importantly, we need to focus on the recovery afterwards.

Depending on the amount or the site of liposuction, you will need to recover with some aftercare and support at home. It is recommended to avoid heavy lifting or housework for two to three weeks. 

The crucial part to recovery after liposuction is in wearing the compression garments that are provided. All of these things have to be taken into consideration when thinking about when the surgery will take place.
 

Can fat return after liposuction?

With liposuction, we are physically removing the fat cells and therefore the cells in that area shouldn’t regain the fat. Normally, when you put on weight, the fat goes into the cell and each individual cell expands and gets bigger. By removing those fat cells, that area will not get fatter.

If you do put on a large amount of weight, however, then you will put on weight and fat again but in different areas. People have different areas of their body where they tend to put on fat and those would be the areas that we remove when doing liposuction. 

You may find that you put weight after liposuction, which may be possible if we have not removed all of the fat in that area because some of the fat cells remain. So, yes, it’s possible you could put on some fat in that area but the idea is that we have removed the potential for fat in that area.
 

Can other surgical procedures - such as breast augmentation - be performed with liposuction?

We do perform liposuction as a complementary procedure for many other cosmetic procedures. We will be slightly wary in weight loss patients because those are the patients who have lost a lot of weight and maybe their skin tone is not as good as in younger patients. Therefore their skin may not shrink so well afterwards.

When we do procedures for weight loss patients, such as a buttock lift, part of that procedure will involve liposuction to the upper and outer part of the thighs.

In patients who haven’t lost weight, we often combine an abdominoplasty procedure, such as with liposuction to the flanks, to reduce the amount of scarring.

In slightly larger patients we may combine liposuction in the front of the tummy.

We can combine any kind breast procedure like reduction or augmentation, with liposuction elsewhere on the body, to one operation. We just take into consideration the length of the surgery and the potential recovery afterwards as we don’t want to overburden the patient.

If you’re considering liposuction, you can book an appointment with Mr Roblin now via his Top Doctor’s profile here and get his expert opinion on what’s right for your body.