Post significant weight loss,  it can be distressing for patients to deal with the excess skin the  results and impacts the quality of life after weightloss surgery. Medically as well, this excess skin gives rise to a host of problems such as skin rashes, eczema, and other infections. Numerous scientific advances have been made which help conquer these side effects of drastic weight loss and help a patient achieve their dream of looking and feeling their best.

Body Contouring after weightloss surgery can be achieved via a host of plastic surgery procedures,  such as body lifts, breast lifts, tummy tucks have become popular means of effectively contouring the body to achieve the look and feel that one desires.

A lot of patients tend to become impatient in their quest for a perfect body and hence like to hasten the body contouring procedure to as soon as medically possible. However, Dr. Peter Rubin, who has during his many years of taking care of post bariatric weightloss surgery patients, refined the body contouring procedures, advises caution against rushing into a cosmetic surgery procedure before the body is ready to accept the weightloss surgery changes.

Dr. Peter Rubin is a renowned plastic surgeon who is a specialist in plastic and reconstructive surgery. He is also at the forefront of cutting edge research in the field of tissue reconstruction and its application to plastic surgery.

He suggests that there are three essential things that a patient must consider before going in for a plastic surgery consultation for body contouring. Firstly, surgeons prefer that the patient has reached a stable weight and has maintained the same for at least three months before coming in for a post bariatric surgery consultation. This would translate into the fact that the patient should be as close to their goal weight as possible and should not have had any major weight fluctuations in the past few months.

Secondly, he strongly urges that patients who go in for contouring consultations have accepted a new way of life and are committed to making significant and lifelong changes in their diets and lifestyle. Agreeing to adopt a healthier lifestyle and choice of food goes a long way in helping to repair the body after a significant weight loss. Post a body contouring procedure, having an erratic diet schedule and not maintaining a lifestyle geared towards wellness could reverse all the positive effects of the contouring as well as the bariatric surgery.

The third important component that Dr. Peter Rubin looks at while giving advice regarding the time for post bariatric weightloss surgery is that patients should have given due consideration to their problem areas and the areas that they especially want to work on and perfect. Having a proper understanding of what areas one should concentrate on to achieve good health and a good body image will go a long way in making the body contouring procedure a success.

An ill-advised beauty trend is on the rise in the down economy: do-it-yourself injectable filler kits that you can buy on the Web. But doctors say self-injectable facial fillers are bad for your health.

A rising number of people are interested in changing how old they look – or simply how they look – through homegrown plastic surgery. Plastic surgeon Dr. Jeffrey Kenkel of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas recently explained that those who want the effects of facial fillers should seek out qualified doctors.

Kenkel pointed out, this can lead to unwanted lumpiness in the face, or even an infection. And through these cheap cosmetic shortcuts, a person can very easily cause damage that costs more than professional cosmetic surgery to reverse.

“It is critical to seek out a board-certified plastic surgeon or dermatologist to ensure that the material being injected is authentic, that the proper amount is being injected and that fillers are injected in the proper location to avoid unwanted consequences,” Kenkel told United Press International. “It ends up being far more expensive and problematic to fix complications when something goes wrong. There are so many options – from skin care to laser treatments to injectable regimes – that will give you the appearance you want safely and cost-effectively.”

In the spring of 2009, The Plastic Surgery Channel reported on one example of unsafe home injection, when 43-year-old Bronx resident Siordaliza Pichardo died after a friend injected her thighs with silicone during an attempted body contouring procedure. The friend was a cosmetologist with no license or any other qualification to perform cosmetic injection. A day after the home procedure, Pichardo visited a nearby hospital, complaining of dizziness, vomiting and breathing problems. Soon after, she went into cardiac arrest and died. This is an extreme example of what can happen with unsupervised cosmetic injection, but it stresses the need for medical supervision.

If any woman surgeon who has experienced or is experiencing this they would understand the question as I fear more weight gain may happen. Been trying like crazy to keep the weight under control to no avail.

Last night NBC picked yet another winner of the Biggest Loser, one of the most popular reality competitions on TV. Contestants compete at a weight-loss ranch where they live, work out, and battle against each other to lose the most weight. Along the way, contestants are faced with challenges and real-world temptations. Most importantly, finalists are sent home for the last leg of the competition, ensuring that whoever wins can keep up their new found eating habits amid the chaos of real life.

This year’s winner was Danny Cahill, a land surveyor and musician from Oklahoma. Cahill started the show at 430 pounds, losing 239 pounds along the way — a whopping 55 percent of his body weight. It’s the most weight lost on the show to date.

Previous contestants of the show have gone on to get plastic surgery to further help their weight loss transformation. Often after an individual loses massive amounts of weight, either by diet and exercise or through bariatric surgery, a body lift is needed to remove excess skin and help the patient be able to move better. Extra skin can rub and chafe, which can make repetitive movements, including exercise, uncomfortable.

Erik Chopin won The Biggest Loser‘s 2006 competition by losing 214 pounds, but he was surprised to learn that simply losing the weight didn’t make him look that much better. “I’d worked so hard and still had apprehension when I took my shirt off at the beach,” he told People magazine. Chopin got a full body lift from an L.A. plastic surgeon and was pleased with his results.

Suzy Preston also had a body lift after making it to the finals in 2005, but not winning. “I had a total body lift, and had eight pounds of skin removed,” Preston told MomLogic.com. “After the surgery, my body was so tight and pulled together!” Preston started the show at 227 and weighed 132 at the season finale.

The Biggest Loser Season 9 starts January 5, 2010, and will focus on family teams of two.

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Body Lifts are a Popular Option for Many Weight-Loss Patients

Learn How Body Contouring Can Address Loose, Flabby Skin

Excess skin after significant weight loss is not just a cosmetic issue. Sure, when patients lose more than 100 pounds, they would like their body to reflect the change they feel inside. But excess skin can also limit mobility, cause medical and hygiene problems, and make daily chores difficult. It can make physical activity uncomfortable due chaffing and rashes, which can discourage patients from adopting healthy changes to their lifestyles.

Dr. Mitchel Krieger, a board certified plastic surgeon in Fairfax, Virginia, uses body contouring procedures, such as liposuction, tummy tucks and breast lifts, to help weight loss patients return to a normal life after such a dramatic physical change.

Dr. Krieger says up until about five years ago, nearly all his patients were coming in after open gastric bypass surgery, having lost around 100 to 200 pounds in about nine to 12 months. “From a surgical standpoint, these patients were the easiest to treat, because it was all loose skin,” he says.

However, today more patients are having the less invasive Lap-Band procedure, which means slower, more steady weight loss over a longer period of time. “Many of these patients, because they haven’t lost all their excess weight, may still have some residual fat or residual weight in their extremities,” Dr. Krieger explains. “And so their arms and legs sometimes require liposuction as an initial staging procedure before we can go in there and remove the excess skin.”

Patients need to have a realistic concept of what they will look like after weight loss surgery. Although the change will be dramatic, Dr. Krieger stresses that different people have different starting points before the procedure, and therefore will come out at different sizes after surgery.

“In an ideal world, we’d like to see patients have a BMI of under 30, but sometimes we see patients who are in that [over 30] range,” he says, “and as a result they have to temper their expectations that you can’t generate as thin a contour as you could in a patient who had started off at a lower weight.”

Plastic surgery was all the buzz in Seattle, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Plastic Surgery Talk was there, live, to talk to the world’s foremost plastic surgeons about hot topics in the industry.

In this episode, host Dr. William P. Adams, Jr., talks to Dr. Robert Singer about the heavily-marketed “liquid facelift” and whether it is an effective solution for women who want a youthful look with little recovery time.

Dr. Singer, who originated the conference’s Hot Topics forum, also discusses how patients can evaluate new techniques and technologies. This is a concern for doctors, because the onslaught of media attention to new procedures often circumvent key safety data in favor of results touted by marketing pundits.

Dr. Anand Deva, co-founder of the Surgical Infection Research Group, also stops in to share what he has learned about capsular contracture in breast implant patients. His discovery will hopefully lead to better surgical outcomes after breast augmentation.

All this and more on Plastic Surgery Talk. Click the player below to watch now.

This episode of Plastic Surgery Talk is sponsored by Mentor. Learn more about Memory Gel Breast implants at LoveYourLook.com.

Plastic surgery is an ever-changing field, with dozens of new treatments and technologies hitting the market each year. Doctors are challenged to stay continually abreast of clinical trials, research studies, and product launches, while at the same time marketing their practice, consulting with patients, and spending countless hours in the OR. Not surprisingly, the pressure to stay competitive – particularly in a down economy – can be daunting.

“If you’re not keeping up with what is on the cutting edge, then you’re falling behind,” noted Dr. Al Aly during a break between sessions at Plastic Surgery 2009, this year’s annual meeting of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), currently underway in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Aly, a world authority in the field of body contouring, was presenting at the conference on body contouring and reconstructive considerations after bariatric surgery, as well as techniques to achieve optimal outcomes in buttock augmentation.

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“Meetings like this keep you up and stimulate your mind to keep advancing and hopefully do better and better for your patients,” he said.

The five-day conference provides board certified plastic surgeons a venue to explore best practices in plastic surgery, from surgical techniques to methods for improving patient safety to social networking strategies. They can also attend instructional courses on topics ranging from nipple reconstruction to hand fractures, as well as pragmatic subjects, such as strategies for preventing malpractice claims through effective patient communication.

“The best thing about these conferences is you get to go and see what other people are doing. You add to your practice, or you also decide there are things you’re not going to do,” said Dr. Wesley Wilson, who has a thriving practice in Scottsdale, Arizona. He added, “Anything that helps you take better care of patientshelps every plastic surgeon be a better plastic surgeon.”

Professor James Frame, a plastic surgeon practicing in the UK, has been coming to the annual ASPS conference for ten years, because of the opportunities it affords to discover new developments in the industry.

“I’ve traveled to quite a few countries in the world to the national societies, and this is by far the best,” said Dr. Frame.

The conference wraps up on Tuesday, October 27, with an address by the Honorable William H. Frist, MD, on the Future of Healthcare in America. Next year’s meeting — predictably dubbed Plastic Surgery 2010 — is scheduled for October 1 – 6, 2010, in Toronto, Canada.

Liposuction is an excellent treatment to remove excess fat in various parts of the body when diet and exercise have failed to make an impact. But, liposuction alone can sometimes leave the skin looking slightly wrinkled, if the skin lacks the elasticity to spring back into place. Now, many doctors are using a new, non-invasive treatment called Thermage in conjunction with liposuction to help tighten the skin and improve the final result.

Plastic surgeon Dr. Richard Baxter, presented on the combination technique at one of the Hot Topics sessions at Plastic Surgery 2009, the annual meeting of the American Society of Plastic Surgery, held at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center in Seattle October 23 – 27. He noted that he is careful to categorize the patients who qualify for Thermage, which uses a wand-like radio frequency device to smooth, contour and tighten skin after liposuction. It is effective, he says, but not meant for everyone.

“It’s really a nice option for those patients who have a little bit of skin laxity,” notes Dr. Baxter. “Not so much that they need a tummy tuck or a face lift – but, enough that you’re concerned that the results of liposuction, alone, may not be quite ideal. I think most people know that liposuction is a good option for those who have localized areas of fat that are resistant to change from diet and exercise. But, the people who have a little bit of skin laxity are in a sort of special category.”

This is because liposuction by itself should often allow the skin, with its elastic tone, to naturally tighten itself. But, in minor or moderate cases where this doesn’t happen, a treatment like Thermage is ideal. Optimum treatment areas are the face and neck area. But, for those who have lots of loose extra skin in those places, a face lift is better.

Baxter cites a clinical test where a liposuction patient with loose skin underwent a Thermage treatment on one side of his body. The treatment results offered 30 percent more skin shrinkage.

“That’s what we call a ‘proof of concept’ study,” he says. “We know that there’s something real happening here. The skin is shrinking more when we apply the Thermage immediately after.”

New liposuction technologies, such as laser liposuction, promise similar results. The laser energy is meant to heat the collagen in the skin, leaving skin tighter after the liposuction procedure. Although the treatment works well in many cases, Dr. Baxter cautions that some patients are bound to be disappointed when they expect this procedure to fully replace something more invasive.

“[The manufacturers are] promoting it as an alternative to a tummy tuck or a face lift,” he says. “And I think the more you do that, the more likely you are to have disappointed patients. I’m seeing patients in my practice already who knew they should have had a tummy tuck. They were convinced that a laser liposuction would be a good alternative. And they’re coming in now with scarring and lumpiness. It’s a really difficult problem to try and go back to fix later.”

Dr. Baxter’s advice on avoiding this problem?  “Shop around a little bit,” he says. “Talk to a plastic surgeon who does tummy tucks; find out what that’s really about. Really have a good idea of what you can expect from these procedures before you make up your mind.”

Dr. Gryskiewicz also describes the technology behind a revolutionary microchip that can detect leaks in silicone implants. The device, although still experimental, promises to offer a less expensive alternative to MRIs, which are recommended every two years for women with silicone breast implants beginning three years after their breast augmentation procedure.

Click the video player below to watch this exclusive interview from the 2009 Aesthetic Meeting in Las Vegas.

A new line of “power pants” are available for men in some British department stores. This is entirely new in the United Kingdom–and we’re wondering if the Queen Mum will approve of these underwear, resembling boxer briefs, that provide body contouring.

Produced by a company called Equmen, the pants use compression–basically, it’s a girdle styled for men with a more masculine name slapped on. The power pants lift and smooth out the buttocks and upper legs–sound familiar, ladies?

Power pants also include a body temperature pouch that works with the special design to keep moisture levels under control.

The new Equmen product is in stores for less than 25 pounds a pair. They’re designed to offer men the appearance of a perfect figure from the waist down. And they can also be used with the company’s previously launched array of “control vests” that trim chubby tummies.

While women may find it funny that men are finally succumbing to the shapers, at least these items are more straightforward than the so-called “cellulite-beating” pants that were released in Britain earlier this year by another company. That product claimed to melt cellulite by way of infrared crystals inside the fabric that heated up the skin when you put them on.

Not much is known about of the success of this product since it first hit stores overseas.