ARM-LIFTS: DR. YOHO’S PHILOSOPHY FOR LOS ANGELES COSMETIC SURGERY:
The traditional teaching about loose skin removal and arm lifting is that if the patient has just a little fat and very little loose skin, liposuction alone is reasonable. This makes sense. For our Visalia/Los Angeles cosmetic surgery patient who has a little more loose skin, an incision and tuck in the armpit might be necessary, and for a person who has a lot of loose skin and/or fat an incision all the way down the arm might be best. For patients who has had “stomach stapling” surgery of some kind, an incision might be necessary all the way down the arm, sometimes onto the forearm and then down onto the front side of the chest.
Dr. Yoho has had an extensive experience using liposuction alone to improve people with hanging skin and excess fat together. His conclusion is that in the vast majority of the cases, liposuction alone is the best procedure. In the literature (the medical journals) and in the real experience of Dr. Yoho and his colleagues, scarring from arm lifts on the inside of the arm or in the armpit is unacceptable. The scars often open up or spread in the post-operative period, and may become hypertrophic, which means that it raises and you can feel it. These require injection or other therapy.
There are some people, of course, who have so much loose skin and have lost so much weight that some sort of a cutting procedure is the only way to get rid of their lower arm “wings”. But in the vast majority of cases, liposuction irritates the skin from underneath, causes contraction and produces an effect that may not be super tight, but is a big improvement and better in almost every case than the cutting procedures. With the cutting procedures, multiple injections may need to be performed into the scars to get them to “calm down” and even many months later, there is evidence of scarring.
For arm liposuction, small cannulas are necessary; 3 mm in diameter or smaller are the usual preferred instrument. This is because the skin is delicate and larger cannulas cause more rippling. Most of the fat can be removed successfully and when only a relatively thin skin layer is left, this skin layer is able to shrink successfully to a minimum 50% of its prior “droop.”
Every patient needs to be evaluated individually, and we hope if you are interested in arm improvement of either the skin or the fat or both, that you are willing to come in and have a complimentary consultation to see what the best procedure is for you to meet your needs. Our Visalia/Fresno cosmetic surgery patients can come to our Visalia area office and our Los Angeles cosmetic surgery patients can visit us in Pasadena.
