You should expect to have some bruising that can last for 1-2 weeks. While you will notice a significant change in your appearance after approximately 2-3 weeks, approximately 3 months need to pass until the majority of swelling resolves, when you will have a better sense of the final result.

After your procedure, Dr. Smith and his caring surgical team place you into compression garments or elastic bandages. This helps minimize swelling, while contouring your skin. In most cases, these bandages or garments are only needed for two days.

Generally, you can start returning to many of your regular activities – including work – after about two days. Many of our busy patients chose to have liposuction on a Friday so they can return to work on Monday. They can often be back in the gym for a light workout by Wednesday.

Generally, only minimal discomfort is experienced after liposuction with Dr. Smith. Many patients compare it to the feeling after an intense workout.

The compression garment’s primary purpose is to control swelling in the immediate post-operative period. Dr. Smith generally only requires his patients to wear a compression garment for two days after the procedure.

All aesthetic surgery procedures do carry some degree of risk. Generally, liposuction is considered to be very safe. Any lipo procedure should be performed by a highly-rated, experienced, board certified plastic surgeon so that the risk of complications is minimized. For example, there is a limit to the quantity of fat that should be extracted in one procedure. Ensure your plastic surgeon uses advanced patient health and safety protocols; this is a top priority at Dr. Smith’s practice.

The incisions made for liposuction are very small and well-hidden. They end up being quite hard to see after the procedure. The exact number and placement of these incisions will depend on the areas being treated. Dr. Smith will discuss this with you in detail during your consultation.

Yes. Modern liposuction techniques can extract excess fat from almost any body area, including bra fat, back fat, lower legs, and a double chin, in addition to the traditional areas such as the abdomen, love handles, thighs, arms.

The incisions made for liposuction are very small and well-hidden. They end up being quite hard to see after the procedure. The exact number and placement of these incisions will depend on the areas being treated. Dr. Smith will discuss this with you in detail during your consultation.

Yes. Modern liposuction techniques can extract excess fat from almost any body area, including bra fat, back fat, lower legs, and a double chin, in addition to the traditional areas such as the abdomen, love handles, thighs, arms.

These are different procedures designed to provide a different kind of result. Liposuction is the gold standard for fat removal and offers dramatic changes that are customized to your anatomy. Significant changes are seen within two weeks of the procedure as swelling subsides. CoolSculpting, on the other hand, is a non-invasive fat removal procedure performed by a machine. It does not offer custom body sculpting by an expert surgeon. The changes achieved with CoolSculpting are relatively minor (maximum of about 25% fat reduction), and results will not be achieved for months.

If you've ever researched liposuction in NYC, or anywhere else, you've probably come across alternatives like CoolSculpting. Both procedures help remove stubborn pockets of fat, but no other method besides liposuction offers equivalent dramatic, customized fat-loss results.

Liposuction removes pesky small fat deposits in the body that can't be fixed with diet and exercise. A tummy tuck removes excess fat as well as excess skin and allows for muscle tightening

We do not require post-operative massage. While some patients find this helpful, in our experience it does not improve results and can incur unnecessary discomfort and expense.

Bruising generally does not last more than 10-14 days after liposuction. Laser therapy can be used to speed the process along if necessary. Some patients also find arnica and bromelain helpful.

The kind of anesthesia that is used for liposuction (more details on how liposuction is performed here) depends on a few factors, most importantly the amount of liposuction that is performed and the patient’s preference. For small volumes of liposuction, it is possible to use only local anesthesia: the area is made numb with medication, and the patient is awake and comfortable due to the numbing medication. For larger volumes of liposuction, intravenous (IV) sedation (also called “twilight” anesthesia) or general anesthesia can be used. In “twilight” anesthesia, medication is administered through an IV to make the patient feel very relaxed, in addition to the numbing medication used in local anesthesia. The patient is breathing on his or her own during twilight anesthesia. General anesthesia, in addition to local numbing medication, uses a combination of IV medication and inhaled medication to make the patient completely asleep, and breathing is often aided by a machine.

Liposuction (read about details of the procedure here) can be performed under general anesthesia – the patient is asleep and feels nothing at all during the procedure); IV sedation (“twilight anesthesia”) – the patient is awake and breathing on his or her own but feels “drunk” and experiences minimal discomfort; or wide awake with local anesthesia – the patient is alert but has received numbing medication to the area being treated greatly reducing any discomfort. A single area of liposuction (for example the abdomen or waist) can often be performed quite comfortably with local anesthesia alone. When multiple areas are combined, it is best to have IV sedation or general anesthesia. Regardless of how the procedure is performed, there will be some discomfort after liposuction which many liken to the feeling after a hard workout: more soreness than sharp pain. We provide pain medication as well as 24/7 access to our team to ensure that you have a comfortable recovery.

Bulges under the arms have been drawing increased attention over the past few years. Often referred to as “bra fat,” “swimsuit fat,” “armpit bulges,” and other creative names, fullness under the arms is often most apparent in bras and bathing suits. It is very important to properly diagnose the cause of bulges under the arms. Specifically, in some cases these bulges may not be caused by fat at all and are instead composed of axillary breast tissue. While in the great majority of cases this is no cause for alarm, in these instances it is prudent to obtain a mammogram of the region to ensure the tissue is completely benign. When there is no or minimal axillary breast tissue present, bulges under the arms are often very effectively treated by liposuction alone (more details here). If there is mild or moderate loose skin in addition to fatty excess, skin tightening technology like BodyTite (read more here) can be very helpful. In cases of severe skin excess, skin excision via small, nearly invisible incision hidden in the folds of the armpit may be necessary. In cases in which a significant amount of firm breast tissue is present, excision of that tissue by a similarly well-hidden incision can be very beneficial.

Yes, liposuction (read about details of the procedure here) is safe if performed on the appropriate patient by a well-trained surgeon who is board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. While liposuction is surgery, and all surgical procedures have an element of risk, those risks can be minimized so that patients can feel quite confident in the safety of his or her procedure. While complications, or problems, are rare after liposuction, some are more common than others. The most common complications after liposuction include infection (which is usually treated with antibiotics), a bleeding problem (which may require management of the bleeding by surgical or other means), or an uneven contour (which can be managed with fat grafting).

This is the “million-dollar question” and can only be answered by the individual. Some factors to consider is the quality of the result you will receive, how important that result is to you, and if the pleasure brought to you by the result justifies the expense. The quality of the result you will receive depends on your health and body habitus before surgery and the expertise of your surgeon. Patients that are in good general health and have focused areas of fatty excess along with good skin tone will have the best results. Larger, heavier people can still have excellent results if their goal is to achieve a modest improvement in specific body areas. Liposuction cannot take a generally large person and make them a generally small person. While liposuction does not tighten loose skin, your skin will contract to some degree to fit your new, reduced body shape after liposuction. Individuals with moderately loose skin may benefit from skin tightening procedures in addition to liposuction, like BodyTite (more on that here). Patients with severe skin laxity may do best with a skin removal procedure in addition to or instead of liposuction (like abdominoplasty for the tummy or a brachioplasty for the arms). An excellent surgeon (read more about Dr. Smith’s unique training and experience here) can help you understand the kind of results you can expect to achieve with each of these procedures so that you are better equipped to decide if the benefits of surgery justify the cost. That said, excellent surgeons with superior training and skill tend to be more expensive.

We perform a lot of liposuction (more details here) and have gotten the whole process down to an “art” that is guided by science. Let’s use one of our busy New York City professionals as an example of a typical patient that does not want to have significant downtime or miss work. It is very reasonable to miss no work during recovery by having the procedure on a Friday. Almost everyone will be up to be going back to work on Monday, just 48 hours later. While soreness and bruising may persist for 10-14 days, it generally does not get in the way of daily life. After getting back to work on Monday, most patients feel up to getting back to light gym activity by that Wednesday, just 5 days after his or her procedure. The level of discomfort throughout all this is often compared to the feeling after a vigorous workout.

Back rolls are a very common concern that we address in our practice. The best way to treat back rolls depends on exactly what is causing them. Specifically, are the back rolls being caused by extra fat, extra skin or a combination of the two? In the case of back rolls that are caused by extra fat in a patient with good skin tone and little to no excess skin, liposuction (more details here) can very effectively treat back rolls. For cases in which back rolls are caused by excess or loose skin alone, liposuction will not do the job: liposuction does not remove or shrink skin, it just eliminates excess fat. For cases of moderate skin excess, a minimally invasive procedure called BodyTite uses radiofrequency energy to heat the skin and cause it to contract and tighten (more details here). For severe cases of skin excess, surgical skin excision may be necessary with a procedure like an upper or lower body lift (more details here). For cases in which back rolls are caused by both excess fat and excess skin, a customized combination of the techniques discussed above will be designed to best meet the individual patient’s needs.