Tummy Tuck / Abdominoplasty
Laxity of the abdominal wall, involving both muscles (known as diastasis recti or abdominal separation) together with the skin and subcutaneous tissue, often results after pregnancy or weight loss. The treatment of choice is a tummy tuck: excessive skin in-between the pubic bone and the belly button is reduced. Muscles are repaired and the abdominal wall is strengthened, which results in a tight, flat belly.
Full Abdominoplasty (tummy tuck) does leave a scar, very similar to a Cesarean with extensions to both sides.
The tummy tuck also comes with a liposuction of the flanks (so-called love handles). The fat is reduced with a gentle water-jet assisted liposuction to achieve a slim waistline and a perfect result. For this procedure to be successful, the patient should not plan for more pregnancies since an increase in abdominal volume would risk marring the aesthetic result.
Duration of the surgery:
approximately 2 hours
Anaesthetics:
general anaesthetic, inpatient for 1 night
Recovery:
No sports, lifting and heavy workout for 6 weeks, compression garments.
Normally fit for flying after 2 weeks
Minimally invasive, tiny incisions of about 3-5 millimeters are needed for fat to be washed out of the body. Various techniques exist. The most advantageous and gentle is water-jet assisted liposuction, using just a small cannula with a pulsation water-jet on the tip. The water-jet’s gentle loosening and washing action makes it possible for large amounts of fat to be atraumatically removed. Compared with conventional liposuction, the sculpting of tissue is more precise and there is less trauma, pain and recovery time. Apart from being, gentle and more precise, the quality of the fat cells is superior to that resulting from other techniques, meaning that a higher survival rate of the transplanted fat cells is achieved.
Having a special clinical interest in natural body contouring, Dr. Hamers can reuse the patient’s own extracted fat to shape, fill or augment various parts of the body where it might be needed (for instance face, breast and buttock, but also calves or scars).
Dr. Alexander Hamers has specialised in Water-jetstream assisted fat transfer technology since 2012.
