Liposuction and fat transfer go hand in hand. A lot of our patients desire improvements in their legs, buttocks, lateral hips, breasts, face, and hands. For years the standard of care to achieve a patient’s desired to have augmentation was buttock implants, but with today’s newest technology we can achieve our desired enhancement by utilizing fat transfer. First, we must understand the meaning of fat transfer. Fat transfer is the surgical procedure that allows surgeons like me to transfer fat from one area of your body. Using liposuction, we extract your undesired fat cells, process them in sterile containers, and then reinject the purified fat back into the areas needing filling. Essentially, we can fat transfer, also known as fat grafting, to almost anywhere on to your body.
Routinely we have seen classic fat transfer to female patient buttocks and lateral hips, known as a Brazilian butt lift, as well as a female’s breasts, known as natural breast augmentation, and a male’s chest, known as chest masculinization. I also fat graft to patients’ facial cheeks and lips to make them fuller and more aesthetically pleasing. Recently, fat grafting to the top of your hand has become a popular rejuvenating procedure. This is because the appearance of tendons and veins on the top of the hands is a dead giveaway of your age. Fat grafting can camouflage these structures by replacing fat that has been lost in this area with aging. Finally, correction of botched liposuction such as the creation of a divot or a shallow groove on an overdone medial thigh can be corrected with fat transfer.
It is important to understand that liposuction and fat transfer using your fat cells, also known as an autograft transfer, is essential to the gold standard today for body volume replacement. This is because using your tissue completely disregards any risk of your body rejecting the tissue. Implants and other foreign objects have a high risk of our body rejecting the transfer and leading to destruction and scar tissue of that foreign material. Essentially, that is why liposuction and fat transfer go hand in hand.
Now, none of this can be achieved without liposuction. It is important to understand that liposuction is more of an art than a surgical procedure. For me, it means treating you like an art masterpiece. I will melt the fat in both the superficial and deep layers and then remove the fat like a sculptor. I use my non-dominant hand to give you even contours, muscle highlights, and exaggerated curves. Therefore, it is fair to say that liposuction and fat transfer is a two-edged sword. Where one edge I liposuction your undesired areas and give them that fantastic desire looks that you dream of, and the other edge is where I note flat areas, lack volume, have divots, and transfer fat to them to create the perfect sculpture.
That is why it is important to seek advice from an experienced surgeon and artist like myself. A lot of other surgeons might tell you that you need a breast lift when in reality all you may need is to transfer some fat to your upper breast poles to fill them. By doing this you then avoid a huge surgical cost and more importantly scars from an incision. Additionally, you might worry that you might not have enough fat to complete a successful transfer. This is typically not the case, because of VASER liposuction technology. Using VASER technology I can collect 40 to 50% more fat than other surgeons. This is because VASER allows me to go after both the superficial fat and deep fat, while conventional liposuction only targets the deep layers.
In summary, it is important to understand that liposuction and the fat transfer will allow you to achieve a High Definition outcome, what we refer to as a near-perfect 9 or 10 on our High Definition Liposuction body scale. This is because the two go hand to hand as a double edge sword, two different procedures that allow for the same outstanding desired body that you have always dreamed of.