What to Expect on the Day of Tumescent Liposuction

Upon arriving at the Laser Medical Skin Center you will be greeted and asked to re-sign your surgical-consent forms. You will then be escorted to the operating room. Pre-operative photographs will be taken and the areas on your body that are to be treated with liposuction are marked wit a felt-tip pen. Photos will be taken of the markings and you will discuss these and the plan for the treatment with the doctor. It usually takes about 30 minutes after arrival before the surgery begins.

For safety purposes, we routinely place an intravenous (IV) access in your arm. It consists of a small plastic IV tube with a rubber stopper on the outside through which medication can be injected if needed. The IV access is much like the car seat-belt; it is put in place routinely but it is only rarely needed. A blood pressure cuff is placed on your opposite arm, and cardiac monitor leads are placed on your chest. An oxygen sensor may also be placed on a finger.

Next, using extremely thin and short little needles, the doctor or the nurse will anesthetize the skin at sites where the longer needles will be inserted to anesthetize the subcutaneous fat. Patients usually experience a slight pricking sensation as the skin becomes "numb".

Next, a volume of dilute tumescent anesthetic solution is carefully and gently injected into the targeted fat. Once an area has been well infiltrated with the anesthetic solution, the fat is usually completely numb. The infiltration of the local anesthetic is a slow careful process that can take as long to complete as the liposuction itself. After the infiltration of the anesthetic is complete, but before beginning liposuction, you may go to the bathroom one more time.

Experience has shown that giving a sedative by mouth often permits better local anesthesia than when intravenous sedatives are used. This is because an alert patient is more capable of detecting subtle areas of incomplete anesthesia. A patient who is too sedated might easily ignore an incompletely anesthetized area, and then feel more discomfort when liposuction is actually done. Therefore minimizing sedation actually maximizes patient comfort.

After completing liposuction absorbent pads are placed over the incision. The incisions are so small that no stitches are required. Finally, the IV-line is discontinued and the Tumescent Liposuction Compression Garments are put on. Then you are ready to get up and go home. Because of residual local anesthetic, it is several hours after completing the liposuction before any significant soreness begins. Although you will feel well enough after surgery to drive yourself home, you must not do so, because large amounts of local anesthetic may cause some drowsiness.

The tumescent technique minimizes postoperative discomfort. Because the residual local anesthesia lasts for 18 to 36 hours, plain Tylenol is sufficient to treat post-operative discomfort. With the Tumescent Technique there is no post-surgical nausea, nor the unpleasant feeling of a "hang-over" usually associated with general anesthesia.