Liposuction or Tummy Tuck: Which is Right for You?

If there’s one constant in life, it’s change — especially when it comes to your body. Perhaps your weight has been on a roller coaster ride because of pregnancy or bariatric surgery. Or maybe your belly is simply succumbing to age and gravity. 

Whatever the case, you’re left dealing with the aftermath, which can be in the form of deposits of fat or loose skin around your abdomen — or both.

At Las Vegas Body Sculpting and Aesthetic, under the expert direction of Dr. Mustafa Ahmed, we’ve designed our whole practice around helping our patients in Las Vegas realize the bodies of their dreams. Through innovative and effective services, we can help you put the finishing touches on your weight loss efforts through liposuction or a tummy tuck, depending upon your concerns.

Here’s a look at what each procedure accomplishes, and which one is best for you.

Tucking it in

As we mentioned, your body can endure dramatic changes throughout your life, from weight gain and loss to the birth of a child. All too often, these changes endure as permanent reminders of these events.

Take, for example, pregnancy — in just nine short months a woman’s abdomen stretches to accommodate a growing life. This extreme stretching not only pushes your skin past its ability to bounce back, it may also separate your abdominal muscles, causing you to lose tone in your belly. And if you’ve undergone a cesarean section, the problem can be more pronounced.

As well, if you’ve lost a considerable amount of weight, you may be left with loose skin that doesn’t resettle properly over your new profile, in effect undermining your entire weight loss journey.

Rounding out this list of culprits behind an abdomen that lacks tone is simple age. As you get older, your skin doesn’t have the structural support it once had — namely collagen and elastin — so your skin tissue droops and sags.

In all three of these scenarios, a tummy tuck provides the ideal solution. During this procedure, we’re able to remove the excess tissue, repair your abdominal muscles if necessary, and even remove stubborn deposits of fat. The end result is a tummy that features tauter skin and more tone.

Tackling stubborn fat

If you’ve done the hard work and brought your weight to within your target range, only to be plagued by stubborn deposits of fat, we can tackle those unsightly bulges through liposuction. We make only small incisions in your abdomen, and thread a cannula through to loosen and suck out the excess fat.

This technique shouldn’t be considered the mainstay of your weight loss program — rather, it’s designed to put the finishing touches on your efforts by eliminating stubborn deposits of fat.

A combination approach

After assessing your body and your goals, we recommend a treatment plan that will best serve you, and it may be that we turn to both procedures. It’s impossible to say how your skin will resettle itself after liposuction — in some cases your skin reforms itself to your thinner profile while, in others, it remains lax.

If your skin doesn’t respond to your new shape after a few months, we may suggest a tummy tuck procedure to remove the excess tissue to better reflect your underlying loss of fat.

As well, we may also perform some degree of liposuction during a tummy tuck procedure to ensure that you get the results you want. Again, we present you with all of your options so you can make the choice that’s best for you.