Dr. William Albright’s answer is always the four S's and every patient should answer these questions before they undergo cosmetic surgery. Check out the YouTube video below as well!
Your safety is our number one priority. Safety is important for cosmetic elective surgery as we want to minimize risk as best we can to get the best cosmetic outcome safety is really the only S where I can give a patient feedback. In general for breast surgery, we recommend a body mass index below 30 for body contouring surgery it's a little bit questionable between body mass index of 30 to 35 but generally accepted that a body mass index over 35 does come with additional risks. The first S, safety, does not actually relate to the quality of the Cosmetic result. It is really a question of risk to reward right now. How much risk you're willing to accept to get the surgery performed.
Is the patient satisfied with their current weight? This really important because we want to make sure the patient is happy with where their weight , and they're not going to want to Tinker with their weight after surgery either by gaining or losing weight after surgery. Both of these might compromise the result. For body contouring weight change will definitely change the way the procedure looks. For breast surgery, we would like to avoid significant weight loss and this is because it may deflate the breasts and and cause some droopiness that wasn't there before.
o this is the one everyone kind of knows already, but what does it really mean to be stable? I have a loose definition myself. For most women if their weight is within a five pound window for the span of at least six months that's essentially stable weight. For the average male patient, that window may be more like 10 pounds and again stable for at least six months. This means the weight should not change dramatically before or after surgery which will increase the chance of a long lasting quality cosmetic result.
This is often the Forgotten piece of the puzzle for most patients. It is linked to stable. For sustainable this is that whatever we are doing to keep our weight stable (diet, exercise, medications, etc) we plan to continue to do those things for the next five to ten years. Again this makes sure we have long-term stability for our weight. Why is this important? You may have heard about patients that do dramatic dieting or exercise to lose weight before cosmetic surgery. They’re doing things that they can't sustain like exercising too much going on very restrictive diets that they can't sustain or taking medications that they're not supposed to take for more than a few months or a year. They may then have a dramatic change in their weight and compromise their result.
So these are the four S's. Everyone should be able to answer those yes, yes, yes, and yes before having cosmetic surgery. They will know that they're ready for their cosmetic surgery and get the best outcome possible. As always we have a couple of caveats
1. This is generalized information. It js not meant for personal medical advice.
2. When we're talking about weight in this context we're really referring to body composition and specifically the fatty component of our body composition. Personally I think if we could somehow talk in body composition for most patients that would be ideal but most people don't have a way to assess their body composition over time that's reliable.
3. I also mentioned body mass index or BMI and this term has has come under scrutiny recently for good reasons. It is just one way of of talking about our weight and referring to body composition in general. It’s not great for everybody. There maybe body builders or people with high muscle mass where BMI is clearly not a good indicator.
Are you ready for your cosmetic body contouring surgery? Give us a call at 210-670-5302 or visit our webpage alamoplasticsurgery.com. You can visit us on social media @alamoplasticsurgery on Instagram or Facebook and we'd be happy to meet you and help you achieve your goals!
