Liposuction is performed to areas of unwanted fats such as ones’ hips, abdomen, thighs (inner and outer), and arms. The unwanted fat is collected and will go through a centrifugation process to separate and remove unwanted components such as blood, water or oil. The remaining fat is then collected and injected to areas such as smile lines, cheeks, lips, dorsum of the hands, breasts and butt. This process is known as fat grafting.
It depends on which area we are grafting the fat and one example commonly requested is the buttocks. The fat needs to establish a new connection with the blood vessels for oxygen and nutrition in order to survive. It is crucial to inject the fat cells in small amounts like thin spaghetti because if you inject too much in bullous or lump, the inner part of the fat inside the bullous will not get enough nutrition, then the fat cells will die and will be reabsorbed before they can be connected with the blood vessel.
I usually inject around 200cc to 400 cc of fat into each buttock at the subcutaneous layer and not into the muscle to avoid the risk of fat embolism. The final results will usually show after 3 to 4 months’ time.
If the main goal is augmenting a breast or buttock with fat grafting and if the patient has enough fat around the body, we may need more than 1 stage of lipo and fat grafting because there is limit of how much fat we can graft per area and I cannot store your fat in the refrigerator but in your own body. Once we harvest the desired amount of fat to graft, we will stop the liposuction to keep some fat in the patient ’s body for the next session.
For this procedure, I like to perform it in the operating theatre in the hospital where the environment is well equipped and safe. The procedure time will vary from 1 hr to 4 hrs depending on how large a liposuction we need to do and how many areas of fat grafting we need to perform. The patient is advised to stay at least a minimal of 1 night in the hospital.
There will be some slight bruising around the liposuction area and the grafted areas for about 1 week and one can resume back to normal exercise after 2 weeks when he or she feels well. In some cases where liposuction is done in a few areas, I will advise the patient to wear a surgical support garment for around 2 weeks or more.
