Should weight loss be before or after surgery?

Heartland Plastic and Hand Surgery welcomes men and women from various communities of Missouri, including Farmington, Poplar Bluff and nearby Marion/Carbondale in Illinois.

Occasionally we will have patients who will corne in for a cosmetic consultation and be interested in a breast reduction or abdominoplasty and state that after they are all healed, they want to go to the gym and lose 30 – 40 pounds. That is the exact opposite of what we recommend. Ideally, I would like patients to be within 10 – 15 pounds of the weight they realistically think they can maintain. We all have our ideal weight that we wish we weighed, and then there is a realistic weight where our body seems to stay. We do want to be within 10 – 15 pounds of that realistic weight. At the time of the consultation if the patient states they want to lose 30 – 40 pounds, we will usually postpone any type of surgery until they have lost that weight. We will discuss various options to help with that weight loss, and potentially refer them to several of the facilities in the area that do have a weight loss program with good success. We will often bring them back in a 3 – 6 month window to check their progress, see how much weight they have lost and revisit the areas of concern that they raised during their consultation.