Can Silicone Oil Be Removed From My Buttocks?

Q: Hello Dr. Eppley, is it possible since you’ve had experience with silicone injections running out before during your surgeries for you to do a surgery and just let as much of the oil as possible run out?? I had the same injections but I don’t know if they were done in my tissue of my gluteus muscle. What happens to the gluteus muscle if it is injected?? Does the muscle absorb the silicone oil??

A: The injection of silicone oil for buttock augmentation is almost always done in the subcutaneous fat and not the gluteal muscle. It is taught to be placed as a ‘microdroplet’ approach, meaning to try and disperse the silicone oil into many small pockets and not just one big one. In the buttock, it is not really a microdroplet approach but more like smaller island or pockets of silicone oil placewd through the buttock. Silicone oil is not absorbed no matter whether it is injected into fat or muscle. It is an inert material thaty can not be metabolized by the human body.

Because it is dispersed out through the fat, it is nit really possible to perform a surgery to ‘drain it out’. This would only be possible if there was one large pocket of silicone oil confirmed by an MRI or if there were some problematic areas or pockets that would bebnefit by some drainage. But because multiple incisions would be needed to drain small pockets, this would end up causing significant buttock deformation. Unless certains areas are causing problems such as swelling and pain, it is best to leave them alone.

I have run across silicone oil pockets inadvertently during buttock lifts and any drainage that was achieved was coincidental not intentional.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis Indiana