Can The Lumpiness In My Abdomen After Liposuction Be Improved?

Q: I have some severe lumps from a previous liposuction therapy on my upper and lower abdomen. I have since attempted corrective surgery, but it has actually made the issue worse. Is it possible to better the results? I have attached some pictures of my abdomen so you can see how bad it is.

A: A very lumpy and irregular abdomen after liposuction is a difficult problem indeed. This is doubly so considering you have had two attempts to correct it. Lumpiness after abdominal liposuction is the result of uneven fat removal, leaving behind a surface of high and low spots. The most common reason this occurs in the abdomen is from the use of a non-cross tunneling technique. In an effort to eliminate any visible entry points, many inexperienced practitioners perform the liposuction exclusively from inside the centrally-located belly button in a 360 degree radiating pattern. This can result in unevenness in fat removal due to the radiating linear pattern. It is always better to use to two waistline entry points (one on each side of the waistline) in addition to the belly button location to ‘cross’ the linear liposuction strokes. This creates a cross-hatching pattern throughout the entire abdomen and helps lessen the risk of leaving flat surface irregularities.

Can your lumpy abdomen be secondarily improved by using this liposuction technique? That would depend on knowing how your original procedures and the subsequent revisions were performed. If no cross-tunneling has ever been performed, then this revisional liposuction approach may be considered. But the hope of having a perfectly smooth abdomen is not a realistic outcome when one has this liposuction complication. The best result at this point is some degree of less abdominal unevenness.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis Indiana