The Benefits of Fat Transfer for Face & Body
Fat. The word has a negative connotation for most of us. Whether it’s the inch we can pinch on our upper arms or the love handles we’d love to lose, fat is generally something we’d all like to get rid of. But, have you ever seen someone who has lost a tremendous amount of weight? Losing a high percentage of your bodyfat can have a profoundly positive impact on your overall health, but a detrimental one to other aspects of your appearance. From gaunt, aged facial features to the flattening of the breasts and buttocks, it’s easy to see that fat plays a crucial role in maintaining the volume, firmness, and lift to many parts of the body. Because of this, the use of your body’s fat to restore youthful volume to your face and other body parts is on the rise. Let’s take a closer look at how transferring fat from one part of your body to another can benefit your appearance and enhance some of the other surgical procedures you may be considering at Edina Plastic Surgery.
What is Fat Transfer?
“Fat Transfer, or “fat grafting,” is a surgical process that harvests fat from one area of your body, such as the abdomen, and transfers it to another area, such as the face or breasts,” explains Dr. Robert Wilke, a Board-Certified Plastic Surgeon with Edina Plastic Surgery. “We remove the initial fat using liposuction,” he continues. “It is then processed and cleaned, and the purified fat is then reinjected to restore volume and shape to another area of the face or body you wish to enhance,” says Dr. Wilke. “A percentage of the transplanted fat will progressively die after transfer, generally within the first 6-weeks after the procedure. We tend to “over-fill” the area somewhat to help compensate for this, but often a secondary lipotransfer may be helpful at some point in the future to optimize results.”
Why use Fat?
Fat lasts much longer than traditional dermal fillers commonly used to restore volume to the face. This longevity is an important consideration for patients who have been treating with dermal fillers, like Voluma®, for years if not decades. In cases such as these, Fat Transfer can be a more cost-effective option for facial rejuvenation over time.
Fat Transfer is desirable to many people because it does not use anything foreign to the body. There are no chemicals or synthetics reinjected into the body. Also, Fat Transfer allows you to take away fat from an undesirable area, such as your abdomen or upper thighs, and use it to enhance another part of your body. As a result, it is becoming increasingly popular for traditional liposuction patients to add Face, Breast, or Buttocks Fat Transfer on to their procedure to further enhance the shape of their bodies.
“There are some really interesting benefits of Fat Transfer that are being studied by the medical community,” adds Dr. Wilke. “There are some exciting therapeutic properties such as transferred fat being able to heal wounds, scars, and even damaged breast tissue after radiation treatment,” he explains. “Our fat has a very high concentration of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) whose regenerative properties continue to be observed and studied.”
Benefits of Facial Volume Restoration with Fat Transfer
- Very natural-looking results
- Restore youthful volume to hollowed under eyes, flattened cheeks, nasolabial folds, jawline, and even lips
- Helps repair facial scarring
- Improves texture, smoothness, and overall appearance to the skin
- Longer lasting than dermal fillers
- More cost-effective than dermal fillers over time
- Can be performed with Facelift Surgery
Benefits of Breast Enhancement with Fat Transfer
- Beautiful, natural-looking results that don’t require an implant (the increase in size is usually limited to a maximum of one cup size)
- Correct asymmetrical breasts
- Can be performed with liposuction surgery for a Mommy Makeover without implants
- Sometimes used to repair tissue damaged by radiation treatment, and scars from lumpectomy or breast reconstruction
Benefits of Buttocks Enhancement with Fat Transfer
- Helps create a fuller, shapelier looking buttocks without implants
- Can be combined with liposuction surgery to enhance your shape further
Would you like to discuss whether Fat Transfer is an appropriate option for you? Are you interested to learn if Fat Transfer can benefit another surgical procedure you are considering? Schedule a consultation with an Edina Plastic Surgery Plastic Surgeon by calling (952) 925-1765!
