Unwanted fat

Peach can help you reduce those saddlebags, that belly or those “tuck-shop arms” using “mesotherapy” injections or liposculpture / liposuction.

Case study
unwanted fat treatment sydney Neck liposculpture 1 from Dr Mahony
Clear need for neck liposculpture. Loose skin dictated that a Contour thread be performed as well. Great results achieved

I go to a gym. Not as often as I would like, not as often as I should, but I benefit well from the workouts I get there. Every time I go to the gym I see one particular woman working on her lower abdomen. She does sit-ups. She does crunches. She does squats. She does more sit-ups. She’s trying to reduce her abdominal fat, but her work isn’t going to work. It would be rude of me to tell her that her workout isn’t working, but every week I’m tempted. We can, through diet and exercise, profoundly influence the general amount of fat on our bodies. We can put it on all over, and we can take it off all over. However, we CANNOT, through specific dietary and exercise measures, remove fat for any specific location without removing fat from everywhere else as well. The woman I see at the gym wants to lose fat from her abdomen without losing fat from elsewhere, but it isn’t going to happen. I hear this all the time. “I’m just 50kg, but I’ve still got saddle bags. If I drop to 49kg my face is too thin and my bust shrinks further, but I’ve still got saddle bags. I’ve done yoga and Pilates and I’ve jogged. I’ve done weights and swimming and Capoeira. No matter what appoach I take, if I drop to 49kg I lose face and bust and the saddle bags don’t go.” Typically such a patient is in her 30s but may be in her 20s or 40s (even up to 80s). She is realising that as we get older our body shapes change, and fat gets deposited in specific areas such as the “love handles”, the “muffin top”, the “saddle bags”, and elsewhere.

There are two ways of reducing these fat deposits without changing overall body fat composition:

1) Liposculpture (sometimes called Liposuction)

Liposuction was once a gross affair, but important advances in recent years have made it a safe and artful procedure with mimimum risk.

Firstly, best results occur when the liposculpture is performed under “tumescent anaesthesia”. That is: local anaesthetic. A solution of local anaesthetic is made up that is 10 or even 20 times as dilute as the anaesthetic used when excising a mole or pulling a tooth. This dilute anaesthetic solution is then slowly infused into the area we want to treat, and in a large volume. The sheer volume of the anaesthetic helps to break up the fatty tissue we are going to remove, and helps to reduce, by pressure, any bleeding that might occur from the disruption of tiny blood vessels. The area we want to treat receives so much of the dilute local anaesthetic fluid that it becomes quite firm or “tumescent”. You might ask “why go through all this with the local anaesthetic, why not just have a general anaesthetic and sleep through the whole procedure?” The answer is that liposculpture under tumescent anaesthesia has been found to be over ten times safer than liposuction under general anaesthesia. There is less blood loss, less fluid loss, and obviously none of the general risks of a general anaesthetic. The second advance is that liposculptors now use finer and finer cannulas. The suction process occurs through a sterile tube, about half the width of a pencil, and as these tubes have become finer so the results of the treatments have become smoother. Of course, liposculpting through a fine tube is slower than through a wide tube, but the results are better. Thirdly, with greater global experience we have all come to understand the limitations of liposculture and to understand the importance of leaving enough fat, when we treat, so as to miminise the risk of an uneven result. For when ALL of the fat under a piece of skin is removed the skin would eventually attach to whatever structure was lying deep to the skin at that site. Such as muscle. Which would give an uneven result. The skill of liposculpture is to know what fat to leave behind, not just remove (paraphrased from Dr Pierre Fournier, global liposculpture pioneer). 2) Wouldn’t it be great if we could reduce fat from a particular area without even having to go through liposuction? Click over to the lipodissolve pages to find out more.

Specific sites Lower eyelids. It is possible to reduce fatty bulges under the lower eyelids by injection with phoshphatidylcholine. This approach avoids surgery, and we are confident will a place once protocols have been established.

Fatty bulges under the eye are often made apparent by a lack of fat directly beneath them. Into this absence a shadow is cast, leading to “dark circles under the eyes”.
This is something we can treat very easily with the dermal filler Restylane! Safe and affordable, Restylane to dark circles under eyes is one of our most popular treatments today! Come in and ask us!

The definitive alternative for bags under the eyes is blepharoplasty, or an operation to excise these bags. This is something we now offer, thanks to Dr Tony Prochazka Cheeks and jowls. If your lower cheeks are too fatty then come along and get injections of phosphatidylcholine to reduce the fat in a gradual manner. Your face will slim to a better balance. Small areas like this respond well to phosphatidylcholine, and the result will be even and natural. Under chin and neck. For small amounts of fat under the chin, mesotherapy with phosphatidylcholine is fine. If there is a lot of fat under your chin, or if you cannot contemplate tolerating half-a-dozen mesotherapy treatments over 6 months to get a result, then you should go straight to liposculpture.

The neck is probably the commonest site for liposculpture. Treatments are very successful: have a look at our case studies!

These are relatively small and safe treatments and should be more widely used to improve the form of the neck area in suitable patients. Chest. Around the chest, women may not like fatty bulges around their brastraps. Men sometimes complain excessive fatty tissue around the lower pectoral muscles. These sites can be suitably treated with either liposculpture or phosphatidylcholine depending on the individual case. Abdomen. Of course, many patients seek a reduction of abdominal fat, and both liposculpture and phosphatidylcholine are used to treat the abdomen, depending on the specifics of the case. There are a couple of specific points to make here, though. Firstly, for best results patients ought to be as close as they can practically get to their ideal weight prior undertaking treatment. This might sound odd, because it is natural to think of liposculpture and phosphatidylcholine mesotherapy as ideal ways to effortlessly lose weight, but you will find responsible doctors emphasize that these treatments are chiefly about changing shape rather than losing weight. Patients hoping to lose substantial amounts of weight by liposculpture are risking uneven results, and those seeking this result from mesotherapy will be most likely disappointed by slow results. Come and consult us about weight loss first, then once you are close to the best weight you are likely to be you’ll be better placed to get the best result from your fat-reducing treatments. The other point I want to make is that not all abdominal fat is treatable by either method. Some people have fat just under the skin, and some have their fat deep inside their abdomens. The deep fat is unreachable by injection or liposculpture. You can get an idea as to whether you have fat just under the skin or deep inside the abdomen by having a look at you umbilicus or “belly button”. If you have abdominal fat and your umbilicus is deep like a deep cave, you probably have fat just under the skin: the sort we can treat. If, on the other hand, you have a very shallow umbilicus or even a protruding umbilicus in the presence of excess abdominal fat, you most likely have most of your fat deep inside your abdomen where we cannot reach it with these treatments.
This is the sort of thing we must assess in consultation.

Muffin-tops, saddlebags, love-handles, tuck-shop arms (also called “bingo wings”)
These colourful terms memorably denote specific sites of excess subcutaneous fat that are well treated with either liposculpture or phosphatidylcholine depending on the case. Most of our work in this field is directed at treating these sites. If your overall weight is not too excessive then you can get good results from treating these areas. It’s very much worth a consultation to come along and ask us in person.