Is your flabby, after-pregnancy abdomen getting you down? Have you’ve gone the dieting and exercise route with very little change? You’re not alone. Fat deposits and loose skin in the abdominal area sometimes doesn’t go away no matter what you do. There is a solution and it’s called a tummy tuck. This major surgical procedure removes excess skin and fat from the lower abdomen and tightens the muscles of the abdominal wall.
“Tummy tucks are the most emotionally-driven procedure that I do,” explained Dr. Otto Weiglein of the Centre for Personal Surgery. “Women are so distressed with the accumulation of fat, the roundness and the stretch marks they have after pregnancy, which occurs because the muscles of the front of the abdominal wall that are supposed to keep your stomach flat don’t stretch, but separate.”
A tummy tuck addresses these issues: it gets rid of the stretch marks from the belly button downwards, it gets rid of the fat from the lower abdominal area and most importantly it repairs the muscles to where they were before pregnancy.
The procedure takes about two hours; it is an operation and it does require a general anesthetic, but it’s done on a day surgery basis so you can go home afterwards. The recovery time after you get home is about two weeks. After recovery Dr. Weiglein encourages his clients to keep themselves fit. “I can’t make your muscles strong,” he said. “I can only put them back to where they were so you can make them strong.
No one ever regrets having this operation. “It’s such a satisfying procedure. We have people coming back years later and they’re still glad they’ve had this operation.”
The best candidates for a tummy tuck are men or women who are in relatively good shape both physically and emotionally. The surgery is particularly helpful to women who, through multiple pregnancies, have stretched their abdominal muscles and skin beyond the point where they can return to normal. It also works for older patients who have lost elasticity due to weight gain and loss.
More information can be found at the Centre’s web site at
www.cosmedicacanada.com.
