So here she is actually in theatre, that’s my lower incision, this is all the skin I’m going to remove.  So you can see she’s been so much bigger and there’s so much excess skin.  So I’m going to aim to remove all of this.  Here I am, the first stage is really just to cut around the tummy button so I’m making a mark around the tummy button and then I’ll cut around the tummy button, I’ve shown this on other videos, and leave the tummy button on a stalk there.  There you can see there’s the stalk and the tummy button will have its own blood supply.  So you can see there’s the tummy button on the stalk and I’ll shorten that tummy button to give a nice natural curve to the tummy button area.

So here I am making a lower incision, so I’ll do that with the knife as you can see here.  She’s had spinal anaesthetic so it won’t bleed very much and she’ll have good pain relief.  Here I’ve just elevated that excess skin so you can see that’s all the excess skin I’ve removed and I’m just going to divide it in the middle.  I like to remove the skin in two parts so I’m dividing from that lower incision, right up to the tummy button, remember where there’s a stalk on the tummy button so I’m going to remove right up to there.  In this case, there’s really quite a lot of skin, much more than is usually found in these cases.  So you can see I’m going really right up there to the tummy button, still a bit of a way to go to the tummy button but I’m nearly there now. 

So this is up to the tummy button, this is the skin I’m going to remove, this is how far I’ve elevated the skin and then the skin’s going to be pulled down in this area.  Here you can see from the other angle, that’s the tummy button I’m just holding in my left hand there, I’m going to shorten that.  You can see how big she was by how long the tummy button stalk is.  Here I am just cutting, this is the upper incision here so very careful to keep the midline.  I do everything here cutting down the middle so everything’s going to be nice and accurate and then this is just cleaning up either side.  Then really the next stage is to just remove that excess skin.  So you can see that’s where the tummy button is, I was indicating with my left hand that’s where it’s going to go, that’s the tummy button and that’s going to come through the skin there.

So the next stage is really to bring the tummy button through that hole that I’ve created there and sew it in with absorbable stitches and then to remove the skin.  So in this case, I’m removing approximately 30cm of skin from that area vertically.  So here we go, I’m just going to cut through the skin here, you can see we’re holding it down, this is the skin I’m going to remove.  As I said, 30cm of skin in this case because she’s really lost so much weight and it’s almost as if the skin doesn’t fit her adequately now.  So this is the skin I’ve removed, you can see here, from either side.  In total, I removed almost three kilos from this lady and you can see that’s the skin from the front and I’m going to perform a very similar procedure on the back, removing skin from the back.

So I hope you’ve found this video interesting, if you’d like any information about this type of surgery following weight loss or any other type of treatment, please visit our website or give us a ring on our phone number.  Thank you very much for watching.

Body Lift Interview