Abdominoplasty with Umbilical Float

Thinking about Abdominoplasty surgery? Below is a guest post written by Aurora Plastic Surgeon Adrian Richards.

Hello, my name’’s Adrian Richards. I’’m a Plastic Surgeon and the Surgical Director of Aurora Clinics.

Today I’’m going to be talking about an operation I performed for a lady recently which was a mini abdominoplasty procedure.  Now she didn’’t have much tissue excess in the central part of her tummy but she did have some in the flanks and that’s why I performed a mini abdominoplasty rather than a full abdominoplasty.

She did have some abdominal laxity, particularly in the lower part of the tummy, and I’ addressed this by repairing the muscles in this region.

Now I’ll talk you through the procedure.

I used local anaesthetic on the incision site, and adrenaline to minimise any bleeding. The next stage really was just to elevate the skin off the rectus fascia and in this case, I’ isolated the tummy button from below.

I divided the tummy button from inside, whereas on a traditional abdominoplasty it would be divided from outside. I then brought the tummy button down slightly, before reattaching it from inside and inserting some plication stitches to prevent any fluid forming.

I then removed the skin. I like to do this centrally as it helps me make everything nice and symmetrical and I can just check that everything fits nicely, before removing the skin in two halves.

I’ always measure and weigh these two halves to make sure they’’re absolutely symmetrical. The vertical amount of skin removed in this case was approximately ten centimetres. I also used some liposuction on the flanks to reduce those slightly.

I sewed up the area in three layers, being careful not to create any tension in my stitches. The final layer of stitching was a subcuticular absorbable stitch which just needed to be trimmed at the end but doesn’t need to be removed. This gives the best scar in my opinion so I don’’t use any clips or old-fashioned cross stitches.

Finally, I put Dermabond tissue glue on the wounds to seal them, which gave extra protection and allowed the patient to shower from the first and second day following surgery.

For any more information about tummy tucks or any other form of plastic or cosmetic surgery, please contact us via our website or by calling 01324 578290.