The real challenge for plastic surgeons is dealing with those arms that aren't blessed with the fortune of having fantastic skin resiliency and "flab" due mostly to a small amount of fat. In my Palo Alto plastic surgery practice, that translates to a good 95% of patients out there with this complaint, unfortunately for everyone.
Like I've said in this blog before, plastic surgery is not magic. We don't yet have anything in our plastic surgical armamentarium that makes extra skin disappear without scars. What we do have is surgery, which always leaves scars.
A lot of what makes scars heal nicely (dare I say, invisibly?) is mostly dependent on you and your genetics. A few external, controllable factors come into play: smoking and sun exposure (avoid both if you want to heal well and nicely). Lastly, as plastic surgeons, we do have a few tricks and techniques up our sleeves to make those scars look as good as possible, but again, we're not magicians.
So imagine your arm looks like this:
What you've got there is mostly extra, sagging skin on the underside of your arm; a little bit of fat, too. A brachioplasty removes that extra skin and fat - in a similar fashion to many of the other body contouring procedures we plastic surgeons do (like tummy tucks and thigh lifts) - so that the normal contour of the arm is restored (there's that triceps!):
But like I've mentioned previously, it's not magic. In exchange for getting rid of that stubborn flab, you end up with a long scar along the underside of your upper arm, sort of like a seam on a shirt:
A well placed scar won't be very visible if your arms are at your side. However, not everyone is willing to make that trade off, especially if your goal is to show off in a tiny tank top or bitsy bikini.The surgery is usually performed under general anesthesia (that means going to sleep with a breathing tube down your throat), takes anywhere from one and a half to three hours, and if the brachioplasty is the only procedure being done, patients can go home afterward with compression garments that need to be worn for several weeks. Routine postoperative follow up and care is done in the office.
Unsightly scarring is always a risk, as well as asymmetry, change in sensation or nerve damage.
Brachioplasty is certainly not a perfect solution for the problem of flabby arms (when our nation's hardworking scientists discover magic, I'll be the first to let you know). But if it's the constant flapping that is the bane of your existence or the nightmare of finding clothes that actually fit, brachioplasty can help change your life.
Next week: maybe we'll tackle the topic of tummy tucks.
