I’m now 18 lbs from goal, which if I continue on my trend I should hit in October. I want a lower body lift, arm lift, and breast lift done. I met with two surgeons today, and have a third consult next week. I was very surprised in the different opinions/approaches of the two doctors today. Both were very nice, personable, and professional and per their photos have good results and good reviews online. Here’s what they had to say:

Arm lift:
Doc #1 said he could do all three procedures on the same day. He said my arms would have a great outcome, would require a compression garment for 2-4 weeks, each would have a drain in for the first 7 days.
Doc #2 does arm lifts as an in office procedure under local anesthesia only! Internal sutures only with minimal steri strips, NO compression garment, said he often has people return to work after just a day or two off!

Breast lift:
Doc #1 pushed hard for implants, which I don’t want and don’t think I need. I’m a 36DD right now and wouldn’t mind if the tissue removed from the lift dropped me a cup size. He would do the lift/implant same surgery as the other procedures.

Doc #2 agreed my breast size is fine, and would look great with just a lift. He would do the lift along with the LBL.

Lower body lift:

Doc #1 said he’d do a belt lipectomy and would leave in a drain on each side.

Doc #2 said I don’t need a belt lipectomy, just a extended hip-to-hip incision. Again, NO drains. He uses a quilted internal stitching technique which he said reduces drainage to nearly none.

Doc #2 is who I am leaning towards. He has about 10 years more experience. Sounds like his recoveries are quicker and easier. I’d say their photo results and reviews are on par with each other. The quote for Doc #2 was about $6000 less ($40,000 vs $34,000).

Both doctors agreed a December/January planned surgery time frame is reasonable.

I’m so excited to be starting down this road! Hopefully after my third consultation on Thursday I come away with a clear preference.

I’ll update this thread as I go along.

Bat wing photo for reference, I’ve lost about 10 more pounds since this was taken.

awesome!! which surgeon did you end up going to?

On 07/27/2021 at 01:56, Sandee29 said:

awesome!! which surgeon did you end up going to?

Dr Alex Earle at Pure Plastic Surgery in Miami. He and his team are really awesome.

On 6/26/2020 at 11:11 PM, catwoman7 said:

a lot of people travel - some even go across the country - or out of the country. There are no plastic surgeons in my area who either specialize in massive weight loss patients or have done a truckload of surgeries on them, and I felt that was important. Supposedly plastic surgery on massive weight loss patients is a complicated subspeciality, so I wanted someone who has does them all the time (or better yet, specializes in it). So I had to go to Chicago for that, which fortunately is only a two-hour drive from here. I was OK with that. I figured if I had some complication after I got home that no local MD wanted to deal with, at least I could drive back down there fairly easily.

P.S. those quotes you got were about what I was finding. I was told both here and on another forum to expect about $8K-10K per procedure, with an LBL counting as two procedures (since they do front & back). I found that rung true. That was a couple of years ago, but it sounds like your estimates are in the same ballpark.

Who did you see? How long after your goal weight did you have surgery? I’m past goal (reached normal BMI at 6 months). Now down another 10 lbs. I feel like the excess skin is making me think I can’t just try to maintain.