The Massive Weight Loss Patient

In recent years, we have been seeing an increasing number of patients who have lost 100 lbs or more.  These "massive weight loss" (MWL) patients present a particular challenge in body contouring surgery.  The old standard body contouring procedures did not achieve good results when applied to the MWL patient.  Only in recent years have we developed new and special techniques for treating the MWL patient.  Dr. Borud has been and continues to be an innovator and  a leader in this field of plastic surgery on the national and international levels.

Gastric bypass procedures have become far more commonplace in the last few years.  Over 160,000 bariatric operations (mostly laparoscopic gastric bypass or lapband) were performed in the United States last year alone.  These patients are benefiting from reduction in diabetes, arthritis, hypertension, and other serious medical problems of obesity.  Many if not all such patients are left with tremendous amounts of excess skin when their weight loss is completed – usually about a year or so after the gastric bypass procedure.  In most patients, the skin had been stretched beyond its elastic limits during their period of obesity.  In other words, no amount of muscle “toning”, lifting, gym work, further weight loss, or other activity will adequately rid the patient of this skin excess.  Patients, friends, and family members are frequently under the misconception that the MWL patient can simply "work off" the skin excess.  Often, the excess skin can cause medical problems including rashes and infections under the "pannus" in front.  It can also prevent the patient from wearing appropriately fitting clothing.

Here at BIDMC, we have an extensive experience here in body recontouring after gastric bypass including panniculectomy (removal of excess abdominal skin), brachioplasty (removal of excess upper arm skin), breast lift, thigh lift, lower body lift and neck lift.  Our web site covers these procedures individaully, and we encourage you to browse through the procedure-specific pages.