Fat Transfer Risks and Benefits

When not satisfied with their bodies and the way they look, a lot of people turn to a couple of traditional methods – from a visit to the nutritionist and an alternated dieting regime with focus towards healthier food to joining the gym and making hard training sessions the most important things in their lives. 

But, if you have more important problems and issues that affect the quality of your life, dieting and exercising is sometimes not enough. This is especially true for some body imperfections and deformities that cannot be treated easily. Therefore, some people choose a different option and pay a visit to a surgeon planning to change their appearance by subjecting to a treatment called fat transfer. This is easier and simpler than other tactics and still produces visible results, has a number of benefits and is considered absolutely safe and thoroughly tested. So, what is this procedure, what are the perks, who are the most common patients and what negative sides of this treatment are there?

Fat Transfer Basics

Fat transfer is a popular name for a procedure that includes transferring fat from one part of your body to another – basically, taking it from an area that has too much of it to the ones that do not have enough. Among many options, some of the most common transfer areas are thighs and abdomen, while the receiving area can be everything from face and hands to breasts and buttocks. While the reasons for this procedure are various, people usually succumb to it because of their face deformity – their face looks sunken due to an injury or illness – as well as scar tissue issues that can be resolved this way or some permanent corrections on their face. Finally, it is not rare for women who desire a breast reconstructive surgery to opt for this procedure.

Benefits

As mentioned before, this operation is done by your own fat and parts of your own body are reconstructed with it. Due to this, the risk factor is much, much lower: since surgeons take something that has already belonged to you – the so-called autologous fat – and insert it into another part of your body, the risks involved are generally smaller than if you were to receive fat from someone else’s body, or give your own to another person. That is why this procedure is safe, while, nonetheless, quite long-lasting – once done properly, effects are visible for a significant amount of time – and even individuals with low immunity can tolerate it.

A special kind of patients for fat transfer are women in need of a breast augmentation. Due to various reasons, from cancer treatment to accidents, some of them simply want this reconstructive procedure, but are against implants. This is where fat transfer comes in handy and gets the job done as good as implant-inserting surgery. Moreover, women can do more than one transfer if they are not satisfied with the outcome of the first one, which is why this option is reliable, safe and even preferable in many cases.

Risks and Negative Sides

In addition to numerous perks of fat transfer, there are a couple of risk factors that should be taken into consideration and some negative sides to this option. Namely, when compared to more traditional procedures, this one requires more time because there are several steps and all are time-consuming: fat tissue has to be prepared, fat extracted and then inserted into already prepared surgical space. Of course, dermal fillers and breast implants are ready to use and quite faster in comparison to this. Moreover, a patient, especially for breast operation, may need more than one session to reach the goals and multiple operations are common occurrence with fat transfer. Finally, due to all these things, fat transfer costs more than a simpler dermal procedure.

Some of the risks may include infection of the skin, hematoma and other types of blood accumulation, scarring and allergic reactions, as well as a slight feeling of numbness. However, this is expected with every surgical treatment and is not limited to fat transfer exclusively and not that serious even when it occurs.

As one of the rare procedures that are considered completely safe and non-threatening to your health, there are more perks than risks regarding fat transfer. This is why it has been gaining popularity during the last several years, among patients and doctors equally.