Fat Transfer Procedure Explained by Phoenix Plastic Surgeon

In preparation for fat transfer or lipostructure as I like to call it, we have patients follow some specific preoperative instructions. For about five days before, we have them avoid aspirin, Motrin, vitamin E and other medications or things that can thin their blood. We also have them take an antibiotic before hand and something called Mephyton which is vitamin K which helps prevent excessive bruising after the procedure. On the day of the procedure, they come in, we take some photos of course and then we take them into the room and prep the area. Basically, what we do is we find where they have some excessive fat, typically that is below the bellybutton on the belly and we numb up a little space right at the belly button and that’s a pinch through that little space, we are able to go under the skin and not on the fat. That’s more pinchy than painful and so once that area is numbed, we are able to remove fat, we call harvesting fat. We use a small little cannula or tube and a syringe. I don’t use vacuum syringe like they do in liposuction to remove the fat because that can damage some of the cells. In all of the years of doing fat transfers or microlipoinjection, we have learned how to baby the fat so that most of it survives. If you break those cells, as you are removing them or replacing them, they will not survive. So the high vacuum removal of cells I think is a no-no, so we are very careful about just doing syringe removal and we remove enough fat to do the job. We spin it down in a special centrifuge that does not break cells again and transfer them into sterile syringes. At that point, I have already marked your face where you need the fat replaced and we will go and we will put fat in under the eyes or in this area or this area or along the jawline, sometimes even in the brow or forehead or temples and by doing that, we are able to revolumize you and give you some fat back and once that happens we are able to give you some postoperative instructions and let you go home. That evening you will do some light co-compressors, we do not like ice on the new fat, we do not want to slow the blood supply and have the cells die and the next day we have you come in and we look at you and make sure everything looks good. Typically, we have some swelling and sometimes some bruising probable one in five people will bruise. Most people don’t bruise, four out of five do very well and you will have some swelling, but the people we are replacing fat on usually look good in the swelling, because they need the volume and so over the next three or four days, most of the swelling will start to go down by the end of a week, the majority of the swelling is gone, there is still some there, but the majority is gone and by the end of the 90 days, we know how much fat is going to remain and how much will be lost due to the take away of the broken cells.