Many post-bariatric surgery patients experience an extreme loss in skin elasticity that leads them to have body contouring procedures, which greatly differ from contouring procedures performed on normal weight patients.
After contouring, these patients' skin will still loosen and sag much faster with age, according to Jeffrey M. Kenkel, MD, chair of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) Post-Bariatric Task Force. Dr. Kenkel will moderate a panel today discussing how post-bariatric plastic surgery differs from standard body contouring techniques at the ASPS Plastic Surgery 2004 conference in Philadelphia.
"When a person loses a large amount of weight in a short period of time, particularly after bariatric surgery, the person has large amounts of extra skin," said Dr. Kenkel. "Bariatric surgery isn't just a commitment to weight loss. It often requires an additional two years of body contouring surgeries to help the patient's skin fit his or her new body."
"The skin and tissue from a gastric bypass patient is different from healthy normal weight patients," continued Dr. Kenkel. "With post-bariatric patients, their tissue is permanently damaged from being stretched to such an extreme. It has lost its ability to maintain tightness or tone to some degree. Even though we can make the skin fit the body again through plastic surgery, these patients' skin will loosen much faster than patients with normal skin."