Dr Michele Koo, MD, FACS, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon, St Louis, Missouri, 314-984-8331.

The patient is a 47 year old Missouri woman who started her journey of weight loss at 230 lbs and a size 22. On the day of her surgery, she weighed 185 lbs and was a size 16.

Dr Michele Koo performed a tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) and ultrasonic liposuction of her hips, waist, and thighs. She is shown in her after pictures at four months at 155lbs and a size 8. She couldn’t be more thrilled. The surgery performed by Dr Koo changed her life.

When the patient started dieting and losing weight, she consulted Dr Koo. The patient felt trapped and frustrated by her loose hanging skin, stretch marks and did not feel that she could continue her dieting and exercise without some type of plastic surgery procedure such as an abdominoplasty or tummy tuck and some type of liposuction. She needed help to continue to take charge of her life and her body.

Dr Koo was very encouraging and understanding and stressed the fact that the patient had already done the bulk of the hard work losing the weight and should not feel discouraged by the appearance of her trunk and belly (midriff) area. So many patients bounce up and down with their weight because they hit a plateau and can’t go any further with their appearance after working for so long exercising and restricting their diet. They feel completely exasperated that they cannot further change their tummy and get rid of the loose hanging skin.

Enter Dr Michele Koo, St Louis, Missouri, 314-984-8331, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon and a Member of the Aesthetic Society. She can and will safely take you the rest of the journey toward a flat tummy and a skinny waist. She will encourage you to continue your activity level and healthy diet without using supplements or crazy ultra restrictive diets. She might suggest a gastric bypass or a gastric banding first if you are extremely obese prior to any body contouring and liposuction procedures.

Dr Koo will be very honest with you that this is a long process and lifestyle change that she wants for you. After the tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) and liposuction, you will need time to recover over 2-4 weeks and more than likely will need even 6 weeks to full recovery of returning to strenuous work. However, Dr Koo will tighten your abdominal muscles stretched from pregnancy and remove all the excess loose hanging skin of your belly and make you look like a totally new person with the tummy tuck and liposuction.

Dr Michele Koo wants you to be well informed and the following exerpt from Heller, et al, Yale Medical Center should provide some background information. Functional abdominoplasty was first described by Kelly in 1899 and popularized for cosmetic purposes in 1967 by Pitanguy, who introduced the low transverse (i.e., bikini line) incision that could remove lower abdominal scars. Since this time, abdominoplasty procedures have rapidly gained popularity, with 102,497 being performed in 2004, an increase of 510 percent from 1992 levels and an increase of 24 percent from 2002 levels.

During this period, surgeons focused increased attention on reducing complications. Local complications such as hematoma, seroma, wound dehiscence, and skin necrosis occur in up to 32 percent of nonsmokers and as many as 52 percent of smokers. As such, greater effort has been set forth to define the vasculature of the abdomen to limit these complications. Huger described three vascular territories of the abdominal wall: zone 1 ranges from the xiphoid to the pubis between the lateral borders of the rectus abdominis and is supplied by the superior and inferior epigastric arteries; zone 2 is the trapezoidal area defined by anterosuperior iliac spine superiorly and by the groin inferiorly-its blood supply is from the superficial inferior epigastric, superficial circumflex iliac, and external pudendal arteries (superficial system) and from the deep inferior epigastric vessels (deep system); zone 3 is the area of the lateral abdomen and flanks and is supplied by the segmental lumbar, subcostal, and intercostal arteries. Traditional formal abdominoplasty with its low transverse incision and wide undermining to the costal margin sacrifices zone 1, zone 2, and to a limited extent zone 3. Furthermore, the skin of zone 1 experiences additional vascular compromise caused by tension on the suture line and thinning of the abdominal flap. Thus, many surgeons have proposed less extensive approaches to abdominoplasty in an attempt to maintain adequate vascularity, but the best aesthetic outcomes remain with the classic abdominoplasty.

To improve contour, liposuction has been offered to abdominoplasty patients, but previously as two independent procedures separated in time by at least 6 months. Caution concerning the advisability of such an approach was based on the belief that the traumatic forces of liposuction would limit the vascularity of the flap and thereby increase complications. Matarasso studied the safety areas for lipoplasty combined with abdominoplasty and recommended limited and cautious liposuction of the epigastric and mesogastric areas (zone 1) with full type 4 abdominoplasty. With advances in superficial liposuction, Saldanha et al. performed lipoplasty of the abdomen, sparing the epigastric and mesogastric areas, followed by an abdominoplasty with rectus muscle plicature, and found a complication rate no higher than that of a formal abdominoplasty. In a study performed by Lockwood, patients who underwent high lateral tension abdominoplasty and superficial fascial system repair with and without liposuction experienced complications that did not exceed historical controls. In 2006, the most recent survey of 497 surgeons reveals that 56 percent of surgeons perform some sort of liposuction with a full abdominoplasty but also stresses the need to differentiate complication rates in patients who received liposuction with their abdominoplasty versus those who did not.

Dr Koo believes that liposuction of the abdomen to achieve the “finished look” of a smooth flat tummy can be performed simultaneously with minimal complications. She takes extra precautions with her unique surgical procedure of a refined high lateral tension abdominoplasty that achieves amazing results as seen in the featured before and after picture.

Let Dr Michele Koo, MD, FACS (314) 984-8331 of St Louis, MO change your life and remove all that excess skin, fat, and surgical scars on your abdomen and make your tummy flat and your thighs slimmer.

You have been on and off diets all your life and now after children, you can’t remove that excess skin and fat from your mid-section. Everytime you lose some weight, you look down at your tummy and become depressed and frustrated with yourself and you fall off the wagon and your weight bounces back up.

If you’re tired of not being able to stay on a healthy eating regimen and exercise plan because you’re not getting the results you want, let Dr Michele Koo, MD, FACS, St Louis, MO, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon, Member of the Aesthetic Society, change your life with a tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) or a liposuction that will keep you motivated and take you to the next step. You’ll finally see the results and rewards of all your hard work with a flat belly, a slimmer waist and thighs.

This photograph is of a mid 50 year old Missouri woman who was frustrated with her large abdomen after three children and c-sections.  No matter how much weight she lost, she was unable to get rid of her large belly.  Prior to her surgery of a tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) and ultrasonic liposuction of her upper abdomen, waist, hips, and inner and outer thighs, she reports wearing size 14 clothes.  At 4 months after her surgery, she fits into a size 6.  She is able to tuck in her shirts, wear low cut jeans, and wore a 2 piece bikini on her vacation with her husband.  At the time of her surgery, she also underwent a breast lift, completing her entire body makeover.  She has kept her weight off now 2 years after the surgery and continues her healthy lifestyle which she was never able to stay on prior to her surgery, because nothing she ever did previously worked!

Dr Koo performs ultrasonic liposuction at the same time as the tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) and contours the entire trunk and legs to make you look like a new person. She feels that this tummy tuck and liposuction combination is extremely safe and can achieve amazing results all in one surgery and one recovery time. Dr Koo also repairs the split in your rectus abdominus muscles which have become lax with age, weight gain, and possibly children and surgeries. This will cinch in your waist and entire circumference of your trunk, reducing your clothes size!

Do not be discouraged and depressed with your shape and inability to change your waist and abdomen, Dr Michele Koo, MD, will take you the rest of the way to being what you want to be with a tummy tuck, abdominoplasty, and liposuction. 

Call Dr Michele D. Koo, MD, FACS, St Louis, Missouri, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon, 314-984-8331, and talk to many others who have had this and similar tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) and liposuction surgeries and find out how that has changed their lives.