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Patients who undergo extensive weight loss may experience excessive extra skin which does not retract or respond to exercise or massage therapies. Effective surgical procedures are available to patients with excessive, drooping, or wrinkled buttock and thigh skin. Patients with excessive drooping wrinkled skin involving the abdomen, thighs and buttocks have difficulty finding clothing which hides these deformities. It can be an embarrassment when they want to wear shorts or swim wear. Aging, weight gain and subsequent weight loss all contribute to excessive hanging folds of skin around these areas. Surgical removal of the excess tissue, safely performed, provides gratifying relief. ![]() Lower body lifts generally include abdominoplasty, lateral buttock/thigh lift and medial thigh lift. These operations all require careful planning to achieve the desired objective. Special instrumentation has been developed to increase the success of these procedures. (The abdominoplasty is described in a separate section). Liposuction, while successful in treating figure faults in many areas, cannot correct the problem of excess hanging skin. The lateral buttock/thigh lift requires a waistband location scar. Discontinuous undermining of the lateral thighs is required followed by advancement of the excess to the waistline. The lateral buttock/thigh lift can be effective by suspending hanging buttocks and removing excess skin and fat. The incisions are well covered with bathing suit or under garments. The medial thigh lift requires mobilization and excision of the skin and fat at the upper inner thigh crease. Deep fixation is followed by advancement of the hanging skin. An incision, well hidden in the crease results. In some cases excess inner thigh skin requires a vertical incision when the laxity is excessive. ![]() ![]() | |||||