The increase in popularity of drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy has caused a wave of plastic surgeries to fix post-weight loss loose skin. The lower body lift is the surgery of choice for those looking to tighten up their new bodies. The average price of a lower body lift, or belt lipectomy, in the UK is £11,000 and lasts four to five hours depending on the amount of tissue removed.
When you lose a significant amount of weight, excess loose skin is inevitable, but there are ways to minimise it. Losing weight slowly, staying hydrated, and building muscle may all reduce the amount of loose skin, but won’t prevent it entirely. This is where a lower body lift comes in. The surgery involves incisions around the lower abdomen and around the waist in order to remove large amounts of spare skin and soft tissue from those areas, before stitching them back up, resulting in smoother contours of skin once the cuts have been sewed up.
“Being able to finally see, after so many years, the body and health that I wanted – that is invaluable”
Courtenay Fairhurst, 29, from Melbourne, Australia, went from 120kgs in 2018, to 74kgs in April 2022 – when she had a lower body lift. Feeling this was disproportionate to her 5’5” stature, she hit the gym and changed her diet. By 2019, she had lost 30kgs; this is when she started noticing loose skin but had no idea what was happening to her body.
“I thought it was still fat,” she says. “It was more noticeable on my arms; they would swing and there were areas I could pull and hold the skin between my fingers. It was very weird. And with my stomach, the more weight I lost, the more it hung lower. I thought: ‘Shouldn’t it be shrinking? It should be getting smaller’.”
Courtenay ended up paying a whopping $30,000AUD (£15,000) for a lower body and arm lift that took six hours and resulted in 4.5kgs of loose skin being removed. After years of determination and thousands of pounds invested, she achieved her goal of being in the 60kgs; she’d gone from a size 20-22 to a size 8-10.
When it came to recovery, Courtenay seemed to be putting on a brave face, despite describing what seemed to be a very painful, very stressful ordeal. She was unable to stand for 24 hours, and when she finally got the strength to get to her feet, it took three nurses to help her. This was all before spending another four days in hospital while nursing muscles that had just been stitched back together. “I slowly started to be able to walk again [after a week] and use my stomach muscles to sit up,” she says.
After six weeks of sitting in a recliner chair, Courtenay could finally remove the tape on her scars and compression garment. “This was the final step,” she says. “And crazily enough, I’ve reached where I want to be. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. Being able to finally see, after so many years, the body and health that I wanted – that is invaluable.”
But the surgery is not just cutting the skin and stitching it back together, it also involves changing the patient’s muscles and belly button. “The abdominal muscles are usually tightened as these will be lax in most patients. The remaining tissue is closed and a new position for the umbilicus [belly button] created,” says Dr Paul Tulley, consultant plastic and reconstructive surgeon at 152 Harley Street. “Drains are placed [to remove pus, blood and other fluids] and are removed over two to three days, usually post-op. Patients have dressings for around two weeks during which healing takes place and a binder is worn for six weeks to support muscle repair.”
Excess skin can be “distressing for body image” as people find it difficult to fit into clothes or find outfits that flatter their new body. A lower body lift is a “highly effective means to correct this problem,” he says.
Lower body lifts are often the final step in a person’s weight loss journey and a way to reconcile how they feel in their new body with how other people view them. It’s an important surgery, but it’s also extreme – in cost, pain, and recovery, but it might just change your life.
Read the rest of our SKiN Stories series here: https://mccs-journalism.gold.ac.uk/wp/skin/author/rrobi001/