Fat transfer, also known as fat grafting, is a popular cosmetic treatment that can enhance your appearance or body shape by transferring fatty tissue from one area of your body to another, whether it’s your face, breasts, buttocks, or elsewhere. Here at Zormeier Cosmetic Surgery & Longevity Center, we offer this treatment at our locations in Danville, IL, Noblesville, IN, and Shelbyville, IN, as well as at our NorCal practices in Healdsburg, CA, and Ukiah, CA.
The benefits of this treatment range from the reduction of lines and wrinkles to more shapely breasts or hips. Not only is it considered to be a safe and effective treatment, but it can be personalized to your specific body type and needs. So if you’re looking for a less invasive way of revitalizing your appearance or getting the curves you’ve always wanted, here’s a quick overview of how this treatment works and what makes someone a good candidate.
Who Is a Good Candidate for Fat Transfer?
While fat transfer can be appropriate for many different types of people, it’s not for everyone. Those who have enough fatty tissue to harvest can be ideal candidates, particularly those who are within a healthy weight range or who have a body mass index (BMI) of 25 or above. Also, if you’re looking for a natural way to rejuvenate your appearance, then you may be a perfect candidate.
You should also be in good general health and have realistic expectations about this treatment. If you’re seeking minor adjustments for your breasts, buttocks, or other areas, this treatment may be right for you, whereas those who would like larger increases in shape or cup size may be better candidates for implants. With fat grafting, there is only so much excess fatty tissue that can be harvested for use, and the results are often more modest and natural-looking than implants.
What Is Fat Transfer?
Fat transfer is a treatment where fatty tissue is extracted from areas of the body where it’s unneeded and used to fill in or sculpt other areas where it can be more desirable. This treatment can be used to enhance the breasts, face, buttocks, and other areas, while it also has the added benefit of thinning or contouring any areas where fat is removed from.
In addition to adding shape and volume to the areas that are treated, it can also be used to revitalize one’s appearance by minimizing the signs of aging, whether you have lines, wrinkles, scars, or thinning facial features.
Where is the Fat Taken From?
There are many areas of the body where we can extract fatty tissue, which are called donor sites, and which donor sites we use will often depend on your particular body type or preferences.
However, the two most common sites of the body where we extract this tissue are the thighs and the stomach, as there is often excess and unwanted fat in these areas. It can also be taken from the hips, arms, lower back, or virtually any other areas that you prefer and where there’s enough fatty tissue for us to extract.
What Areas Can Be Treated?
This treatment has multiple applications for use, where we can treat almost any area of the body that you’re dissatisfied with. The following are some of the most common areas that we regularly treat:
Face
Many facial issues can be treated with a fat transfer, such as wrinkles, lines, and scarring. Some of these issues are caused by the loss of collagen that occurs with aging, which can thin out the skin and make lines, wrinkles, or skin blemishes more prominent.
This treatment can minimize these types of issues by giving the skin a plumper, more youthful-looking appearance, and we can fill in lines, minimize wrinkles, and even reduce the appearance of scars with it.
Breasts
This treatment can also be used to add more volume to the breasts, such as by adding up to ½ a cup size where it’s desired. It can also be used to make the breasts more symmetrical with each other, where we can add more fullness to only one breast if that’s all that’s needed.
Buttocks
Fat grafting for the buttocks has become a very popular alternative to implants in recent years, as it can be safer and often provides longer-lasting results. We can augment the buttocks by giving them a fuller or rounder appearance, which often has the additional benefits of making the waistline appear thinner or accentuating other nearby physical features.
Other Areas
While the face, breasts, and buttocks are the most commonly treated areas, we can augment and enhance many other areas of the body. During your initial consultation with us, we’ll assess any areas on your body that you’re interested in having treated, and we’ll explain what type of results you can expect to see, depending on the extraction and transfer locations.
What Happens During Treatment?
After you schedule an appointment at any of our Indiana, Illinois, or Northern California locations, we’ll carry out a brief consultation with you, which involves an examination and a discussion about your treatment goals.
Extraction Process
We’ll start your treatment by extracting fatty tissue from a pre-selected area using a gentle liposuction technique. This tissue is then processed, where we’ll remove fluid, oil, and other unnecessary materials from it while creating a cellular pellet that will be used to enhance the grafting process later.
Transfer Process
The transfer process then takes place where we inject the fatty tissue and cellular pellet into the target areas that you’d like treated. We have different methods available to do this, and the process is normally relatively painless and performed as an outpatient treatment.
The entire process can take anywhere between one to five hours, depending on which areas we’ll be treating. However, during some of this time, you’ll be comfortably resting and waiting while we process your fatty tissue, which can sometimes take a few hours.
Aftercare
While you may feel a bit sore for up to two weeks in the areas where we extracted the fatty tissue, this is completely normal and you should otherwise feel fine. There is very little downtime, and most patients can return to work or everyday activities within a few days. Total recovery can take anywhere between one to six weeks, where any minor swelling leftover from the treatment process will gradually subside.
What Are the Advantages?
Readily Accepted By the Body
Unlike other treatments that involve the injection or implantation of foreign substances into the body, this treatment uses your own fat cells, which means that there’s little to no risk of your body rejecting it.
Results Are Long-Lasting
The results of this treatment are permanent, and because your body readily accepts the fat graft and reabsorbs much of the fat cells as normal bodily tissues, you shouldn’t have to return for additional treatments, unless you’d like other areas treated.
It’s Minimally Invasive
Although this treatment involves a minimally invasive method of liposuction, we’re using your own fat instead of other materials, so it’s a much more natural form of treatment than others and therefore gentler on the body.
Less Risk of Complications
This treatment is considered to be safe and carries less risk than traditional cosmetic treatments, especially when implantation procedures.
It Naturally Blends In
The results of this treatment are also more natural-looking than implants and fillers because fatty tissue is capable of naturally blending in with surrounding tissues and bones, so it can be more difficult for others to tell that you’ve had this surgery.
It Can Solve Two Issues
By removing fat from areas of the body where it may be unwanted, we can reshape or reduce the size of these areas while adding volume to other areas, solving two aesthetic issues with a single treatment.
Schedule With Us Today
Fat transfer is one of the safer cosmetic treatments available today to enhance one’s looks, and it can be personalized to your needs and aesthetic goals, whether you’re wanting to increase your breast size or minimize skin blemishes and the signs of aging. Contact us today at Zormeier Cosmetic Surgery & Longevity Center to schedule your initial consultation. We have locations in Noblesville, IN, Shelbyville, IN, and Danville, IL, as well as in Northern, CA in both Healdsburg and Ukiah.