Serious surgical complications after liposuction are more rare than the common risks, but they do happen to certain patients.
To prevent any serious risks, be sure to tell your doctor your full medical history. Your doctor and surgeon will then be able to tell you if you are an ideal candidate for liposuction. Some surgical complications can sometimes be fatal and debilitating.
One such complication would be an embolism. An embolism is a blood clot that is found in the lungs. This may occur from severe surgical trauma and obesity. Preventing this from happening to you may actually be relatively easy.
Early exercise and mobility after surgery keeps the fluids and blood flowing naturally around the body. Laying down for long periods of time after having liposuction done will make you a candidate for an embolism.
Infection is also another serious risk of surgery. If infection is not taken care of, it can actually be fatal. Your doctor may put you on antibiotics if you are at risk of getting an infection.
Another extremely life threatening risk is a puncture of a vital organ during surgery. Liposuction probes are long and your surgeon may not be able to see the end of the probe. This error in surgery may result in the puncture or wounding of a vital internal organ. Surgery to reconstruct the damaged organ is essential, otherwise the puncture may prove to be fatal.
Another complication to liposuction is known as skin necrosis, or skin death. This is when an area of the skin around the surgical procedure dies because of lost nerve neurons. The skin where this happens may turn colors, such as a decaying black, and slough off.
Skin grafts may be necessary if this rare, but possible complication arises. Bacterial growth on the skin may also cause skin necrosis. This may happen if dirty surgical utensils were used.
Before going for any surgical procedure, do your research on the surgeon you would like to go to. People are often not afraid to give a particular surgeon a bad recommendation if they experienced complications from that surgeon.
Related article: risks and complications of liposuction
I have a friend whose aunt just died from ongoing complications from an early (many years ago) gastric bypass surgery. She has apparently been very ill for many years, ever since the original surgery, and what happened to her is common for people who initially had it done.
I've also read some horror stories of people who had the surgery successfully, but had complications leading to death later because they just couldn't handle the change in eating that it forced on them.
Deeply disturbing, all around.
Adding liposuction to sites other than the primary surgical area (tummy tuck, face lift), I believe increases the risks and morbidity.
That being said, multiple areas of treatment can be completed when liposuction is the only procedure without increased risks provided total volume removed is not excessive and the total body surface area treated is not great.
Dear Jane,
Sometimes it is possible to do liposuction and a tummy tuck at the same time.
But, if these procedures are combined, the liposuction has to be minimal. There are people that have much abdominal fat, more so that they have loss skin. In these people I recommend first to have liposuction before considering a tummy tuck at a later time.