VASER Liposuction

WEBVTT 00:00:06.922 --> 00:00:09.633 When discussing liposuction at Synergy MD Plastic Surgery, 00:00:09.716 --> 00:00:12.385 typically patients will hear the word VASER. 00:00:12.927 --> 00:00:14.631 VASER is a technology that helps me achieve 00:00:14.721 --> 00:00:18.160 better outcomes for patients when I'm performing liposuction. 00:00:18.682 --> 00:00:22.437 Classic liposuction involves taking a metal straw that's called a canula 00:00:22.520 --> 00:00:25.120 with holes on one end and a vacuum hose connected to the other, 00:00:25.203 --> 00:00:28.840 and it is literally just shredding fat from the surrounding connective tissue. 00:00:28.923 --> 00:00:30.359 It is typically pretty painful, 00:00:30.442 --> 00:00:31.985 and it does create a lot of secondary damage 00:00:32.068 --> 00:00:33.987 in the area where the fat is removed 00:00:34.070 --> 00:00:39.283 if done bluntly and we'll say unsophisticatedly. 00:00:39.450 --> 00:00:41.159 VASER is a very nice technology 00:00:41.243 --> 00:00:45.246 where it is a solid metal probe that vibrates at an ultrasonic frequency. 00:00:45.403 --> 00:00:47.790 What this does is it helps to loosen the fat 00:00:47.873 --> 00:00:49.291 from the surrounding connective tissue 00:00:49.374 --> 00:00:52.168 so that when we take that canula and suck the fat out, 00:00:52.252 --> 00:00:54.295 it comes out in a much more passive manner, 00:00:54.379 --> 00:00:56.339 creating less damage to the surrounding tissue 00:00:56.422 --> 00:00:57.798 if done appropriately. 00:00:58.083 --> 00:00:59.425 It is actually something that I do typically 00:00:59.508 --> 00:01:01.802 in conjunction with fat grafting, 00:01:01.885 --> 00:01:02.886 where fat that I've removed 00:01:02.969 --> 00:01:05.263 is then transferred to another part of the body 00:01:05.363 --> 00:01:09.058 with certain settings that help to preserve the viability of that fat 00:01:09.141 --> 00:01:11.435 and still leaving behind a nicer contour 00:01:11.518 --> 00:01:14.229 in the area where liposuction has been performed. 00:01:14.403 --> 00:01:15.900 A common question I will get is, 00:01:16.022 --> 00:01:18.399 if you're doing liposuction and you're removing fat, 00:01:18.482 --> 00:01:20.637 can you take that fat and put it somewhere else on my body 00:01:20.720 --> 00:01:22.193 so it doesn't go to waste? 00:01:22.569 --> 00:01:24.200 The answer to that is yes. 00:01:24.283 --> 00:01:26.722 Autologous fat transfer, or fat grafting, 00:01:26.922 --> 00:01:29.533 involves taking fat away from one part of the body 00:01:29.616 --> 00:01:32.369 and then injecting it into another part of the body. 00:01:32.702 --> 00:01:33.786 There are a lot of different techniques 00:01:33.870 --> 00:01:36.622 that are implemented to try to achieve this, 00:01:36.706 --> 00:01:40.320 and that can actually impact the amount of fat that survives. 00:01:40.403 --> 00:01:42.502 If you do your own research and you go online, 00:01:42.585 --> 00:01:48.799 you may find fat survivability to be as low as 30-40% or as high as 90%. 00:01:48.963 --> 00:01:50.407 Appropriately, you may ask, 00:01:50.607 --> 00:01:53.080 what is up with the discrepancy between these two? 00:01:53.163 --> 00:01:58.432 The answer is it depends upon how that fat is treated once it's been removed. 00:01:58.557 --> 00:01:59.725 When I do fat transfer, 00:01:59.808 --> 00:02:04.229 I use a device that helps to wash all of the bad damaged fatty tissue away. 00:02:04.312 --> 00:02:06.856 We also wash away the connective tissue in any of the blood, 00:02:06.939 --> 00:02:09.733 anything that we don't want to reinject 00:02:09.817 --> 00:02:13.278 because the predictability of that tissue is less. 00:02:13.403 --> 00:02:17.840 We only want to inject nice healthy tissue that has been processed appropriately. 00:02:17.923 --> 00:02:21.160 In doing so, we have less fat to transfer, 00:02:21.243 --> 00:02:25.663 but that fat that we do transfer ought to have north of 90% viability, 00:02:25.746 --> 00:02:28.415 which leads to more predictable end results.