Fat Grafting
Extracting fat cells from another person and injecting the cells into you will cause your body to reject the inserted fat cells. The body sees the new cells as a threat and attacks it. A new procedure exists to avoid third-party cell rejection. The procedure involves using a patient’s own fat cells, thus avoiding rejection.
Recognized as micro-lipoinjection or autologous fat transplantation, fat grafting extracts fat cells from one part of your body and inject it in another part of the body. The most popular fat grafting procedure, facial fat grafting, takes fat from the arms, the abs, the buttocks, or the thighs and injects it into the face. Abs, thighs, arms, and buttocks are popular places for fat grafting because most fat resides there. However, for most people, very few parts are exempt from fat grafting.
Fat grafting is necessary for body parts that lack fat cells. Examples include facial cheeks, wrinkles, lips, laugh lines, crow’s feet, breasts, and buttocks. The medical procedure works the best in breast augmentation, to slow down signs of aging, and/or buttock enlargement. Prior to the procedure, expect exceptional customer service from our staff in terms of scheduling and industry knowledge. Our staff will treat our patients like family from beginning to end.
What to Expect During Your Procedure
Most often, fat grafting requires a general anesthesia and is a true surgical procedure.
After your consultation with Dr. Leonard, your surgery will be performed at a local surgery center, where Dr. Leonard is an integral part of the leadership team. Surgery will be done as an outpatient, where you will go home the day of the surgery.
Dr. Leonard will use the most modern and effective fat preparation, incorporating the modern techniques of small volume-small cannula, with the expectation of 50% – 60% PERMANENT fat take.
After Fat Grafting
Recovery is very similar to that of liposuction, and depends heavily on the patient. Because the skin cells recognize your fat cells, allergic reactions and infections related to fat grafting are minimal to none. What you can expect is swelling, bruising, and/or redness in the affected areas. The location and the size of the extraction/insertion will decide how severe the swelling, bruising, and/or redness will be.
While most can resume their daily activities, some patients require a small recovery period. For those patients, the recovery period consists of 5-7 days before resuming daily activities. Larger areas require a longer recovery time of 3-5 weeks or more depending on Dr. Leonard’s advice.