When the Tummy Tuck procedure is performed by a senior and experienced surgeon who knows how to avoid the common complications, there is a very little chance of anything going wrong. Dr. Foster has performed a large number of Tummy Tuck surgeries at his offices in Sacramento and other places, with perfect results for his patients. In fact, Dr. Foster has never experienced a bleeding problem, blood clotting problem or any major infection as an after-effect of the surgery on his patients. However, if the Tummy Tuck is handled incompetently, there is an inherent risk of these problems occurring after the surgery.
In Dr. Foster’s experience, there can be an occasional stitch abscess where a stitch will get bacteria that dissolves it like a little pimple. It is also possible for a belly button to be pulled so tight during the procedure that it interferes with circulation. During the surgery the scar is put down inside the belly button so that it remains invisible once it is healed.
Some surgeons make a big, round circular incision around the belly button as a means to avoid contracture of the final result. But, sometimes, if the circular incision is made too small, it will contract down to such a tiny hole, causing a constriction problem. Therefore, Dr. Foster uses a heart shaped incision to avoid this problem. This incision always heals well with the scar concealed inside the hole.
It must be noted that the Tummy Tuck is a major surgery. It takes about half an hour to an hour, but in the case of larger sized patients it may take up to two hours or even more. Dr. Foster considers two hours to be the maximum safe amount of operative time on a patient. In fact, he won’t accept procedures that are going to take longer, unless he can figure out how to do it in stages so that it can be done two hours at a time.
The safety of the patient is the top priority at Dr. Foster’s office, and it is taken very seriously. Dr. Foster firmly believes that there is no room in cosmetic surgery for the results to turn out worse than they were to begin with. This is totally unacceptable to him, and if a procedure has that possibility, he will not go ahead with it. In Dr. Foster’s own words, “We will not do those procedures that have complications that are unfixable. The complications that are possible are all treatable and curable. There are none that are permanent or unfixable that come out of our clinics in Tahoe or Sacramento.”
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