Dr. Park recently wrote an article for the March 2009 issue of Rancho Specialty Hospital – Weight Option News.

Congratulations and welcome to your renewed life! This is a long and arduous journey that you have undertaken, and now is the time to reap your rewards. You are now at a point where you are losing weight, or you have reached your final weight goal. Your health and energy has improved, and you are now ready to restore your body image. Part of losing weight is regaining your confidence and self-esteem, and a lot of this relies on your own body image. My goal as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon is to help you achieve this by performing surgery that will remove all of the excess skin on your body and re-contouring your new body. This is the next step in completing your renewed image. The first step in the process is to make sure that you are first and foremost a healthy candidate. You should also be at a stable goal weight for at least 3 months. Once these goals are achieved, we can plan to address the various areas of your body. As a result of weight loss, you will have lost fat in all areas of the body, including your face, and there are areas of overhanging skin. In the initial consultation, I will take a complete approach and evaluate all areas from head to toe.

These areas include the face/neck, arms, breasts/chest, abdomen, inner and outer thighs, and the back/buttocks. Some people will not need all of these areas addressed, whereas others will have a complete makeover. The safest approach is to stage the surgeries. In this manner, you and I will plan which areas to address, and I will generally perform two to three areas of surgery at one time. For example, I will commonly perform a breast lift with implants and combine this with an abdominoplasty in stage I. After 2 to 3 months is allowed for you to recover, we can then proceed with stage II. Sometimes a third stage is necessary to complete the body contouring. The whole process of post-weight reduction surgery can be completed in 3 to 6 months. Generally, recovery is not that painful, and as an example, I will encourage you to walk with assistance the very next day. All in all, I would like to say that this will be one of the most gratifying chapters of your life. You have worked so hard at losing your weight; you deserve to reward yourself by renewing your body.

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