If you are concerned about sagging skin, unwanted bulges, and weakened muscles around your abdomen, a tummy tuck, also known as abdominoplasty, can help you attain a toned, shapely, and sculpted abdominal profile. But apart from its aesthetic results, abdominoplasty can also provide you with multiple advantages for improving your overall health.

Since a tummy tuck often involves abdominal muscle repair, it can help improve posture, alleviate back pain, resolve urinary incontinence, and treat potential or existing abdominal hernias. These medical benefits of abdominoplasty make it more than an aesthetic treatment and help you find relief from a variety of issues that could affect your quality of life.

With the specialized skills and experience of board certified plastic surgeon Dr. Sandra Margoles, you can obtain your targeted benefits from your tummy tuck surgery procedure. Besides resolving your medical concerns, tummy tuck also helps you attain a sleeker look for your abdomen.

To help you learn about the health benefits of tummy tuck, here is a detailed overview on how abdominoplasty can help you with medical conditions.

What Is a Tummy Tuck?

When you go through gradual or rapid physical changes that affect your skin laxity, fat distribution, and muscle strength in the abdominal area, it can result in giving your abdomen a sagging, wrinkled, and bulged appearance. At the same time, weakened abdominal muscles can also open doors to a variety of medical issues that affect your daily life, ongoing comfort, and overall health.

A tummy tuck is a surgical procedure that improves the appearance of your abdomen by resolving concerns like sagging skin, stubborn fat deposits, or weakened abdominal muscles. During the procedure, your plastic surgeon will eliminate excess skin, sculpt fatty tissue, and stretch the remaining skin across your abdomen to give it a more toned and smoother look. If your abdominal muscles are weakened, your plastic surgeon also repairs and lifts them with surgical techniques to give you a stronger abdominal profile.

A tummy tuck can help you if the appearance or strength of your abdomen has been affected by factors such as:

• Aging
• Genetics
• Weight loss
• Pregnancy
• Childbirth

As a cosmetic surgery, tummy tuck remains effective in resolving the concerns outlined above. But when your abdominoplasty includes abdominal muscle repair, it can also help you resolve various medical concerns. In addition to restoring, revising, and enhancing the appearance of your abdomen, a tummy tuck can also go a long way towards improving your health. This makes it a great example of how cosmetic surgery and medical benefits can go hand in hand.

How Can a Tummy Tuck Improve My Health?

When your abdominal muscles are weakened due to reasons including but not limited to rapid weight loss or pregnancy, you may experience a host of medical concerns that stem from a weak abdominal profile.

This includes the following issues:

Bad Posture

When abdominal muscles lose their strength, you may face trouble maintaining an upright position while standing, sitting, or performing physical activities. If left untreated, bad posture may lead to other health concerns, including back pain or joint issues.

Back Pain

Bad posture and back pain are often interrelated, with weakened abdominal muscles further elevating the effects of both concerns. Apart from causing discomfort, back pain can keep you from participating in professional as well as personal activities. Chronic back pain may also cause mental issues like stress and depression.

Urinary Incontinence

Urinary incontinence, or an inability to control your bladder, may cause accidents, especially when you are moving or lifting heavy objects. This effect can cause major distress and affect your wellbeing.

Ventral Hernia

Abdominal or ventral hernia occurs when your internal muscles protrude from the abdominal wall. This condition can cause a visible protrusion or lump noticeable through your abdomen’s outer skin, while also leading to issues, such as pain, constipation, nausea, and vomiting, that may affect your quality of life.

When you get a tummy tuck with abdominal muscle repair, the involved surgical techniques that lift and readjust your connective tissues can help provide relief from these medical concerns in a safe and effective manner. You can resolve your medical issues while achieving your aesthetic goals through abdominoplasty. But the process calls for you to find a qualified tummy tuck surgeon to increase the chances of a successful outcome.

Board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Margoles holds the experience and expertise to help you obtain your desired results from your tummy tuck while reducing the risk of complications. During your tummy tuck consultation, Dr. Margoles engages in a detailed discussion with you to help with performing your abdominoplasty according to your medical and aesthetic objectives alike.

During your consultation, you may also ask questions that you may have in mind about resolving your medical concerns through abdominoplasty. Dr. Margoles ensures to answer your inquiries in the light of medical research and studies that help you put your confidence in the health benefits of tummy tuck.

After learning this information, it becomes easier for you to understand how a tummy tuck surgery procedure can help you with more than enhancing your appearance. Please review the following sections for each of these medical concerns to learn how an abdominoplasty may help you improve them.

1. Tummy Tuck and Improved Posture

If your posture is affected by weakened abdominal muscles, you can obtain improved posture with tummy tuck that is combined with abdominal muscle repair. When weakened muscles are uplifted through surgical techniques, such as elevating and fixing the connective tissue in place with sutures, they become strengthened and support your spinal structure in a better manner. This helps you find improvements to your posture and experience relief from associated concerns. At the same time, you can also obtain a shapelier and toned abdomen.

2. Tummy Tuck and Relief from Back Pain

Back pain due to weakened abdominal muscles is mainly caused by bad posture as well as the pressure that stems from unwanted bulges of skin. When your abdominal muscles are repaired during your abdominoplasty and held permanently upright through surgical intervention, it can have a positive effect on your posture and associated pressure. This effectively helps you find relief from back pain with tummy tuck. As a result, you can enjoy long-lasting relief from back pain and boast of a stronger abdominal profile.

3. Tummy Tuck and Urinary Incontinence

When your abdominal muscles are weakened, their sagging state can also affect your pelvic floor and put pressure on your bladder. This can cause bladder-related issues including the inability to control your bladder or empty it fully. By getting urinary incontinence treatment with tummy tuck, you can restore the strength of your abdominal muscles and pelvic floor while also sculpting the overall appearance of your abdomen. By following this treatment with core exercises, you can find significant relief from urinary incontinence.

4. Tummy Tuck and Ventral Hernia Repair

Ventral hernia is a protrusion of your inner muscles through your abdominal wall. When this protrusion happens, you can find a visible bulge or lump across the affected area, while also feeling pain around the hernia site. Other concerns, such as discomfort and gastrointestinal issues, may also accompany this problem and affect your overall comfort. By electing ventral hernia repair with tummy tuck, you can resolve your abdominal hernia and prevent the risk of this issue occurring again, all while improving the look of your abdomen.

What to Expect During Tummy Tuck Surgery

When you decide to get your tummy tuck surgery procedure from Dr. Margoles, you can rest assured that your surgery will be performed in adherence to the highest medical safety standards.

Before your abdominoplasty, Dr. Margoles holds a detailed consultation to make sure that your goals align with the results that you can expect via your tummy tuck. She also performs the necessary tests and assessments to ensure that you are in good overall health and can change certain lifestyle factors, such as stopping smoking, that promote ideal healing from your tummy tuck surgery procedure.

On the day of the surgery, you will arrive at the surgical facility and make the necessary preparations. Our helpful staff stays with you every step of the way to guide you through the process.

Afterwards, you will receive general anesthesia to make sure that you do not feel any pain or discomfort during the surgery. Once you are comfortable, Dr. Margoles typically performs the following steps during your tummy tuck surgery procedure with abdominal muscle repair.

• Marking the targeted areas between your hip bones and possibly around your navel
• Making the required incisions across the marked areas
• Repairing your muscles by strategically positioning them and pulling them together
• Fixing your readjusted muscles in place with sutures
• Sculpting fatty tissue to provide you with a sculpted appearance
• Stretching and adjusting your skin over the abdomen
• Eliminating excess skin below the incision site
• Closing the incisions with sutures
• Covering your closed incisions with surgical tape

The procedure may vary on a case-to-case basis and is designed to achieve your specific goals. For instance, if you only want to resolve your aesthetic concerns of loosened skin and small amounts of fatty tissue, you may not need abdominal muscle repair. Similarly, if you have excess pockets of fat around your abdomen, your tummy tuck surgery procedure might be combined with liposuction for fat reduction and a smoother contour.

To ensure that your abdominoplasty is performed with your specific goals in mind, Dr. Margoles understands all your objectives and outlines the possible results of your tummy tuck before fixing a date for your surgery. It is only after ensuring that you are fully confident in your decision that Dr. Margoles goes ahead with the surgery.

Recovery from Tummy Tuck Surgery

Whether you want an improved posture, back pain relief, urinary incontinence resolution, or ventral hernia repair with tummy tuck, you need to go through a few weeks of recovery after your abdominoplasty. Getting proper rest and following the post-op instructions provided by Dr. Margoles and our team ensures that you will heal from your tummy tuck surgery procedure without heightened risks of complications.

While tummy tuck surgery recovery looks slightly different for everyone according to their body’s reaction to the treatment, you may typically experience the following experiences after your abdominoplasty.

• You may experience bruising, swelling, and redness around the surgical area for a few days after your surgery. Wearing a compression garment as prescribed to you by Dr. Margoles can manage these side effects.

• You may feel mild to moderate pain around the surgical site for a few days post your tummy tuck. You may alleviate this pain and discomfort by taking medications that are prescribed to you by Dr. Margoles.

• You may have to wear drains with your compression garments to collect excess fluid from your surgical incisions. Dr. Margoles and our medical team will provide you with detailed instructions on how to care for your drains. You may take off your drains typically 1 to 2 weeks following surgery.

• You may return to work and resume light duties within 7 to 10 days of your abdominoplasty. But you cannot resume physically strenuous activities for up to 3 weeks after your surgery. Dr. Margoles and our medical team advise you on how soon you can resume work and other activities after a personalized assessment during your follow-up appointments.

Dr. Margoles and our medical team also provide you with a detailed list of post-op instructions that help your tummy tuck surgery recovery. You can also reach out to us at any time with any questions or concerns.

Finding a Qualified Tummy Tuck Surgeon

No matter if you are getting a tummy tuck for aesthetic reasons, medical concerns, or a mix of both, it is crucial that you have it performed by a qualified plastic surgeon. Besides ensuring your safety, you can also achieve your desired results with a lower risk of dissatisfying outcomes.

During the process of finding a qualified tummy tuck surgeon, you should keep the following points in mind.

• Checking if the plastic surgeon is board-certified
• Confirming if the plastic surgeon has the required experience to perform abdominoplasty
• Assessing if the plastic surgeon uses safe, modern surgical facilities to perform surgeries
• Asking if the plastic surgeon can resolve your medical concerns through a tummy tuck with muscle repair
• Asking for references of previous patients through testimonials or before and after photos

As a board-certified plastic surgeon with extensive experience in performing abdominoplasty, Dr. Margoles holds the qualifications and skills to help you resolve your aesthetic and medical concerns with a tummy tuck. Dr. Margoles performs her surgeries in either our in-house facility, at the Stamford Hospital, or the Greenwich Hospital. All these surgery centers utilize state-of-the-art equipment and maintain a sterile, comfortable environment for your health and comfort, respectively. You can also see the results of real patients previously treated by Dr. Margoles in a collection of before and after photos in our gallery.

Benefits of Combining Tummy Tuck with Other Procedures

You can combine your tummy tuck with or without abdominal muscle repair with other plastic surgery procedures to enhance your results. This helps you enjoy benefits such as reduced downtime, significant boost in confidence,  and revision of your overall figure. 

Some of the most common procedures that are combined with abdominoplasty include:

• Liposuction. This procedure often accompanies a tummy tuck in cases where you want to address excess pockets of fat from your abdomen. It can also be performed for various other areas of your body.

• Breast Lift. This procedure improves the look of sagging breasts, drooping nipples, and enlarged areolae that could occur due to aging, weight fluctuations, or breastfeeding.

• Breast Augmentation. This procedure enhances the size and shape of your breasts with implants. By getting the surgery with abdominoplasty, you can significantly revise your overall proportions in a combination procedure.

All these treatments are often combined into a single procedure called a mommy makeover. You can discuss your suitability for these procedures with Dr. Margoles to ensure that you are getting treatments that fulfill your requirements.

Contact Dr. Margoles for Tummy Tuck Consultation Today

If you are concerned with aesthetic issues, medical problems, or a combination of both challenges that stem from weakened abdominal muscles, getting a tummy tuck may help you find effective relief from them. To ensure that you can obtain your ideal results from  your abdominoplasty, you can reach out to board certified plastic surgeon Dr. Margoles for a hands-on consultation.

You may call (203) 869-2939 in Greenwich, CT to get an appointment. You can also fill out our online form to book your consultation today.