How To Tighten Loose Skin After Weight Loss Surgery

If you’re overweight and you underwent weight loss surgery, all your weight loss problems are solved, right?

Well, not exactly.

Aside from the fact that you need to have a new diet to sustain your weight loss…

You’re going to have to deal with loose skin after surgery – a whopping 40 to 60 pounds of excess skin!

That is a lot of extra weight to still be carrying around. You may have succeeded in losing weight. But the skin that held that weight stays.

Why does this happen, and how can we tighten it after surgery?

Read on to find out.

What Happens To My Skin When I Gain Weight?

Skin is your body’s biggest organ. It is made up of proteins, including collagen and elastin that provides our skin with firmness, strength, and elasticity. When you gain weight, collagen and elastin allow your skin to expand to make room for the extra weight that your body carries.

Let’s use pregnant women as an example. We all know how pregnant women’s bellies grow in nine months to accommodate the baby growing in her tummy. Upon the baby’s delivery, women’s bellies retract. And with the aid of diet and exercise, women’s bellies usually go back to their normal size and shape.

However, when you become obese and stay that way for a long time, your skin will eventually lose the ability to retract. That’s because it has been stretched for a significantly long period.

Even If I Lose Weight?

Sadly, yes. Even if you do try (or succeed) in losing weight, your skin will not instantly retract to the condition how it was before you became obese. It will have been damaged because of it being stretched, resulting in excess, sagging skin.

And the more weight you lose, the more pronounced loose skin will be.

Will I Really Have Loose Skin After Weight Loss Surgery?

Again, yes. Major weight loss, as in anything beyond 100 pounds, will oftentimes result in loose skin. And the amount of weight loss is directly proportional to the excess skin that remains.

Skin will remain sagging from your arms or breasts, or folded over your abdomen or your thighs. It is unsightly which may lead to pervasive anxiety about your excess skin.

It may happen then that having a significant amount of excess skin post-weight loss surgery may lead to you becoming self-conscious, as well as experiencing severe discomfort. This may be significant enough to affect your self-worth and quality of life.

Thus, if you are considering weight loss surgery and the weight loss outlook is that you will drop weight over 100 pounds, you may have to think of a surgical one-two punch – weight loss surgery to be followed by skin removal surgery.

How Do I Tighten Loose Skin After Surgery?

Even if it has been more than half a century ago since the first bariatric surgery was done, medical professionals still find post-surgery skin tightening of excess skin a challenge.

Thankfully, the best practices in dealing with loose skin after surgery are evolving. That means more methods are being discovered and are being perfected, even as you read this article.

But what methods right now are available for you? Well, there are three: natural, medical, and alternative solutions, all which can help tighten loose skin.

The Non-Medical Approach

Building muscle mass through resistance or strength training may help improve the appearance of loose or sagging skin. This takes a lot of discipline and willpower and may not always get you the results you want, especially if we are talking here of at least 40 pounds of loose skin.

You can pair up resistance or strength training with good nutrition and hydration. Overhaul your diet plan to include nutrient-rich food good for your skin such as protein, vitamin C, and omega-3 fatty acids. Make sure that you consume the recommended daily intake of water, as this may also help improve your skin’s appearance.

Your skin’s elasticity and texture may also benefit from taking collagen hydrolysate. You may also want to give firming creams that contain collagen and elastin a shot to boost skin tightness.

A fast way to keep that loose skin tucked is through compression clothing. This comes in handy in reducing the pain, irritation, itching, or infection from loose skin rubbing against or coming into contact with each other. Do note that it does not work to tighten loose skin permanently; it is only to keep the skin tucked in.

With Medical Intervention

Bariatric surgery patients often end up with a significant amount of loose or excess skin after surgery, so if ever, you won’t be the only one. Bariatric surgery patients, therefore, choose the 1-2 punch of bariatric surgery followed by skin reduction surgery. Take note that skin removal through surgery is a purely elective procedure, but it does provide plenty of convenience!

Surgically getting rid of loose skin can be done through body contouring. This involves a surgeon making large incisions and removing excess skin and fat from where loose or excess skin can usually be found – in your abdomen, belly, buttocks, hips, thighs, upper arms, breasts, and back.

To get the best results, make sure to undergo a skin tightening or body contouring procedure from a highly-skilled and experienced surgeon.

Other Methods To Tighten Loose Skin

If you feel like the non-medical approach isn’t for you, or that skin reduction surgery is too expensive or too much of a hassle, there are other alternative procedures you can explore.

Radiofrequency treatment is one. It makes use of infrared light, radiofrequency, and massage. This method aims to reduce loose skin in a post-bariatric surgery patient’s body.

Microneedling is another skin-tightening option that can be explored. It is non-surgical and involves puncturing your skin with tiny holes and filling it up with a collagen-inducing cream.

Talk to your surgeon about other alternative methods for tightening loose skin after weight loss surgery. They are in the best position to recommend the best ways to move forward in dealing with and addressing loose skin after bariatric surgery.

Get The Best Help Possible In Tightening Loose Skin After Weight Loss Surgery From Dr. David Davtyan

Deciding to undergo bariatric surgery is a big step forward on your weight loss journey. To move things further along, make sure you get the best help possible about the expected loose skin that comes after bariatric surgery.

And among the weight loss surgeons in Los Angeles, Dr. David Davtyan of Glendale, CA, is the best help you can possibly call. He makes sure that we, his staff at
Davtyan Medical Weight Loss and Wellness Center, provide only the best menu of services for bariatric surgery in California as well as post-operative care.

In fact, if you Google “gastric sleeve before and after” or other surgical procedures and specify the Los Angeles area, you’ll find plenty of success stories from Dr. David’s patients.

Dr. Davtyan has changed lives for the better. If you want your post-bariatric surgery life dealing with loose skin changed too, now is the time to contact us.

Talk to you soon. We look forward to hearing from you.