Arm Liposuction: An Overview

Although arm liposuction surgery improved a lot over the years, it still is a surgical operation which will need a full evaluation of the subject to be treated: age, weight, general health conditions, blood values and pressure.
Fat accumulation on the arms is often associated with sagging of the skin, especially visible during a movement. Arm fat is usually localized in the upper part, and may give an unkempt look.
From an aesthetic standpoint, the main prerequisite for good arm liposuction results is an elastic skin, which will adapt to the new reduced volumes without wrinkles or sagging tissues. This turns out to be the main obstacle to a successful arm liposuction operation, because the emptying of the volumes of fat will leave excessively loose tissues.

The operation is usually carried out in local anesthesia with deep sedation. Duration can be from one to three hours, depending on the quantity of fat to be removed. Arm liposuction recovery can vary depending on how much fat has to be removed. For quantity of fat up to a 1.5 liters, the patient can generally be released from hospital the day after, whereas for higher quantities of fat, the hospitalization can be longer.

After the patient has been sedated, mix of  anesthetic drugs and vasoconstrictors will be injected, in order to avoid pain and excessive bleeding during the operation. 
The pipes are inserted through micro incisions under the elbow, and the fat cushion is reduced and modeled by the surgeon. At the end of the surgical part, the zone is tightly bandaged to keep the compression.

Pipes with a diameter of few millimeters are inserted in the zone to be treated through very thin and short incisions in the elbow area, where they will be hardly visible once the operation is complete. The tips of the pipes break fat cells and then fat is sucked out with sweeping movements of the pipes, which are kept above the fat tissues, right underneath the muscles.
After the upper arm liposuction, a compression girdle will be worn to apply constant pressure on the treated area. Both girdle and stitches will be removed seven days after the operation. The mobility of the arms will never be reduced after the operation, although heavy activities should be avoided during the first period.

Arm liposuction treatment is recommended on arms with fat accumulation and with very high or high skin elasticity.
It is not recommended with sagging arm skin and if the patient has ha predisposition to hypertrophic scarring.