This is education, not advice

The information here is written for the general reader and does not replace a personal medical consultation. It cannot tell you which segments of your own trunk carry the excess skin, or whether an operation of this length is appropriate for your health or your circumstances.

A longer operation is a larger operation

A body lift is not a more thorough version of an abdominoplasty and it is not a safer or a better one. It takes longer under anaesthesia, it leaves more than one closure, and it carries the risks of bleeding, infection, healing problems, fluid collection, clot, persistent numbness and widened scars. Nothing on this site should be read as saying that a larger operation produces a better result for every complaint.

No outcome is guaranteed

No treatment can be guaranteed. How much skin can safely be removed, how the closures heal, how the scars settle and how long the change holds vary between individuals, and the result is judged honestly at around a year rather than in the first weeks.

Scars are permanent

Every body lift leaves permanent scars, and more than one of them. They mature and soften over a year or more, they do not disappear, and no surgeon can promise that they will be inconspicuous.