For some, weight loss is enough, but for other patients, profound weight loss can lead to a lot of excess loose skin. Depending on a patient’s age and the health and elasticity of their skin, post-bariatric results can be less than perfect. Though profound weight loss can definitely improve a patient’s health, sometimes plastic surgery is needed to take care of the excess skin tissue. A new study found that post-bariatric patients were significantly happier if they factored in the need for plastic surgery following weight loss.
Take for example, Paul Mason, a 51 year-old postman from Ipswich, England who was once referred to as the world’s fattest man at 980 pounds. After losing 630 pounds or two-thirds of his weight after gastric bypass surgery three years ago, he wants plastic surgery to remove the excess skin left behind after with dramatic weight loss.
According to The Sun, a British newspaper and the ABC News story reported only days ago, Mason is now 350 pounds, but he is still weighed down by excess folds of skin around his stomach, arms and legs, and is wheelchair bound, “because the skin hampers his ability to walk.”
Former "World's Fattest Man" Paul Mason Requests Plastic Surgery to Remove Excess Skin After Losing 630 Pounds (Photo: Paul Nixon Photography)
“It doesn’t matter how much toning up you do, it’s only going to get worse,” The Sun quoted Mason as saying.
In the article, Dr. Jeff Kenkel, a professor of plastic surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, stated that loose “overstretched” skin is an common side effect of weight loss surgery. “It’s like letting all of the air out of balloon — it collapses and wrinkles,” he said.
Dr. Jeff Kenkel, a professor of plastic surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas proclaimed that Mason’s weight loss has left him an estimated “50 pounds of baggy skin around the abdomen — and up to 75 pounds of excess skin overall.”
“Removing the extra skin certainly could help improve Mason’s mobility,” Kenkel said.
Body contouring surgery is an important component in the quest for a healthier body following obesity. Patients who have lost a lot of weight need to factor in the cost and recovery period from having reconstructive surgery to tighten up loose skin. According to a recent study published in the November 2012 issues of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, satisfaction with weight loss starts to wane if patients can’t rid themselves of the extra skin tissue often left behind following major weight loss.
Hygiene issues as well as physical and emotional discomfort can plague patients who succeed at weight loss but fail to follow through and have reconstructive surgery to fix left over flaws. It can be difficult for patients to exercise or even just embrace their new identity if excess skin is left behind have weight loss. Clothes don’t fit properly and patients have a hard time really feeling good about their new image.
