At 290 pounds in 2002, Joyce Clark was a successful businesswoman but was too fat to tie her own shoes.
Advertisement
Stomach-stapling surgery later that year led to the woman eventually shedding 150 pounds.
Yet Clark, 44, owner of Achievis Senior Living Associates in Edmond, said the weight loss after her gastric-bypass procedure still left her with "a monster body" because of so many layers of unsightly, excess skin hanging off her significantly thinner torso.
So, one more crucial segment was left to her mammoth makeover -- "body contouring."
She turned to Dr. Kamal Sawan, one of only a handful of plastic surgeons who specializes in body contouring after stomach-stapling surgery.
Sawan is interim chief of plastic surgery at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. He's performed about 100 body-contouring operations in the past two years since coming to Oklahoma City from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Patients wanting body contouring, which can take up to six hours per operation, represent about 20 percent of his practice.
"These patients tend to be very motivated and want to complete the circle" after gastric-bypass surgery, he said. "They want to get rid of the excess skin because they want to get back into society. They want to wear whatever they want ... to match the smaller body they now have."
Most of his body-contouring patients are women. Some patients even lost a considerable amount of weight by dieting and exercise, and not stomach-stapling surgery. They also want the body contouring.
Health concerns are related to the large amount of excess skin that remains, the plastic surgeon said.
Excess skin can prevent patients from exercise and daily activities, and puts them at risk of recurrent skin infections and skin breakdown. Since the weight lost after gastric-bypass surgery is mostly fat, a large amount of excess skin remains.
Areas that generally have the most excess skin are the abdomen, face, back, breasts, inner arms and inner thighs.
Sawan likes to perform the skin-removal and tightening surgeries -- sometimes referred to by him as "redraping" -- about a year after a patient has gastric-bypass surgery. That gives a patient time to lose about as much weight as they can.
Before any surgery, Sawan said, patients have to stand so he can measure, mark and make sure exactly where incisions need to be made and how much sagging skin needs to be removed, lifted or tightened.
In body contouring, Sawan said, another seven to 25 pounds can be removed from a patient's body.
The operation isn't cheap.
Joyce Clark paid $13,000 for her body-contouring surgery in March.
The woman, who has her own business involving the operations of assisted-living centers for senior citizens, considers the surgery a bargain.
"I was so ready," she said, adding that she wished she had had the gastric-bypass and body contouring 25 years ago. She termed her body contouring "icing on the cake" because it made her feel "more attractive" and boosted her confidence.
Clark's body-contouring operation involved a 360-degree removal-and-tightening process around her stomach and hips. She termed the excess skin in those areas as "wing flaps." Her buttocks and breasts also were worked on.
Sawan, meanwhile, said advancements in cosmetic-surgery techniques have produced better results with minimal complications. Anesthesia has improved and incisions are more easily hidden so little if any scarring exists.
Body contouring patients, he said, "tend to be some of the happiest patients we deal with."
