Procedures: Lower Body Lift, Breast Lift and Arm Lift after Weight Loss
Patient: Megan Reinard of Dumfries, Virginia
Before: Megan weighed 300 pounds when she wore her pink formal to the junior prom. She topped 375 pounds by high school graduation.
Little by little, the young woman with the outgoing personality began leading a life of compromise. She gave up swimming because she was embarrassed about her size. She gave up trips to Kings Dominion because she was too large to fit in the roller coaster seats.
In February 2005, at the age of 19, Megan opted to have a gastric bypass. The bypass, combined with new eating habits, helped Megan drop from 436 pounds to 210 pounds by July 2006.
But the weight loss also left her with large skin folds that could not be dieted away. In fact, they made it difficult to exercise.
After: Megan logged on to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons Web site to locate board certified plastic surgeons in her area. She talked to several plastic surgeons, but was most impressed by the doctor she visited at Plastic Surgery Services of Fredericksburg.
“He was much more informative than the other doctors,” Megan recalls, and he had been personally recommended by a co-worker. She also found his staff to be very friendly and reassuring.
Megan’s doctor performed a lower body lift in July 2006 to remove 12 pounds of excess skin around her stomach and thighs. In September 2006, she had an arm lift, breast lift and excess skin removed from her back.
The experience has changed her life in some ways, restored her life in others.
“I have never run in my entire life,” says Megan, who works as a dental assistant at a pediatric dentist’s office in Springfield. “But within weeks of my lower body lift, I ran a mile.”
She has also developed a new-found love of clothes shopping.
And she’s back to riding roller coasters. |