Liposuction in Turkey

People usually ask about liposuction in terms of what they'll lose. A few centimetres off the waist. The bulge above the knee gone. That's understandable, but we find it more useful to ask what happens to the fat: where it was sitting, how it gets taken out, and how the rest of your body behaves once it's gone. Most good and bad results trace back to one of those three.

So this page follows the fat. If you're weighing up liposuction in Turkey, it should answer most of the questions that come after "how much".

Where the fat sits

Not all fat is the same fat. There's the fat just beneath your skin, the stuff you can get a handful of. Then there's fat deep inside the abdomen, packed around the bowel and liver, which no cannula will ever touch.

A quick self-check gives you a rough idea. If your tummy is soft and folds over when you sit, there's plenty of the reachable sort. If it's round and firm, and pressing on it feels like pressing on a drum, much of it is internal, and the answer there is losing weight, perhaps with help from weight loss surgery.

Where the reachable fat collects is largely inherited. Your parents' hips, your father's love handles. That's why some areas refuse to shift however well you eat, and those areas are exactly where liposuction earns its place.

How it comes out

The first step isn't suction at all. The surgeon begins by filling the area with fluid. It's mostly salt water, mixed with local anaesthetic and adrenaline, and the medical name for it is tumescent fluid. Once it's in, the area goes numb, bleeds less and gives up its fat far more easily.

The surgeon then needs a way in, usually two or three cuts no bigger than a few millimetres, hidden in a skin crease or under the knicker line. Through these the cannula, a slim metal tube attached to suction, is worked back and forth through the fatty layer. A careful surgeon criss-crosses each area from two or more entry points, which is how you end up with an even layer instead of grooves.

Tougher fat needs more effort. On the upper back, on many men's flanks and in anywhere that's been operated on before, the tissue can be dense and gristly. Ultrasound applied first can loosen it, and that's all VASER liposuction really is. On soft fat it adds cost without adding much.

How much fat can be removed?

Not as much as most people imagine, and we'd rather say so now. What limits it isn't how much fat you're carrying. It's how long you can safely be asleep, how much fluid your body can handle going in and coming out, and how well your heart and blood cope. Our anaesthetist looks at your health and your blood results and sets the maximum for a single session, independently of the surgeon.

Where the plan exceeds that, it shrinks, or we split it over two visits. This is also why you shouldn't think of it as weight loss. Plenty of people see a big change in the mirror and barely any on the bathroom scales.

Does the fat come back after liposuction?

Not in the same spot. Once a fat cell is suctioned out, it's gone for good, and your body doesn't replace it.

Weight gain still finds somewhere to go, though. Put on a lot of weight after surgery and the fat cells you've still got get bigger, which tends to show most in places that were never treated. Some patients who gain weight later say it went to their arms, their back or their face. Keep your weight roughly steady, and the new shape stays.

We'd like your weight to have been level for about six months before you come, and close to where you want it to stay. Losing weight right now, through dieting or with injections? Wait for it to settle first. Otherwise you're sculpting something that's still moving.

Liposuction or fat-freezing?

Machines that freeze or heat fat through the skin get a lot of advertising. For a small pocket, say a little bulge on the lower belly, a course of sessions can shrink it somewhat, with no anaesthetic and no time off. For anything bigger they fall well short of surgery, and how much they achieve varies from person to person. Occasionally the frozen area does the reverse and grows firmer and larger instead, which is rare but worth knowing about.

If the problem really is one small spot and surgery isn't something you want, by all means try them. If you're hoping for a visible change across a whole area, surgery is the more dependable route.

Liposuction for men and for women

Same operation, different wish lists. Women usually point at the lower tummy, the hips, the thighs inside and out, and the roll near the bra strap. Men tend to point at the love handles, the belly below the navel and sometimes the chest. On the chest, a lump that looks like fat can turn out to be breast gland, and that needs a different operation.

Men's fat is often firmer, particularly on the flanks and back, so their operations can take a little longer and more often involve ultrasound. Women's skin over the thighs and abdomen is more likely to have been stretched by pregnancy, which makes the pinch test matter even more. Either way, the plan for liposuction in Turkey is built area by area, because two parts of the same body can give two different answers.

When skin is the real problem

All of this assumes the skin over the area will shrink once the fat is gone. Young, elastic skin usually does. Skin stretched by pregnancy or big weight loss often doesn't, and removing fat from underneath it leaves the same skin with less to fill it.

That's what the pinch test at the top of this page is checking. If it fails below the belly button, we'll talk to you about a tummy tuck instead, since that removes the loose skin and repairs stretched muscle at the same time. Skin that's only slightly lax can sometimes be helped by adding J-Plasma (€1,500) to the liposuction. Skin that's properly lost its bounce can't.

Recovery: the first weeks

When you wake up you'll already be wearing a compression garment. It stays on almost all the time for the first few weeks, coming off only for showers. It feels hot and restrictive at first. Within a few days most people find they'd rather keep it on.

Don't be thrown if you look bigger at first. The fluid put in during surgery takes a while to leave. On the first day some of it seeps out through the little cuts, so expect damp dressings, and the rest is absorbed over the following weeks. Around half the puffiness has usually cleared by the six-week point.

Get up and walk on the day of surgery, then keep walking. If only a few zones were treated, you'll probably be at your desk again in about a week; after a larger session, give it two. Hold off on the gym for four to six weeks. Most bruising has cleared within two or three, though odd numb or tingly patches can hang around for a few months longer.

When you'll see your liposuction results

Six weeks in, you're looking at an early version. Over the following three to six months the last of the swelling goes and the skin firms up, and that's when the outline is worth judging. That's when we review it with you.

A small proportion of people have a slightly uneven area that benefits from a limited touch-up. We talk about it when we review you at six months, and we don't promise it beforehand, because many small irregularities settle on their own.

Is liposuction safe?

When liposuction disappoints, the complaint is rarely that too little was taken. Much more often it's a dip, a ridge, or one side that doesn't quite match the other. Most of that comes down to technique, so we care more about leaving an even layer than about how many litres end up in the jar.

Other problems that sometimes happen, and usually settle, include fluid pooling under the skin, swelling that drags on, and skin that feels different for a while. Serious problems are rare. Blood clots are the one we guard against hardest, with calf pumps during surgery, early walking, and a flight date set by the surgical team. Very rarely, fat can enter the bloodstream. Risk rises with the number of zones and the length of surgery, which is one more reason the anaesthetist's limit exists.

Where the regional pages come in

Different parts of the body bring different questions, and each one has a page. If it's your tummy, start with belly liposuction, which also explains when a tummy tuck makes more sense. If it's your whole waistline, 360 liposuction goes all the way round. Arms, legs, back and chin each have their own page too, and HD liposuction covers the very different goal of showing off the muscles underneath.

Liposuction cost in Turkey

The only thing that changes the price is how many zones are treated. A single zone costs €2,500. Each zone after that adds roughly €600, so two come to €3,100, three to €3,700 and four to €4,300, with eight topping out at €6,800. Adding VASER ultrasound costs €500, and J-Plasma €1,500. Your written plan lists each zone by name, along with the pinch-test finding for each area.

A stay of four nights in Istanbul covers up to four zones. From five zones upwards you'll need six, and one of those nights is on the ward either way. The table above sets our prices beside UK, German and American ones. When comparing, ask other clinics to list their zones by name. Without that, two quotes for "liposuction" can describe very different amounts of work.

What to look for in before and after pictures

Our gallery above covers the abdomen, flanks, thighs and arms. Look at the edges of each treated area. Where liposuction has gone well, you can't see where the treated area stops and the untreated skin begins. Reviews are most useful when the patient waited three months or more before writing, because before that the swelling is still in the way. Apply the same thinking to before and after photos. Find out how long after surgery the second one was taken, and compare the lighting and the way the person is standing.

Getting a plan

Send photos standing straight from the front, both sides and behind, and a close photo of each area with the skin pinched between finger and thumb. Tell us your current weight and whether it has been stable. Our Istanbul surgeons will come back to you with the zones by name, the count, the price and, where the skin won't follow, a straight recommendation for something other than liposuction in Turkey.