How Long Does Vaser Lipo Swelling Last?

At the Dr. Alexandra Chambers Medical and Aesthetic Practice, one of our most popular treatments is Vaser Liposuction, a low-impact body sculpting procedure. In our clinic, we typically remove on average three to four litres of sub-dermal fat, and the target areas are varied, including the abdomen, ankles, arms, back, buttocks, chest, chin, flanks, jowls, knees, neck, and thighs.

Vaser lipo surgery is performed with a local anaesthetic, and thanks to its pulsed ultrasound technology, it is very efficient at liquefying and removing fat. This is in contrast to traditional liposuction, which requires general anaesthesia, and in general, is a much less effective fat removal method. The result is that Vaser is safer, less expensive, providing better more controlled results, and, post-operatively, is much lower impact. It is lower impact because the body recover faster from local anaesthesia, and because the skin layer suffers much less trauma. Thanks to these reasons, it is typically possible to resume one’s normal life within a day of a Vaser operation.

That said, as with any surgical procedure, there will be post-operative swelling, bruising, and numbness, and for some patients these can be a cause of distress. Although during our consultation process we explain in significant detail what can be expected, patients typically are quite concerned. Moreover, we have noted that this topic interests patients from other clinics, as we have observed from the numerous questions about it on a wide variety of online forums and social networks.It is for these reasons we’ve compiled clinical data for a sample of 129 Vaser procedures from our own clinic, and have assembled the statistics on post-operative swelling, bruising, and numbness. The results, presented below, provide a clear picture of what can be expected, and we now make use of these figures to better communicate and reassure our own patients. Hopefully they will also be of use to others.In interpreting the results we present below, note that in addition to the use of compression garments, we offer all our patients manual lymphatic drainage massage as a standard part of our post-operative care. We believe, this significantly shortens the duration of swelling.

The first graph we present illustrates the statistics for Vaser lipo swelling to subside. The vertical height of the bars gives the percentage of patients having their swelling subside by the number of days shown under the bar on the horizontal axis. It shows that the most common duration is 16 days, and this was the case for 40% of our patients. The graph also indicates that 2% of our patients required up to 44 days (over six weeks) before swelling subsided, whereas 2% of them also required only 4 days to get over being swollen after a Vaser treatment.

The second graph illustrates the cumulative percentage of patients recovering from swelling after Vaser lipo. It shows that half our patients need 14 days to recover from swelling, and that 90% of our patients have recovered from swelling after 24 days. That’s to say that 13 of the 129 patients from this sample required more than three and a half weeks before swelling subsided. This shows that a significant number of patients will have long swelling after their operations.

The third graph shows the stats for Vaser lipo bruising to subside. The most common duration was 16 days (30% of patients), whereas one patient required 36 days.

The fourth graph show that 50% of our patients were over bruising caused by Vaser lipo after 11 days, and that 90% of them were over it after 16 days.

The fifth graph show the statistics for numbness to subside after a Vaser operation. It shows that 16 days was the most common (25.5%), but that a significant number still had numbness up to 32 days after their procedure.

The sixth and final graph shows that 50% of our patients were over numbness after 16 days, while 90% after 30 days.