Volume Loss Following Brazilian Butt Lift

Do I Have to Avoid Sitting After BBL?

As a Brazilian Butt Lift expert, patients repeatedly ask me whether they can sit and sleep on their butts after a BBL surgery. In short, the answer is yes! First, let’s address why this question exists in the first place. Most patients lose 40% of their initial butt volume after a Brazilian Butt Lift and they are left wondering why.

When they ask this question, their surgeon often tells them that they sat or slept on their butt too soon after surgery, thereby placing all of the blame on the patient and avoiding responsibility for their own poor results. Doctors will say that sitting or sleeping on your buttocks after a Brazilian Butt Lift causes the death of the fat cells due to pressure. However, this is a huge fallacy because pressure-induced cell death would cause the skin to die before the fat. So unless your skin dies, there is no way you can have fat death. Since these patients aren’t experiencing skin death, the pressure is not the cause of the loss of buttock volume.

So, Why do we Observe Volume Loss?

The main reason that patients see volume loss after a Brazilian Butt Lift is because most practitioners use traditional liposuction techniques to harvest fat. When they use that technique, the cannula literally rips out fat cells, almost like physical extraction. This trauma causes the nicking of the fat cell membrane. Once the membrane is nicked, the fat cells will die.

Unfortunately, practitioners can’t differentiate between the living and dead fat cells, so they take all of the harvested cells, both dead and alive, and put them into the butt. As a result, the body reabsorbs 40% of the cells. Therein lies the problem. The reason for the 40% volume loss is that the body removes the injured fat cells when they die. Clearly, the issue results from surgical technique, not pressure caused cell death.

In contrast to traditional liposuction, VASER utilizes ultrasound energy to melt the fat. Melting the fat breaks up the cluster of solid cells tethered together and releases them gently from a solid-state to a single cell, liquid state. As a result, when we remove them, we are siphoning out of fat cells rather than piercing and killing them. Fat viability has been shown to be up to 96% with the VASER technique, proving once again that the technique creates results, not post-operative patient care limitations. If you want permanently full buttocks that avoid volume loss, please book a free consultation with Dr. Laguna.