Traditional liposuction techniques focused on de-bulking fat and attempted to show some of the contours of the muscles beneath the fat. The newest “high-definition liposuction” is focused on removing nearly all the fat and showing the muscles in great detail. This produces beautiful effects because the actual beauty of the form of the human body is the musculature rather than the fat on top.

These methods are possible because we now can define the anatomy and make deeper and thinner liposuction results in the areas where the divisions between the muscles are. In particular, the midline division between the bellybutton and the rib cage can be deepened, and this is very attractive when the rest of the fat is sculpted away. There are a lot of people who are out of shape and have a lot of musculature underneath their fat who can now be carefully defined and improved in a way that’s remarkable pleasing. The men can get six-packs if they have musculature to begin with,and women can get a defined body that was never previously possible.

In addition to the “high-definition” work, after the liposuction fat transplant is now being performed in a much more aggressive fashion on the buttocks. Our current fat transplant technique now includes the sides of the buttocks in addition to the back. This produces beautiful figure eight bodies that our patients are very proud of.

This sort of liposuction is very technique-related and results are largely dependent on the experiences of the surgeon. With over 10,000 successful liposuction cases, we have the experiences and expertise to produce high-definition cases very accurately. Please come in for a consultation to see if you're a candidate. Our consultations are free.

We Frequently Have Our Thank-Yous Delivered by Florists

The accompanying photo is of a beautiful flower arrangement that was given to us by a patient who had just had a large-volume liposuction. She gave us a little card (I cut her name out of the card so that it would protect her privacy online). She was very enthusiastic about her results. She could tell that she obtained a beautiful result even four days postoperatively, which is when we received the flowers.

Dr. Yoho and Judy Go to Swim Camp in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Recently, Dr. Yoho and Judy decided to improve their swimming technique and went to the U.S. Virgin Islands for a camp which consisted of four hours of swimming a day. It wasn’t as hard as you might suspect, because a lot of it was instruction. Judy was at about the dog-paddle stage. Dr. Yoho had a confident stroke, but it wasn’t very refined and he’d never swum on competitive teams in the past. The mission was to attempt to learn “total immersion” technique from Terry Laughlin, who can be found at http://www.totalimmersion.net/ with lots of videos to explain this particular kind of swimming. The object is to swim long distances without expending a lot of energy. It’s harder than it looks, and despite swimming four miles once during camp, Dr. Yoho has still a long way to go in his technique. Judy made great improvements and had great instruction and had a lot of fun, but is still not a super-confident swimmer. They thought that few of these photographs might be fun for our patients and friends to see.

We recommend active and healthy lifestyles, and here is a link to our website where Dr. Yoho recommends nutrition advice as well as exercise advice.

Have You Heard About the Liposuction Revolution?

Dr. Yoho (while NOT performing liposuction) and friends

There is a new device that we have had for several months that has revolutionized our ability to extract fat in a safe, even fashion. This instrument is a mechanical device which rotates 360 degrees in each direction every second. And this motion is safe and makes the liposuctionist's ability to extract fat in an even, rapid fashion much better. 

Our experience with this has been all positive. We've never had any significant complications. We seem to be cutting our times down by about 25 or 30 percent, which helps the patient because they receive less anesthetic and therefore are not as groggy after the case. Having them get in the compression garment sooner is a big advantage because the tissues don't have time to get swollen. 

There is nothing else different about how we do the procedure; we use the same local anesthetic and the same sedation techniques we describe in our other blogs, and the operation by the surgeon mimics identically the stroking that is necessary in the older technique. 

We would like you to come in and we can show you this device and tell you more about how it has improved our liposuction results in practice.

The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread

We believe our Fractionated CO2 laser, the SmartXide DOT is absolutely fantastic and many of the experts in the field have said that it’s a huge advancement in laser technology. 

The technique is that the laser sprays tiny treatment areas—literally, many tens of thousands of them onto the face with each treatment.  It leaves bridges of normal skin in between the treated areas which are very tiny and which allow the face to regenerate in a very natural fashion.  The treatment takes about fifteen minutes. 

We have had great results with people of all different skin types; and particularly with moderate, intermediate skin types such as Hispanic and Middle Eastern skin types.  The color improvement can be marvelous.

Please come in for your free consultation as soon as you can so you can get your laser treatment lined up.  We offer free sedation if you have a driver--and your experience will be a very pleasant and relaxing one; furthermore, you won’t even remember the procedure!!!



Fractional Laser Improves Skin Color Irregularities in Previously Laser-Damaged Skin

Gorgeous getaway--Dr. Yoho vacation photo

We have a patient who had a prior laser procedure on her neck and had irregular pigmentation where there were some white areas and some darker areas. This individual had this problem for over ten years and had tried all kinds of things, including the Fraxel laser treatment, which is another wavelength than the fractional CO2 laser, even though the names sound very similar. 

With a couple of fractional CO2 laser treatments with our SmartXide DOT laser, all of the skin on her neck evened out to a healthy tan color and the “splotchiness” went away. We think that these fractional CO2 treatments stimulated the pigment in the areas that were lighter and also took away pigment in the areas that were darker. It just has a very nice quality of evening the skin texture and color and making a much more pleasing and youthful finish on the skin. It has been quoted to be one of the biggest advances in laser technology we've had in the last 15 years by at least one famous dermatologist, and we believe this is true. We have more or less abandoned use of the other treatment modalities for light and intermediate depth peels because the fractionated laser works so well. 

We only charge $750 for a full-face laser treatment and a bit more for face and neck and chest. Many of the dermatology offices charge twice this. We use this as an accompanying treatment in many of our surgeries and the patients really appreciate their results.

Did You Know That the Upper Pelvic Area of Female Anatomy Has Different Standards of Beauty in Different Cultures?

In certain South American cultures, the area below the belly and above the vagina is deemed very beautiful if it’s plump and even a little over weight by most American standards. Certain people and certain cultures like this area bigger, and fat transplant can accomplish this if you think that your area is too thin.

For the most part, however, American women like this area liposuctioned when we liposuction the rest of their trunk area or torso. We do this as a matter of course unless there are other requests.

We occasionally come across someone who has a different standard of beauty and for these people fat transplant is not appropriate.

So it’s entirely up to you. We can change your body the way that you think is best by either fat transplant or liposuction. Please come in for your consultation to see just what we can do for you.


All the best,


Robert Yoho, M.D.

The Use of Sticky Foam After Liposuction

Dr. Yoho climing El Capitan. No sticky foam here!

Reston foam was commonly used by liposuction surgeons worldwide ten to fifteen years ago. Its utility involved pasting the loose skin just exactly where the surgeon wanted it to the muscle tissues after the liposuction procedure. The advantage to this is that the girdle and the patient’s movement were unable to distort the skin placement and produce strange wrinkles that would take many months to go away. The disadvantage of this was the possibility that the patient would become irritated from the adhesive, have an allergic reaction to the adhesive which would produce a red skin or a rash, or even tear the skin when they were taking the adhesive-backed foam off.

Our solution to these problems is as follows: We instruct our patients very carefully to watch their skin irritation level and come right back into the office if they’re having any problems or any pain. We tell them to soak in a bath at day four, and this dissolves the adhesive to some degree, and then at day five after the surgery, they can more easily remove the adhesive-backed foam. While this is not a comfortable process, we’ve found that the foam, particularly in the front of the abdomen (not so much the sides) generally produces a far smoother result with much less irritation, despite the aggravation of having to take the foam off.

That said, pigment problems, areas of skin irritation or even superficial loss, and some other problems occur with the foam. Despite this, use of the sticky foam is exceedingly helpful, particularly in large-volume liposuction cases.

Another alternative to the foam is if the responsible patient is able to massage the area from day one or day two after the surgery, they can keep the wrinkles from occurring. This usually has to be done, however, in a lying-down position because the patients have a tendency to feel faint when they take the garment off this early.

CALIFORNIA LIPOSUCTION LEGAL STANDARDS

The law regarding liposuction standards in California is clear. I was involved in developing these standards. I testified several times before the California Medical Board and supplied them with materials and documentation to aid them in their decision-making process. I believe that these rules are important and necessary for safety. I want to make several points.
1) If you are seeing someone who does not start an intravenous line, they are violating the surgeon’s “standard of care” and also California law.
2) The other requirements include blood oxygen and blood pressure monitoring, which are simple, modern devices to see how well you are breathing and how well your heart is working.
3) Modern liposuction is a very, very safe procedure in experienced hands. However, there are risks and if you find someone who says that it is risk free, you should look elsewhere. Surgical complications such as infection are unlikely but possible.
4) If your surgeon uses no relaxation medicines at all, some sort of liposuction may be performed and the risks may be lower. However, like anything in life, there are trade-offs, in other words you have to accept possibly a lower standard of results—in particular less fat removal--in exchange for not going to sleep. Additionally, we have found that many of our patients find the option of having nothing but local anesthetic frightening and sometimes quite uncomfortable. This is not to say that I approve of general anesthesia for liposuction, I don’t. I think this compounds the risk.
5) For individuals who need significant amounts of fat removed, California law requires a certified surgical center, such as a hospital would have. Ask to see the certificate if this is the case.

Dr. Yoho has patients come from Glendale, Burbank,Pasadena, Los Angeles, Encino, Huntington Park, Studio City,Arcadia, Montrose, Hollywood, La Crescenta, La CanadaFlintridge, Valencia, Monrovia, Eagle Rock, Altadena, SanMarino, Sherman Oaks, Thousand Oaks, North Hollywood,Long Beach, Beverly Hills, Van Nuys, Santa Monica,Calabasas, Palmdale, Fresno, Visalia, Northridge, and WestlakeVillage, and Simi Valley to have their appearance improved with our special surgical technique.

Our Cosmetic Surgery center in Pasadena, California specializes primarily in Cosmetic Surgery including breast augmentation, liposuction, tummy tuck,cosmetic facelifts, forehead lift, Chin and jowl liposuction,Eyelid Surgery and other body contouring procedures.The center is lead by expert Los Angeles Cosmetic Surgeon Dr. Yoho, who has passed the Boards in Cosmetic Surgery and is dedicated to providing high quality yet affordable cosmetic surgery options for his patients and being the best cosmetic surgeon in Los Angeles, Glendale, Pasadena, and Beverly Hills. Our offices in Palmdale and Visialia offer cosmetic surgery in Fresno
Bakersfield and the Lancaster, Valencia California areas.