The aging process can be relentless. First, the skin on your face begins to sag, and next thing you know, the effect is happening elsewhere, such as around your thighs.
At Cosmetic Surgery Center, Dr. Trent Fogleman and our team pride ourselves on offering services that can tackle the aging process from head to toe. If you find yourself reluctant to bare your legs this summer because of sagging thighs, we have two solutions that can help, and we explore them here.
Before we get into how we can remedy sagging thighs, let’s take a look at why this occurs in the first place. The primary culprit is the natural loss of collagen as you get older. Collagen is the most plentiful protein in the human body, and its primary responsibility is to lend structural support to your tissues.
When you were in your teens and early 20s, your skin enjoyed ample collagen, which is why it was so toned and elastic. As you enter adulthood, however, your production of collagen decreases about 1% a year, which is barely noticeable, at first.
As you enter your 40s, 50s, and beyond, however, the loss adds up, and your skin no longer enjoys the same support it once did. If you couple this with the fact that exposure to the sun over the years has broken down your existing collagen fibers, you can see why the skin all over your body can succumb to gravity and sag downward.
You’ve likely heard of a facelift or a neck lift, but did you know that we can also perform the same procedure on other parts of your body, such as your thighs? Called a thigh lift, this technique is one in which we remove excess skin and fat around your thighs to give them a more toned appearance.
It’s important to note that we often combine a thigh lift with liposuction, which allows us to reduce the overall size of your thighs and then ensure that your skin matches the new, slimmer profile of your upper legs.
If you opt for a thigh lift, please know that it’s a surgical procedure that we perform using general anesthesia. When it comes to recovery, you should plan on taking it easy for the first week, and you should expect to wear compression garments for 4-6 weeks afterward.
Another great option for sagging thighs is our innovative Renuvion® J-Plasma skin-tightening system. With Renuvion, we deliver a combination of helium plasma and radiofrequency energy into your tissue, which causes tissue contraction. The heating energy targets your collagen and causes it to tighten in response. At the same time, the energy causes your collagen production to increase for more gradual, long-term results.
The Renuvion system is minimally invasive, and we don’t remove any tissues, which means your recovery time is greatly reduced.
Another great way to tighten and tone the skin around your thighs is to combine our thigh lift procedure with Renuvion. In doing this, we reduce the amount of tissue around your thighs and tighten the existing skin.
This is a question only you can answer. If you’re tired of hiding your legs because of sagging skin around your thighs, it may be worth exploring your options.
To get started, contact our office in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to set up a consultation.
