S05E85 Shaping the Modern Man: Insights into Male Liposuction

Discover the cutting-edge of men's health and aesthetics as we sit down with hosts Dr. Sam Jejurikar @samjejurikar, Dr. Salvatore Pacella @sandiegoplasticsurgeon, Dr. Lawrence Tong @yorkvilleplasticsurgery, and Dr. Sam Rhee @bergencosmetic.

Prepare to have your eyes opened to the rapidly changing landscape of male cosmetic surgery. We tackle the nuances between men and women's liposuction, focusing on how men strive for that V-shaped torso indicative of classical masculinity. We'll also reveal how this is not just about vanity but a broader integration of body sculpting into fitness regimes, and the influence of hormonal supplements and GLP-1 agonists on patient outcomes.

It's not a one-size-fits-all approach; we get into the nitty-gritty of why certain candidates are ripe for achieving those chiseled, high-definition results, while others with a high degree of visceral fat might need to think differently. We delve into the unique tools and postoperative care that go into crafting a more aesthetic male form.

Join us as we break down the importance of realistic expectations, improved patient compliance, and why a tailored postoperative protocol is vital for that picture-perfect outcome. It's an episode packed with insights and expertise - perfect for anyone curious about the evolution of cosmetic procedures for men or considering taking the plunge themselves.

@sandiegoplasticsurgeon @3plasticsurgerypodcast #podcast #plasticsurgery #cosmeticsurgery #plasticsurgeon #beauty #boardcertified #aesthetic 3plasticsurgeonsandamicrophone ⁠#bergencosmetic ⁠#bestplasticsurgeon #beforeafter #aesthetics #realpatientrealresult #boardcertifiedplasticsurgeon #njplasticsurgeon #njplasticsurgery #nyplasticsurgeon #nyplasticsurgery

00:00 Introduction and Overview

03:04 The Rising Popularity of Liposuction Among Men

08:08 Ideal Candidates and Differences in Approach

14:36 Energy Devices and Fat Grafting in Male Liposuction

26:05 Challenges and Patient Compliance

30:07 Patient Satisfaction and Closing Remarks

S05E85 Shaping the Modern Man: Insights into Male Liposuction

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00]

Dr. Sam Rhee: Welcome to another episode of Three Plastic Surgeons in a Fourth. And we have with us today, Dr. Lawrence Tong from Toronto, Canada, his, uh,

Dr. Lawrence Tong: the f*ck did I come from?

Dr. Sam Rhee: and, uh, you know why? Okay. Full disclosure. He showed up late. We were just going to go ahead and record without him, but since he showed up, we're, we're, we're carrying Larry today on this.

Dr. Lawrence Tong: Alright, I was cooking dinner, man.

Dr. Sam Rhee: yeah, I know. Listen, you gotta eat. I understand that. Uh, and his, uh, Instagram handle is Yorkville Plastic Surgery.

Uh, we also have Dr. Sa uh, Sam Jejurikar, and he's from Dallas, Texas. And his Instagram

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: have a question. We just changed our name from Three Plastic Churns and a Microphone to Three plastic surgeons at a fourth, but now I only count three plastic surgeons,

Dr. Sam Rhee: yeah, I was I was gonna get to that. [00:01:00] So,

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: don't know, like

Dr. Sam Rhee: let me intro you and your social media handle for for our for For the listener, so they can hear it, uh, your Instagram handle is, uh, at Sam Jejurikar, and our, and I am Dr. Sam Rhee, and I am in Paramus, New Jersey, and my Instagram handle is at Bergen Cosmetic, and you're correct.

Our fourth thought this was Pacific time, not Eastern, uh, Uh, Standard Time, or Eastern Daylight Savings Time. And so, he was like, My bad, I thought it was going to be three hours from now. But three hours from now, I'm going to be sleeping. I'm sorry. So, we're missing Sal.

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: uh, maybe for Dr. Pacella's sake, we should just always pick our times to record in Pacific time, and the rest of us can just adjust.

Dr. Sam Rhee: Yes, I,

Dr. Lawrence Tong: Well, I, will note, I will note that it's always been Eastern Standard Time, has it not?

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: here, yeah,

Dr. Sam Rhee: Yeah, but I will say it. Listen, I'm happy to accommodate Dr. Pacella in any way. Any way possible [00:02:00] because his presence is sorely missed, but

Dr. Lawrence Tong: will be missed today.

Dr. Sam Rhee: but just so that people know his Instagram handle is San Diego Plastic Surgeon and he is located out of La Jolla, California. So with that, our topic today is about men being mad about liposuction.

Not being mad in the sense that they don't, they're mad at it, like angry, it's they're crazy for liposuction. Liposuction at this point is one of the top procedures for men, uh, within, in, uh, nearly 20, 000 men in 2022 undergoing this procedure. So we're going to just sort of take a deep dive into men, getting liposuction.

But first, before we start, let's start with our disclaimer.

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: This show is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This show is for informational purposes only. Treatment and results may vary based upon the circumstances, situation, and medical judgment. After appropriate discussion, always seek the advice of your surgeon or other qualified health [00:03:00] provider with any questions you may have regarding medical care, and never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking advice because of something in this show.

Dr. Sam Rhee: Awesome. So, as I, uh, opened, uh, men getting liposuction is now a thing, and it's getting more and more popular. And, uh, I don't know about you guys, I want to hear about your experience with that, but I am seeing more and more men, uh, as patients. And, uh, it, I think there is definitely a stigma that has been lost in terms of men obtaining a lot of different cosmetic procedures, but in particular liposuction.

So what do you guys think about that trend so far?

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: Um, I'll go first. I think, um, I've always seen a lot of men in my practice for liposuction, but I agree. The stigma is definitely going away. Um, and so I'll see a lot of men who are fit, who work out, who have problem areas that they just can't shed, or who want to see more muscle definition, and they're now incorporating liposuction [00:04:00] as part of, Um, their fitness regimen.

A lot of these same patients are taking a lot of supplements, testosterone. Now they're stacking, um, you know, some of these GLP 1 agonists on top of it as well. And so it's, I'm finding that the conversation's a little bit more complicated in terms of how liposuction fits into their, into their regimen, but I'm seeing a lot of it and doing a lot of it.

Dr. Lawrence Tong: Yeah, I think your comment about, um, the stigma being gone is certainly true. As cosmetic surgery has gone mainstream, female patients were sort The first, um, patients who really, uh, started publicizing and, uh, making these procedures popular. And now we just see the natural progression of, you know, male patients, uh, catching on because, uh, you know, liposuction is one of those, uh, procedures where if you want to trim a certain area of fat from your [00:05:00] body, it's often very, very difficult to do just through diet and exercise.

And if you want targeted, direct fat removal, say from your abdomen, you can't just do a thousand sit ups and make that fat go away. That's not how it works. So liposuction definitely, um, is a very attractive option and I, uh, Also have the same experience with more and more male patients coming in, um, every year.

And I would say my number one area that I seem to be seeing is probably the love handles, uh, the flank area, um, and followed by probably the abdomen.

Dr. Sam Rhee: I would, I would say, uh, Based on my patient population, I've, I've seen a fair number of patients always for more gynecomastia and also sort of neck lipo. Like if I saw more like men, it was a lot of neck contouring. Um, the body stuff has started to come on a little bit more of late [00:06:00] and, uh, It's interesting to see the types of patients that come in who are men who are looking for aesthetic enhancements.

So let's throw this out there. What is your ideal candidate as a man coming in who's looking for a liposuction procedure?

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: So I think the majority of patients who I'm treating, who I consider to be ideal candidates are men that are in good physical shape. So they are not using liposuction as a tool to try to lose weight or to not be fat, but they're using it to try to create the body shape that they want. Men who exercise regularly, both, um, you know, with weight training being a substantial component of what they're doing and have good muscle definition.

Um, And then, um, you know, I typically will find you guys were talking about areas that you were getting treated. I find that the ideal candidate is someone who is trying to use liposuction to sort of enhance an already [00:07:00] muscular shape. So, um, so I'll find it that, that the ideal candidate is going to be someone who is muscular in great shape.

Um, and then they're not necessarily trying to focus it on one particular area of the body, but they're trying to get their body overall to look. Like sort of the ideal male form. To me, that's the ideal candidate.

Dr. Lawrence Tong: Um, just a comment about what Dr. Rhee said. Um, I consider, um, You know, male gynecomastia surgery as I, um, as more of a primary procedure for gland removal as opposed to liposuction. But if you look at that, uh, uh, procedure as a liposuction procedure, yes, I would say that that is the number one procedure for males.

But, um, I see that liposuction is just part of the gynecomastia surgery. Uh, for the ideal candidate, um, yeah, basically for our listeners, uh, male patients who are. [00:08:00] Um, interested in liposuction. Um, being close or very close to ideal weight, um,

Dr. Sam Rhee: is very

Dr. Lawrence Tong: is very good. You have to be healthy. This is not a weight loss procedure, as Dr.

Jejurikar had mentioned. This is for, uh, you know, trimming certain areas. Um, patients. who don't have multiple, you know, systemic diseases, who are non smokers. Those are the ideal patients. And then from the other point of view, you have to be realistic about what, um, you know, liposuction can do. Uh, liposuction is a procedure which removes fat from underneath the skin.

So implied, uh, In that is that to be successful, you have to have good elastic skin. If you have a lot of saggy skin or your skin is inelastic because of age or whatever other reason, then, you know, liposuction might not be ideal for you. And, you know, if you came to see one of us, we [00:09:00] might steer you. In a slightly different direction.

So, uh, healthy patients, patients with good realistic expectations and patients with good anatomy, that is, um, some fat to remove, but skin that will shrink back afterwards,

Dr. Sam Rhee: You know, I will tell you, I see a lot of not ideal candidates more than ideal candidates. It's pretty common. I'll, I'll have a patient, a woman in for a liposuction and then maybe their significant other or someone they know accompanies them. And the guy's like, Hey, yo, maybe is this good for me too? Like, could I get lipo?

And, uh,

Dr. Lawrence Tong: how they talk in New Jersey.

Dr. Sam Rhee: That's exactly what my patients talk like in New Jersey. And

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: how you seem, you seem to channel James Gandolfini when you were, uh, when you, when you were imitating your patients.

Dr. Sam Rhee: Jersey is a real thing. And love my Jersey patients. Let me just put it that way. And, uh, and I will tell them, listen, first of all, [00:10:00] uh, you are right. Both of you, if you are not healthy and working out, I say, listen, are you guys, are you doing what you, what you should be doing in terms of your nutrition and your fitness?

And most of them kind of look like, no. And I'm like, yeah, listen, if you aren't working on those aspects of your life first, you're not going to do, don't go to liposuction as your first line improvement treatment. Okay. You got to work on your health. And that is something that I really emphasize with these guys.

I said, listen, you're this person that you're with this woman who gets, let's say a tummy tuck or breast augmentation, or even lipo. A lot of them are old. They've had multiple kids, okay? They have had changes done to their body that were not, um, of their own making. You know, when you have three kids, there are a lot of things that happen to your body.

And these are things that They did not ask for or actually [00:11:00] choose in terms of physiologic change. But I tell a guy, listen, if your body looks the way it does, you're responsible for that. There was nothing in your life that made you look the way you look right now except for your genes and your lifestyle.

So I said, if you're not thrilled with that, You got to change your lifestyle. And so I say, I don't say no to people, but I will say, listen, give me three months, six months of your best. efforts in terms of fitnessing, exercise, diet, nutrition, whatever, all right? And, and let's see where you are and then let's talk.

But let's face it, it's really hard for people, really hard. I think with the GLP and Wigovi, I think a lot of these men are now starting to go there first as opposed to coming in and saying, Hey, I'm fat. Can you do something about that? Um, and so that's really helped a [00:12:00] lot, but I cannot tell you how many candidates I've looked at and I said, listen, you're, you need to get some work done on yourself first by yourself before I can come in and do something for you.

So. Um, go ahead.

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: I was going to, I was going to ask you guys, so, um. You know, the focus of the article that sort of prompted this conversation was about how male liposuction cases had gone up so much, but it still dwarfs, you know, still dwarfed by the number of cases that we do on women and the national numbers of women that are having this done.

And I think, you know, one of the concerns that I will see from patients, male patients that are coming in, is they want to make sure that we're doing things differently. for men than we are for women so that they don't end up having a feminine look. You know, when I'm talking about doing liposuction on a woman, I might be talking about them having an hourglass silhouette.

That is not something I'm trying to achieve on a man. So I'm curious how you [00:13:00] guys tailor your approach for men, whether it's the whole body or specific anatomic areas, what you do differently for male patients having liposuction than you might do for a woman.

Dr. Sam Rhee: It's a really good point. Like you said, 90 percent of our, of our patients are still women. Uh, nationally, about 11 percent are still, are men. And, uh, this is in the article which, uh, let me reference from ASPS, uh, from March 24th. Aaliyah, uh, Wilson was the, was the writer. Why are men mad about liposuction?

And, uh, You're, you're right. I think if you try to do what you do normally for a woman in terms of liposuction, as you do for a guy, they won't be very happy. And I think one of the big things, as you mentioned, is you're really trying to create curves on a woman. As you said, you need to bring that waist in.

You want that hourglass figure. You want that shape. You want the hips. You want, um, the chest to be [00:14:00] wider. And then you want this really nice silhouette. Uh, that's feminine for, uh, for a woman. Uh, for men, you want to look for more of a delta or a V shaped. Um, body type, one that looks masculine, one that accentuates what musculature, uh, and what a masculine, uh, profile would look like.

And, uh, and some of that actually has to do, uh, and that's why I think you can tolerate a a little bit of a higher body fat percentage on a woman patient in terms of doing liposuction as you can in a man. In a man, you're really highlighting musculature. That's what you want. You want a dominant male profile, like a more male profile.

In women, you want to reshape that body fat profile. And a very skinny woman with a lot of muscle is not someone that, you know, is necessarily an ideal candidate as a woman. You're looking for a classic feminine figure. So you need to have a reasonable amount of body fat in order to work [00:15:00] with and to shape.

Um, not so with men. Uh, how do you guys achieve or work with your liposuction techniques in order to achieve what I think is like a, a more masculine?

Dr. Lawrence Tong: I was just going to, uh, compliment, uh, sorry, um, make a comment that, um, the areas men want are often a little bit different than what women want. For example, know about you guys, but I rarely see a man come in with, um, lateral thigh who needs or wants lateral thigh liposuction. That's sort of the saddlebag area.

In a woman, if you were going to do that area for liposuction, you would try to keep some of that. So they have, um, Um, a nicer curve in that area. Um, you wouldn't make it, uh, very, very straight. Um, although some patients do want that, but if, if you do it very straight, then that's more of a masculine, um, appearance.

So, um, if a man ever does come in for that sort of, uh, [00:16:00] issue, then you would want to make it straight instead of keeping it, um, more curved. Another difference is, um,

Dr. Sam Rhee: that's, if

Dr. Lawrence Tong: you guys do liposuction of the arms, That is almost something that is, that I see is exclusively the domain of female patients. I never see men come in wanting arm liposuction done.

So I think that reflects some of the differences, um, um, in the anatomy. Um, so I thought that's very interesting. One other comment, um, is, uh, that we talked about for, um, ideal candidates. Men seem to have a lot of visceral fat. So for listeners, um, out there, visceral fat is the fat that is contained inside your abdominal cavity.

So there's fat that's on the outside and that's the stuff you can pinch. And then there's the fat on the inside is sort of wrapped around your organs and things like that. So when we do liposuction, we can liposuction the fat that's on the outside. [00:17:00] That's the fat that's under the skin, but we can't do anything for that inside fat.

And a lot of men actually come in, um, thinking that when we do liposuction, they're going to take care of that. So it's very important to make sure that a patient understands that if they had that anatomy, just as Dr. Reed had said, they might have to lose some weight in, in order to get the best result possible.

And men out there, if, if you, um, have sort of like a beer gut and you're just, when you pinch your skin, you don't really pinch a lot. Everything's sort of tight, but your belly looks still pretty big. You probably have. What's called the visceral fat. You need to lose weight for that in order to get rid of that.

There is no plastic surgery that we can do for that.

Dr. Sam Rhee: I don't actually know where to start.

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: And you guys have raised such So many good points. I don't actually know where to start. So let me, uh, comment to two things that Larry said, and then I'll follow up with Sam's kind of question to us. Um, I totally agree. The arms tend to be the domain of women [00:18:00] when it comes to liposuction. The few men that I've seen that want us to address their arms are typically a skin laxity issue.

And you have to explain to them that what they're seeing is typically loose skin related to weight loss or just poor elasticity. Um, And it's not so much liposuction. And then, um, the second thing about visceral fat, that is such a key function and such a problem area for so many men. Um, the one thing that is a little bit different is a couple of years ago, when men would come to me for visceral fat, it was this conversation of one, it was almost a hopeless conversation where I would tell them, look, I know you're struggling and there's things you can do to try to lose visceral fat, try to get more sleep at night, try to cut back on alcohol, work out more.

A lot of these guys had insulin resistance or early metabolic syndrome or early diabetes. And they needed to work on that. Now it's a little bit different. GLP 1 agonists. are so effective in getting rid of visceral fat that, um,

Dr. Sam Rhee: force

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: we'll just talk to them about a course of treatment with that. [00:19:00] And usually after three to six months, there's a huge improvement in visceral fat.

That leads to a whole other issue though, with GLP 1 agonists, which is in addition to losing fat, patients are losing muscle mass as well. They're particularly axial muscle mass of their arms and their legs. So you have to counsel patients. If they are on these medications, you need to be getting plenty of protein.

You need to be doing a lot of resistance training. Otherwise your skin's going to get loose and you're going to have a whole different problem.

Dr. Sam Rhee: have whole

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: Sam, your question was, um, what are some of the things that we're doing differently? I thought your points about how the ideal male and female shape are different was spot on.

I mean, that's very, very, um, accurate. And it kind of illustrates too, how the approach to liposuction has changed so much over the years. We used to think of liposuction merely as subtraction. You know, people would come in, they'd have areas of fat that bothered them. And we would remove that. And now it's a lot more about shaping or sculpting.

We're actually trying to create certain body shapes. And to me, I think a big portion of these cases is not just doing liposuction, but also using fat grafting, [00:20:00] how you might fat graft a woman and how you would fat graft a man would be very different. For a woman, you would, you know, focus on doing the butt and the hips, for instance, to try to give them a curvy shape.

For a man, you might be fat grafting the latissimus muscle or the biceps muscle to try to actually give them the shape that they want. Larry was talking about liposuction of the outer thighs. I never do that for women, or almost never do that for women. For men, I actually do it kind of frequently, particularly if I'm shaping their body, and I hollow that area out very much so to give them a very muscular look.

Other things that I think are important for men, I tend to really rely a lot upon ancillary technologies, particularly energy, uh, devices for, for, um, for showing muscle definition. I find a phaser, which is a focus ultrasound probe, which is delivering energy in the mid subcutaneous fat to be really effective for helping to get a little bit of contraction of the skin, but really allowing you to define, uh, muscles, which for the men, you know, for men, it's, it's awesome to do that over the abdominal area, over the.

[00:21:00] Latissimus area. I also tend to use, you know, devices like BodyTight or Renuvian to get some additional skin tightening. Those are radiofrequency devices that allow the skin to tighten, um, over the muscles. And you can really get nice muscle definition with that. Um, I find that, and tell me if you guys agree with this, I find that the male back Can be very, very fibrous and without energy devices, I have a very hard time getting a great liposuction result there.

Do you guys have that same experience?

Dr. Sam Rhee: Yeah, I think the back is, the back skin is thick. There's a lot of fiber, yeah, it is very fibrous to kind of push through that area. Um, you, if you're not, if you're just doing it manually, you are in, either you are ginormously strong as a plastic surgeon, or, um, you have a lot of assistance, because there's no way, if you don't have some sort of mechanical assistance, or as you said, additional energy modalities to kind of get through that, You're going to, you're going to be able to be very successful.

What do you think of, um, high [00:22:00] death lipo where you're doing more of the etching for some of these patients? Do you engage in some of those techniques as well?

Dr. Lawrence Tong: So that is, uh, that is a, you know, for, for our viewers who don't know what that is, that is doing liposuction techniques to sort of create More definition. So, for example, creating a six pack on the abdomen, that's more of an illusion than maybe a true six pack. So you're making areas that are deeper for the liposuction to show the six pack.

So that's definitely something that I think that is more in a category that males want. Females generally don't want that. Don't want, know, six pack to be shown when they're doing liposuction. They might want the central line to be sort of more defined, but maybe not a six pack. Having said that, I don't really do a lot of high def liposuction.[00:23:00]

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: Um, I think there are gradations to high definition liposuction. In the very extreme cases, it's a combination of liposuction.

Dr. Sam Rhee: it anymore.

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: fat grafting to really augment the muscles, which I think creates a very unnatural look. I have done it, but I don't really do it anymore. But I will do a lot of aggressive liposuction to highlight muscle definition, particularly patients that already fit.

Again, I use energy devices very liberally in these cases and aggressive liposuction, and I use drains and lymphatic massage post operatively to help them. The swelling go down much faster afterwards, and I've been pretty happy with the degree of muscle definition we can show in patients. I think, I think it comes down to the ideal candidate.

When I see patients that are not in good shape, or kind of Overweight or obese who are going in for abdominal etching. I think all three of us would agree that looks terrible. That looks really fake. That doesn't look very good, but in a patient that's fit, who is getting it done in a way that's, [00:24:00] um, you know, allowing them, allowing the body to highlight their natural muscle definition, that's already there.

It can be a really nice result. Uh, Chris

Dr. Sam Rhee: You know, um, we interviewed, uh, we had on our podcast, someone from Vegas, who was, uh, your friend, uh, what was his name? Yeah, he does a ton of high def and he does an amazing job, uh, both in men and women. And I, I would say when we talk about these sort of different male and female, uh, profiles in terms of how we do our lipo, these are just very general sort of profiles, like.

There are women who do get high def lipo. There, there are women who want more of a muscular look. There are some men who want more of an hourglass shape or have different, um, sort of body, uh, what, you know, ideas about what their ideal body type is. And so, while we sort of fall into gender norms with a lot of this stuff, it really is tailored to that [00:25:00] particular individual.

And I think You know, when we talk about trends, that doesn't mean that any particular individual is someone that we're going to say, you need to look like this, or you need to look like this. It's just our experience in terms of what we are hearing from patients in terms of what to, uh, achieve their ideal look for themselves in particular.

Um, what do you do differently, if anything, for your men, your men patients in terms of pre op, you know, intra op or post op type of, uh, Um, [00:26:00] protocols.

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: are already taking testosterone. If they're not, I encourage them to think about taking testosterone to help maintain muscle mass as they're losing, as they're losing adipose. Intraoperatively, um, the number of drains I might use for my liposuction tends to go up in men. Um, I think it's really important in the abdominal wall.

Um, I don't know if you guys have experienced this, but if you don't use drains in the abdominal wall, if you're doing liposuction, You can get pretty alarming swelling of the scrotal region, which leads to a lot of 911 calls in the middle of the night because it looks like a bruised elephant trunk, uh, and the scrotum looks pretty grotesque as well.

Um, but I use trains a lot. Um, like I, you know, like I talked about, I use, um, energy devices on almost all of my male cases where I don't necessarily use them on every female case. Post operatively, um, I tend to have a harder time getting men to wear compression for as long of a time as I can with women.

Um, but I still try to get them to wear compression pretty faithfully for, [00:27:00] you know, 24 hours a day for six weeks. Um, after that, I, I'm willing to just sort of accept that they might stay swollen a little bit longer than my female patients.

Dr. Sam Rhee: efficiently.

Dr. Lawrence Tong: don't think I do things that much differently. I think that Men sometimes

Dr. Sam Rhee: sometimes

Dr. Lawrence Tong: to follow instructions afterwards, uh, compared to females, and us being men, you probably think it's, you know, agree with them, agree with me. Um, so, yeah, I'll maybe have a little bit longer conversation of the importance of taking it easy.

Um, right after surgery, a lot of guys think that they're going to just, you know, do fine and go to work the next day, uh, so you just have to set some expectations, uh, for that because a lot of times, you know, some of the more tough guys will be the ones who are calling you all the time saying how painful it is and is this, you know, all right or is this normal?

And a lot of times you remember talking to them about these very specific things [00:28:00] and, you know, men sometimes don't listen as well as women.

Dr. Sam Rhee: well.

Dr. Lawrence Tong: So I make an emphasis to try to communicate expectations a little bit better. I think that's the main thing that I would do.

Dr. Sam Rhee: I, I think, uh, it depends on their situation. If, um, like sometimes they'll have women patients and they have like two kids and they're young and they have this and they got all these other responsibilities and they just try to do too much too quickly post op.

Um, men really depends on their pain tolerance. I have seen some men who have insane amount of pain tolerance. Then I've had some young men who just have. Absolutely terrible pain tolerance. Like, and so it, you know, I, I don't want to generalize to all genders and sort of say men, you know, are weak or they don't like, you know, do this or whatever, but like, I do definitely have a higher, Awareness for yes, compliance in men.

I really want to make sure they truly understand that these are important. [00:29:00] Like you said, uh, Sam, wearing the compression, um, making sure you, you, you show up for your follow ups, uh, communicating with us, uh, you know, managing your activities, as you said, Larry, like a lot of those things, uh, I really, you. Uh, just take a little bit of extra time with the men.

Um, I still do, I mean, I will say 90 percent of my men patients are still mostly like gynecomastia or neck lipo patients. Um, starting to do, um, more body, uh, body contouring for them. But like you said, it, it is tough to, to get them to that point where they are going to be excellent candidates. And I really hope, like you said, with the GLP agonists, with, um, With a general awareness about health, I think, I think more men are becoming more aware about, you know, obesity and, and, uh, just general health, that we're going to see better candidates that, you know, we can really optimize [00:30:00] their appearance, enhance their musculature, Sort of get them looking not 50, but 40 or 30 in terms of what their body looks like.

But it is, it is kind of a tough row sometimes to hoe with, with, uh, some of our men, uh, patients. What is it that, um, you really like about your men patients post op if you can get a really nice result with them? Like, uh, you know, can you think of anyone that you've really sort of enhanced dramatically or, or made a, like a significant change or impact in their life.

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: I don't know if it's unique to male patients, but, um, yeah, male patients, once they get past that initial post operative pain, they just tend to be happy post operatively, um, with the results because, um, they've had problem areas that they've struggled with for a long time. And in one fell swoop, we've been able to take care of it.

Um, But I mean, I don't think that's unique to men. I [00:31:00] luckily, I feel like most of my patients are in that category.

Dr. Lawrence Tong: Yeah, I, I agree. I think that, um, because male patients sometimes are a little bit reluctant to have surgery, I find that, um, if they get a result, even if it's not like the best result, a lot of times they're very, very, very happy because to them, some, like for, especially for gynecomastia, that is a big deal.

Like, this is not a Gynecomastia podcast, but that is something that, um, I find are the most appreciative patients because, um, this is something that distresses them a lot sometimes, and they've had it,

Dr. Sam Rhee: it,

Dr. Lawrence Tong: this kind of anxiety about it for their entire adult life. And then once that's done, they, they feel so liberated, liberated.

You see a change in, you know, how they carry themselves and their, their confidence. And so, from the standpoint of, um, You know, happy patients. I [00:32:00] think gynecomastia patients are some of my happiest patients.

Dr. Sam Rhee: Yeah, I, I would agree with both of you. I think, um, all patients generally are very happy with a, with a change, but I think you're right, Larry. I think if, if we can classify some men patients as being a little more reluctant or, or apprehensive about undergoing surgery, the fact that they get a, a nice result.

Does. Make them so glad that they did it. Like there, I know that there are a lot of guys out there who are like, I'm a little worried. I don't want to undergo something. What if something goes wrong? I'm kind of scared. And maybe they haven't had a lot of procedures like, you know, or they don't see doctors.

Like it is a known fact that men see doctors way less frequently than women do. Um, so, so to see somebody for something that is elective is not necessarily in the, like in the thinking of a lot of guys, but once they actually get into that mindset, like, you know what, I, I, there's something that [00:33:00] really bothers me.

I can improve on it. I don't have to live with it. Uh, yeah, that, that is transformational, uh, as it can be, like you said, for a lot of patients. Um, is there anything else you want to add about male liposuction? Um, Before we close, gentlemen.

Dr. Lawrence Tong: I just think it's going to continue to become more and more popular. I think that is something we can easily foresee.

Dr. Sam Jejurikar: yeah, I completely agree. I think, um, there's greater acceptance with men. There's some key differences that I think we touched upon between male and female liposuction, but you know, I, I think it's, uh, it's here to stay and it's only going to get more popular.

Dr. Sam Rhee: Awesome. Well, awesome episode, really helpful and I appreciate it. And until next time.