Tummy Tuck For Your Back: The Bra-Line Backlift

As medically-supervised weight management grows and changes, so does plastic surgery. Nearly 125 years ago, we saw the advent of the Tummy Tuck, the original body contouring procedure. Some 75 years later, came Liposuction and since then, a whole new crop of body contouring surgeries, such as the panniculectomy, have come and gone.

Today, weight-loss patients and specialists have a new plastic surgery procedure to consider: the Bra-Line Backlift.

The Bra-Line Backlift was developed by Dr. Joseph Hunstad, with the intention of treating excess back skin following massive weight-loss surgeries like gastric bypass. Following massive weight-loss, fatty tissue is suctioned out, using some light liposuction but the Backlift essentially is an upside down tummy tuck, on your back.

Instead of a horizontal incision across the waistline with a tummy tuck, the doctor makes an incision across the upper-middle back (one of the few detractors for men, given the inability to hide the scar with a bra or bathing suit), tightens the muscles and removes excess accumulations of skin.

Dr. Richard D’Amico, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons says that he sees this as more of a “completion procedure”, than anything else. A procedure that might conclude a mommy makeover, for example, as opposed to a primary treatment option.