The tummy tuck procedure is becoming popular these days. It is one of the most commonly performed procedures yet many patients still fear this surgical operation. This is because some surgeons conduct tummy tuck poorly, causing a dog ear. The dog ear is one of the telltale signs of a poorly executed tummy tuck. Before the surgeon performs the tummy tuck, the surgeon should determine how much excess skin needs to be removed. This depends on your physical examination.
When the patient has excess skin and if the surgeon tries to minimize the length of the scar on the sides and does not cut enough on the sides, the skin is going to bunch, creating what is called a dog ear. These puckers are on the ends of the incision of the tummy tuck. Minimizing the length of the scar from a tummy tuck can create this problem. Only the patient’s body can determine the length of the scar. The surgeon cannot just do a 1 cm incision and remove all the excess skin to give you satisfactory results. If you limit the amount of skin that the surgeon can remove because you are concerned about the length of the scar, you shouldn’t have the tummy tuck at all. This is because you are not going to be happy with puckering at the ends of the tummy tuck scar.
If you are undecided whether to take a tummy tuck or not, better weigh the advantages and disadvantages. List down your expectations and discuss it with your surgeon. You have to be realistic about how a tummy tuck can fix your excessive skin; depending on how much you have and the location of the skin, trying to cut corners to minimize scar length is a bad idea. Ultimately, the excess skin can only be removed by excising it.
