Chicago-area consult

so I did a consult today with Dr. Daniel Krochmal in Northbrook, IL. He focuses mostly (but not exclusively) on body contouring, and he did his fellowship with Joseph Hunstad in Charlotte, NC, who is pretty well-regarded for body contouring for massive weight loss patients. Since I don't really want to travel too far from home for this (I just don't want to be away for 2-3 weeks), I think he might be a good option.

Really clicked with him - he's a very personable guy and very professional. His plan for me wasn't something that would have occurred to me, though. I was thinking LBL, BL, and arm lift. I was a very apple-shaped person - most of my weight was in my chest, arms, stomach, and back. Even at my heaviest, my hips and thighs were never a problem. He noticed this right away. He pointed out that almost all of my loose skin is in my arms, upper torso, abs, and back. He wants to do an extended TT with a fleur de lis cut (which I can totally see since I have a lot of loose skin high up on my torso, which would be hard to get to without doing a fleur de lis), but instead of doing an LBL, he thinks I'd be happier with a bra-line back lift. His rationale is my hips and butt don't need much of a lift, but I have a lot of loose skin on my back and sides that the bra-line back lift would hit. It would also give a slight lift to my hips and butt, which is really all I'd need there, if anything, because they really aren't bad.

he agreed with the BL and arm lift (he thinks I might want to consider implants since I have very little body fat to play around with, but he thought I should get the torso work and breast lift done first before deciding on implants, because I might be OK with everything after those are done and decide not to do implants (which I'm not sure I would want *anyway*, unless I look way out of proportion without them)

Anyway, I left there thinking "this is the guy", but I'd like to do a couple more consults to see what they say. Again, the bra-line backlift rather than a LBL kind of threw me - I totally get what he was saying, but I want to see if other surgeons suggest that as well....and what other kinds of ideas they come up with.

His fees were about what I expected. I was thinking that since he's in the Chicago area, it would be really expensive, but not really...

He doesn't like to have people under for more than six hours (plus that's sort of his own limit to boot), so he'd do the TT and backlift during the first surgery, and the BL and arm lift during a second surgery.

I think I might set up a consult with David Shifrin (also in Chicago and also did his fellowship under Hunstad) and someone in Minneapolis who's done a lot of these - and also the residency program at the Univ of Chicago (one of their faculty members, whom I'm assuming would be the supervising surgeon, specializes in contouring for massive weight loss patients - but of course, I'll ask!)

Congrats on the consult and I'm really glad that it went well. I think that the 6-hour limit for surgery makes sense. I've heard of people having 11 & 12 hour PS and that seems like alot for one time. Do you have more appointments soon?

Most of the 10-12 hrs is under twilight sedation, so it isn't a problem. I had a lower body lift (360), breast lift, small thigh, and arms done on a Thur and a full facelift, include upper and lower lids on Monday. 24 hour care for a week in the clinic and 7 days at the Hampton Inn with an RN coming in daily to help with my shower and dealing with the stitches & compression garment.

re: other consults: I wanted to wait 'til I had one to see if I'm really 100% committed to doing this, and if so, then I'd set up a couple more. So for now it's just him. But I'm pretty sure, after meeting with him, that I'm going to do it. So I'll make some calls next week and get two or three more consults set up. I just didn't want to pay $500 or so (in total) in consult fees only to decide after consulting with several surgeons that I didn't want to have the surgery after all.

Dr Krochmal was my first consult. He is very personable and how he details what he is going to do I really appreciated. I thought for sure he was the one.

However I also saw Dr. Shifrin and Dr. John Kim. After consulting with them, Dr. Krochmal moved to the bottom of the list. Krochmal wanted to do something that one of the doctors described as unsafe (greatly increase my risk of blood clot). There were a few other things that made me rethink my choice.

I am 20 days out from 360 lbl, breast lift and breast implants and am back at work and feel great!

Best of luck to you.

I'm going to set up an appt with Dr. Shifrin for sure. I haven't come across Dr. Kim's name, but I'll look him up. Which one did you decide to go with?

I went with Dr. John Kim out of Northwestern. The most amazing man. He is one of the busiest surgeons in Chicago. (No consult fee).

The lower body lift, breast lift with internal bra, plus implants, and lipo of the side boob fat - about 6 1/2 hours of surgery. One night in hospital. I am so in love with myself I cannot stand it.

I wanted a FDL and when I told that to Dr Kim he winced. He said that long scar goes against everything a plastic surgeon is about. So I didn't have one - and STILL look great.

Any future surgeries will be with Dr Kim for sure.

thanks! I'll give him a call as well!