Thigh lift

The skin of the medial thigh is thin and inelastic, and laxity here is often the earliest sign of ageing in the thighs. The medial thigh skin is also one of the areas most affected following weight loss. The majority of skin laxity occurs at the junction of the anterior and medial thigh, where the skin tends to hang in a dependent, pleated fashion. This can interfere with walking, toileting, and various other day-to-day activities, resulting in irritation due to chaffing between the thighs. Body contouring techniques are routinely combined in stages to achieve a more harmonious result. Medial thigh lift is frequently combined with upper body lift or breast surgery, or both, whereas brachioplasty is usually combined with abdominoplasty/lower body lift. Opposing vectors of pull and excessive damage to local vascularity are thereby avoided. However, staging surgical procedures has the potential to reveal additional areas of dissatisfaction to the patient. Abdominoplasty patients often report increased dissatisfaction with the medial thighs as a consequence of this previously hidden deformity becoming visible to them postoperatively. In fact, massive weight-loss patients’ dissatisfaction with their thighs is almost as great as with the changes to their breasts in terms of their severely decreased self-esteem, sexuality, and quality of life.