Restore Your Toned Arms
Drs. Chen and Knotts at the Plastic Surgery Institute of New Mexico are experts in Brachioplasty, also known as an Arm Lift.
An arm lift operation is designed to remove the excess and sometimes hanging skin in the arms, colloquially known as “bat wings.” The typical scar required to remove this excess skin goes from armpit to elbow.
In many patients, the arms are a problem area with weight gain, and the issue is not just extra skin but also extra fat. With small amounts of fat, your surgeon may recommend liposuction at the time of brachioplasty, but for larger amounts, your surgeon may recommend to first have liposuction to make the arms smaller, and then come back to remove the deflated skin as a brachioplasty. If the issue is hanging skin alone, then a brachioplasty can be performed as a stand-alone operation. In patients who have arms larger than desired and good skin tone, liposuction alone may be recommended by your doctor.
Many patients who elect to have an arm lift have lost in excess of 50lbs, with some reaching numbers several times that. On occasion, a patient will have loose skin that has just lost its tone because of genetics or age, and they can be deemed a candidate for an arm lift despite never being significantly heavier. This is more common in patients over 50 as the skin loses elasticity and tone with age.
The skin in the region of the arm is quite thin and does not have much strength. For this reason, patients undergoing arm lift need to be aware there is a good chance of having a widened scar and potentially needing a scar revision.
Because arm lift scars can be wider, we plan the final incision to be as least conspicuous as possible. For examples of arm contouring, please see our brachioplasty photos and liposuction photo pages.