Extremely satisfying Arms!!
4 Months Mark
Procedure : Liposuction
Area : Arms
Clinic Name : ELIXIR DE VIE
Surgeon : Doctor Arthur Tjandra
Country : Indonesia/Medan
Month/Year of Procedure : October 2015
MY FULL LIPOSUCTION JOURNEY WITH DR. ARTHUR TJANDRA
INTRODUCTION
Hi guys! Ive decided to do a blog about my complete body transformation with Dr Arthur Tjanda. He has an amazing range of body transformation photos available on his website, and currently is running his own youtube channel showcasing his incredible liposuction before and after transformations, which i find extremely useful and provides clear results of what he is actually able to achieve.
He has other blogs available but were dated quite few years back, and I could not find any recent available ones, so Ive decided to share my input and assist those of you out there who might be considering going through with this procedure.
A LITTLE INSIGHT ON MY BACKGROUND
I had liposuction done 6 years back in Singapore, and at that time, I did little research on liposuction itself and after browsing through some clinics in Singapore, Ive decided to pick a clinic "NG" (will not reveil the clinic's name, but you can email me for it if you want).
NG was a pretty big named clinic so naturally I thought I could entrust them with my body. OF course, the end result was truely disastrous, leaving me with terribly ugly and unsightly dents in my thighs and arms, and there was just uneven huge chunks of fat left over everywhere, and it didnt looked like there was any difference in the before and after.
NG's Doctor who performed the procedure for me took out 1 litre of fat only per session using VASER-assisted lipo for my thighs, cant remember how much for the arms though, and when I went back questioning why he could not remove more, he mentioned that Singapore has a limit on the amount of fat removal, and that I had no more fat to remove either-way, and that the left overs I see are muscle.
HE even offered to do a revision for me to "improve" my ugly thigh appearance which he deemed was normal and acceptable in any liposuction procedure. That left me extremely depressed seeing how my body was totally ruined by him. It not only left me with a huge hole in my pocket, it caused me very severe depression for many months, until I found out about Dr. Arthur. I paid approximately 6k for thighs alone, which I thought would be liposuction of whole thigh, turned out NG's Doctor only lipo-ed my front and back thigh, which turned out to be worst than my previous body state before lipo, with ugly huge scars left on my body too.
After a few months of brooding and depression, I found out about Dr. Arthur and was amazed by his extensive range of photos available on his website of his before and after liposuction, and thought perhaps he might be able to "fix" my dilemma.
Dr. Arthur helped fix my disproportionate thighs and also did liposuction on my abdomen, and it was truly an utterly fantastic job done!
I learned about his 3-Dimensional liposuction/ lipo-sculpting, and that it was important to get a 3D done in order to achieve a fantastic result.
He performed his artistic craft on me the best he could, to fix what was ruined, and I was ecstatic on the final result! (This procedure was done 6 years ago, so I do not have any pictures on hand). The parts where NG's Doctor claimed that were muscle, were actually huge chunks of fat according to Dr. Arthur! He aspirated almost 3 litres on my thighs alone! My legs have been slimmer then, could fit into jeans and pants nicely.
I am extremely grateful to have met Dr. Arthur as he totally gave me more confidence in my body!
After liposuction, I decided to opt for a healthy lifestyle which includes hitting the gym with a min. of jogging 8km 4~5 days a week, and other sports such as kickboxing, poling, karate on the weekends.
Back to 2015 for arms liposuction..
I sent an email to Elixir De Vie, and the assistant in charge, Jennifer (yes, after so many years, its still Jennifer, so it felt nostalgic:)!) Email instructions were still pretty much similar from a few years back (LOL, found some humour in seeing the same things), and the required Blood Test before I am allowed to book an appointment date for my liposuction procedure.
BLood Test is absolutely compulsory, and it costs around SGD 80+ to be done at a lab at one of the higher floors in Paragon Building. I did a double-check and fasting is COMPULSORY prior to blood test. This is because I read one of the older blogs dated some years back which mentioned that fasting wasnt needed, -however I checked with Jennifer and it turned out to be totally compulsory.
I paid around SGD 160 for a two-way trip Singapore-Medan. Tickets are pricier on the weekend. Tickets will cost around 100-120 on weekdays.
DAY 1 (DAY of LIPOSUCTION)
Arrived at Elixir De Vie Clinic around 12pm. It is important to get the morning flight, so there is sufficient time for DR. Arthur to perform a thorough liposuction for you.
My flight touched down in Medan around 10am. The old Medan airport is gone now, and there is a newly constructed airport called Kualanamu International Airport.
Took a 40min train from Kualanamu Airport to Medan Central Train Station. Train ticket costed about SGD10 if I remember correctly.
Elixir De Vie allows you the option of taking the train, and having their driver to pick you up for free from the train station, -or having their personal driver fetch you from the airport for SGD22, however the drive will take approx 1.5 hours depending on road conditions).
I opted the option of taking the train on my arrival as I felt it would be faster, and the car to the airport for my departure.
Downside to taking the train is that there is an hour interval between trains.
Train arrived at Medan Central TRain station, and there will be a driver who will be holding a piece of paper with your name on it at the train station exit.
Arrived at clinic, it looked the same as I remembered 6 years ago, with a more lived-in look now.
Met with DR. Arthur, still the same charming cool Doc as I remembered ^_^; and discussed with him on my concerns.
What I really like about DR. Arthur is that not only he is meticulous and perfect in his liposculpting, he also listens! He listens to your concerns. This is what I find lacking in my previous lipo consultation back in Singapore :/
After our consultation, I was put through the usual procedures pre-op. Was given Antibiotics to take before op, and some injections. Medications are now also separated into two different bags. One bag consists of oral medications which are vital post-op, and another consists of wound care medications. You have the option of purchasing the medications should you wish to. I only purchased the oral medications as I have my own wound care products.
Oral Meds consist of antiobiotics, ironyl tabs and pain killers.
I also bought Arnica Montana tabs from ebay and took them daily for a week before op to reduce swelling and bruising.
Room and Living Room/Kitchen still the same. Kitchen has a variety of foodstuffs to help yourselves to.
Read a previous blog mentioning no oats, milo and cup noodles. I actually found these food items in the upper shelf cupboards, so yeah, help yourselves to it.
Here is my Room, the Kitchen, and the staircase leading to such
(still the same) :
DURING THE SURGERY
I think I was asleep for some time during the lipo as I cant really remember anything after lying on the surgical platform.
I woke up after when the op was almost done, and witnessed the liposuction on my arms. It was pretty interesting to see the cannula going in and out of my arm. I did not experience any pain. DR. Arthur's liposuction is performed under Local Anaesthetic (LA).
Having liposuction done under LA is better than General Anaesthetic (GA) as GA requires you to be totally unconscious and a breathing tube is inserted into your lungs to provide oxygen for you to breathe.
Liposuction under LA allows the surgeon to perform lipo on areas which are tough to reach, whereas it is dangerous to perform it under GA as the breathing tube may dislocate should the surgeon try to move the patient to reach certain areas of the body. I learned of this from DR. Arthur.
Anyway, I was awake when the remainder of the lipo was being done, and I was making suggestions to the Doctor to lipo more on certain areas of my arms, pinching my fat to show him (yes, Kaisu) when I was awake, and he was totally cool, helping me lipo off the areas that I want. He even performed wrist liposuction for me when doing my forearms liposuction, and wrist liposuction is dangerous to perform as there are alot of big blood vessels around the wrist area, but because he uses hand liposuction, he is able to perform it easily. I would say he totally make my money worth every cent spent.
DR Arthur is really a great surgeon, even taking into consideration of my wants. In addition, he is a total perfectionist, so I put my entire faith in his masterpiece creations. His work is seriously THE ART. Doc is famous for being the KING of Liposuction too (pretty much everyone is saying the same thing).
After the Op, I was totally awake, and was happily eating my porridge which I ordered while watching my shows on my tablet. I slept pretty late, around 2am as I didnt feel tired at all. Differernt people react differently post-op. I used to feel nausea post-op in the past but strangely, I didnt get it this time.
I changed into my own clothes after the op, but realise the drainage was staining my t-shirt, so I suggest wearing the green gown that is provided for you.
DAY 2
Woke up around 9am. Breakfast is provided. The nurse there will do a lympathic massage for you, which felt pretty awesome. There was alot of drainage when she was massaging me. I was pretty swollen on this day due to me having done lipo in Singapore before, and VASER-assisted lipo causes adhesion scars underneath the skin, and the Doctor had to force his cannula through those hard scars in order to correct the past horrible lipo done.
I remembered I paid 4k for arms in Singapore and NG's Doc only did lipo on a tiny section of my arms, whereas DR. Arthur did a 3-dimensional liposculpting on my arms, and they look absolutely gorgeous. If you notice carefully, his lipo can be considered as HI-DEF lipo, and I know HI-DEF lipo in Singapore is horribly expensive ~_~
DR. Arthur even performed some wrist liposuction for me when he was doing my forearms, and
This Day just basically involves massage, lazing around in my room, and watching videos on my tablet. There is a television in the room, but I never bothered with it.
PRE-OP PICTURES:
POST-OP PICTURES:
DAY 3
Flight was pretty early in the morning, so I woke up early and picked the option of taking the Car for SGD22 to the airport, just in case I might be late for my flight. Better to be safe than sorry.
Arms are still pretty swollen but movable definitely. I changed into my own compression garment, and took the bandages which were wrapped on me home too to use them at home. Turned out totally didnt require them, as it was easily to wear the garment anyway. You can get the arm tubular bandage garment from Guardians. They sell a couple of different sizes.
I Will be posting further pictures down the road to recovery later on too.
Doc says 3 months to see 70-80% of result, and 6 months to see perfect result. There will be plenty of swelling for the first two weeks, but they will slowly recede after.
DAY 4
Am much more swollen today. See my forearms itself? Like a bloated balloon! Gawd!
DAY 8
Still pretty much swollen and very bruised, but much better.
DAY 18
Still swollen, but no more bruising. Approx. 80% can be seen in 3 month mark, and final result can be seen by the 6th month mark.
3 MONTH MARK
Swellling mostly gone already. Arm is much much slimmer, and more defined! You can see the definition especially on the outer part of the arm. I am extremely satisfied and happy! There is no more fat to pinch :)
Next blog entry will be on my legs, as I am planning to do more lipo on my legs. My legs were pretty huge to begin with, so Doc couldn't aspirate all the fat in my legs 6 years back, due to fat removal limit to prevent over-bleeding, and skin elasticity.
Pretty excited to go back this time to get the rest of my fat removed, Gawd I just hate the fat.
