But others are. Overworking the heart can be a serious side effect of the tumescent technique. The patient would be practically 'drowning' in fluids. The heart can't handle this fluid overload. Another potential complication is infection, says Brown.
Infections can occur after any surgery.
Other possible problems Brown lists are burns, embolisms, cardiac arrhythmia, edema, and nerve compression, which are all reported in the medical literature. Often, too, Graham notes, cannulas are inserted in several different locations, resulting in puncture wounds that need to heal. A condition called seroma, or an oozing or pooling of serum, or body fluid, may be a problem after the more aggressive ultrasound techniques during which some skin is detached from underlying tissue and fluid accumulates in a subcutaneous pocket. Although the survey data are not considered scientific information, they are useful when establishing practice guidelines, and they led ASPS to recommend some practice changes when performing liposuction. It is encouraging, Bruner says, that more recent statistics from The Doctor's Company, an insurance company located in California, show that no liposuction-related deaths have been reported there in the last 18 months.