Q. I am a healthy, fit 41-year-old woman wanting to get rid of a ''tiny'' lower belly -- I've never been pregnant -- and smooth out ''little'' bulges on my outer and inner thighs.

I've been considering liposuction, although I've had many people tell me that my skin will sag after the procedure.

Instead, friends have recommended that I should go with a procedure that uses lasers, where fat is ''dissolved'' under the skin and is either sucked out with a smaller tool than the traditional lipo or is dissolved completely and released through the lymphatic system.

What is your opinion?

A. Everybody likes to think they are experts -- even though they did not finish 10-plus years of training.

You are an ideal candidate for traditional liposuction because you have small areas that bother you and you're not overweight. Liposuction is not for weight loss but for volume reduction, in the areas that you are talking about.

What you need to do is see your physician, discuss what you would like to accomplish and leave it up to them to guide you. I would get two opinions, see before and after pictures, ask about the risks and benefits of the operation and proceed with caution.

There are many ways to get great results. I practice with two plastic surgeons and we often do the same procedure in three different ways. Each way works for us and our patients.

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