Many men strive for those ever-desirable six-pack and eight pack abs these days. Yet, tireless stomach crunches and sit-ups often don’t get the job done, no matter how disciplined you are about your regimen. The truth is, it can be very difficult to eliminate the layer of fat around the mid section, particularly if you are not genetically blessed in the abdominal region to begin with. However, there is a secret weapon many men have turned to for defined abs and that legendary six pack look.

Abdominal etching, or Ab etching, is a plastic surgery procedure to reshape and contour the abdominal fat pad to provide patients with a flatter stomach. The procedure selectively removes a small amount of fat around the patient’s natural muscular contours and shapes or sculpts the abdomen to create a more athletic contour.

Prior to the procedure, the surgeon makes detailed markings of the patient’s flexed ab muscles and uses the markings to remove fat and highlight the patient’s individual muscular structure. The procedure is suitable for patients who are already in shape and who have between one to two centimeters of “pinchable belly fat”. It is not suitable for patients with larger accumulations of abdominal fat seeking to significantly reduce their belly size or accomplish weight reductions as the amount of fat removed is fairly small

Role of pressure garments
With the tumescent technique, there is always a certain amount of blood-tinged anesthetic solution which remains beneath the skin where the fat has been suctioned. This blood-tinged fluid causes bruising and the post-operative swelling. With the modern “open-drainage” technique for post-liposuction care, the tiny incisions/adits are allowed to remain open (not closed with stitches), and the reason for using compression garments (need only be worn for a few days) is to encourage the rapid drainage of the residual blood-tinged tumescent anesthetic solution from beneath the skin. With “closed-drainage”, the reason for using compression garments (which must be worn for several weeks) is to force the absorption of the blood-tinged anesthetic solution into the body’s blood vessels thereby reducing the postoperative oedema and enhancing the patient’s results in quick time. They are worn for a period of 6 weeks to get the desired body shape.