A ^Retired Plastic Surgeon's Notebook

My preferred labiaplasty technique.

Seattle Plastic Surgeon prefers the “wedge excision” technique for labiaplasty.

Labiaplasty is an operation that I never do exactly the same way twice.  That’s because there is so much variation “down there” and every woman presents with her own unique anatomy.

One thing I almost always do, however, is to try to leave a natural looking labial edge.  In the adult female, the edge of the labia is pigmented and textured.  The “wedge excision” technique preserves a natural looking edge.

I started doing labiaplasty this way in 2008 after learning about this technique from Dr. Gary Alter.  He is a plastic surgeon in California who pioneered aesthetic genital surgery.

Prior to that, I was doing a zig zag incision along the labial edge and then interdigitating the zigs with the zags on either side of the incision.  This left a smooth edge without a suture line running along it but it removed the unique skin along the edge.

Labiaplasty is a great example of a procedure that has evolved.  What started out as a simple snipping off of the excess labia has been refined into a procedure that can shorten and reduce the bulk of the labia but preserve the natural form.

It’s this sort of constant tweaking that keeps my vocation so interesting and fulfilling.

Thanks for reading!  Dr. Lisa Lynn Sowder

 

Category: Labiaplasty | Tags: , , , , , ,

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