How Long Before You Can Fly After Surgery? The Evidence, Not the Slogans

By Dr. Rushapol Sdawat, MD — Thai Board-certified Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon, Medical Licence No. 17689
Last reviewed: 28 AUG 2026

You have found two numbers, and they do not agree. The Australasian Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons tells patients not to fly for six to eight weeks after surgery. The clinic quoting you a package says you fly home on day ten. Somebody is wrong, and you are the one who has to get on the aircraft.

I want to take this question seriously, because it deserves better than either slogan. I am a plastic surgeon in Bangkok. Most of my patients fly eight to eleven hours to reach me and the same distance home again, so the risk of venous thromboembolism after surgery is not an abstraction in my practice — it is something I assess, prevent and monitor in every single case. Here is what the published evidence actually shows, where it is genuinely uncertain, and how a safe date is decided for an individual patient rather than announced as a rule.

The two positions, stated fairly

The conservative position. ASAPS tells Australian patients that "air travel shortly after surgery significantly increases the risk of blood clots, such as deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE)," and that "in Australia and New Zealand, patients are advised not to fly for 6–8 weeks post-surgery." Note the phrasing — they are describing prevailing practice, not issuing their own edict, and that distinction matters when we ask later who is actually in the six-week camp. The New Zealand Association of Plastic Surgeons makes a similar point: "Long flights and changes in altitude and pressure can complicate recovery from surgery, increasing the risk of blood clots, deep vein thrombosis (DVT), and other complications."

These are serious bodies giving serious advice, and the underlying concern is real. Surgery activates coagulation. Immobility promotes venous stasis. Both are limbs of Virchow's triad. A long-haul flight adds immobility, mild hypoxia and dehydration on top of a patient who is already in a prothrombotic state.

The commercial position. Most surgical-tourism packages, including some of ours, schedule the return flight between ten and fourteen days after a major body procedure. That number is not arrived at by clinical reasoning; it is arrived at by what patients will tolerate paying for accommodation.

Neither side engages the other. So let us look at what has actually been measured.

What the research shows

The most useful recent work is a systematic review and meta-analysis by Shea and colleagues, published online in 2025 and in print in Phlebology in 2026, which pooled seven studies covering 24,975 patients to ask directly whether air travel adds VTE risk on top of surgery.

The findings were not what either camp expects:

• The pooled odds ratio for VTE in the flying-plus-surgery group was 1.96, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.54 to 7.08. That interval crosses 1.0, which means the result is not statistically significant.

• For flights taken after surgery specifically, the odds ratio was 1.31 (95% CI 0.63–2.71) — again not significant.

• For flights taken before surgery, the odds ratio was 7.86, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.23 to 265.26. That interval is so wide it establishes nothing in either direction — it is the statistical signature of very few events across very few studies — but I report it because it is the arm that describes you on the way here, and it would be dishonest of me to quote only the arm that suits me.

• The authors concluded that "air travel may not confer any additional risk for VTE development in patients undergoing surgery," and that rather than applying a blanket waiting period, "all surgical patients should be prospectively risk assessed."

I want to be careful about how much weight that carries. The authors were explicit about the quality of what they pooled: because none of the seven studies were randomised, they recorded "serious/critical risk of bias found in the majority." A confidence interval as wide as 0.54 to 7.08 is telling you the studies were heterogeneous and underpowered, not that the risk is definitively zero — an odds ratio of 1.96 with an upper bound of 7.08 is compatible with no added risk and also compatible with a substantial one. The honest reading is: the evidence does not support a fixed universal waiting period in either direction, and it does not support the confident tone used by either the six-week camp or the ten-day camp.

What the evidence does support is individual risk assessment. That is the actual answer to your question, and it is less satisfying than a number.

What genuinely drives your risk

VTE risk after surgery is dominated by factors that have nothing to do with aviation. The Caprini risk assessment model — the tool most widely used in surgical practice — scores things like:

• Procedure type and length. An abdominoplasty with flank liposuction under general anaesthetic for four hours is a completely different risk proposition from a forty-minute upper blepharoplasty under local. Combined body procedures and abdominal wall plication carry the highest risk in aesthetic surgery.

• BMI. Elevated BMI raises risk independently and substantially.

• Age. Risk climbs from around 40 and again from 60.

• Hormonal factors. Combined oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy are meaningful contributors and are routinely under-declared.

• Personal or family history of clots, and inherited thrombophilias such as Factor V Leiden.

• Pregnancy or the postpartum period — directly relevant if you are considering post-pregnancy body surgery.

• Active or recent cancer, recent immobilisation, varicose veins, and a range of medical comorbidities.

Smoking is not itself a Caprini variable, but it belongs in the same conversation: it materially raises the risk of wound breakdown and skin or fat necrosis. Different complication, same origin — declare it.

A 34-year-old non-smoker with a BMI of 23 having a lip lift and a 56-year-old on HRT with a BMI of 33 having a circumferential body lift are not the same patient, and giving them the same flight date would be poor medicine regardless of which number you picked.

This is the part that matters and the part nobody advertises: if a clinic has quoted you a return flight date before anyone has taken a proper history, calculated a risk score, and discussed prophylaxis with you, the date is a logistics decision, not a medical one.

What a real protocol looks like

For transparency, this is how VTE risk is handled for my patients at Intrarat Hospital. I am setting it out so you can compare it against whatever else you are considering — including surgery at home.

Before surgery. Full history including clotting history, family history, hormonal medication, smoking and BMI. Combined oral contraceptives and HRT are stopped four weeks before surgery where clinically appropriate, in consultation with the patient's own doctor — who should also arrange alternative non-hormonal contraception for that period, since an unplanned pregnancy before surgery changes the plan entirely. Pre-operative bloods and health check. Every patient is scored, and the score drives the plan rather than the itinerary driving the plan.

During surgery. Intermittent pneumatic compression on the calves for the duration of anaesthesia. Careful attention to theatre time — combined procedures are staged rather than stacked when the total operative time would push a patient into a higher risk band. Normothermia and hydration maintained.

After surgery. Early mobilisation, which for most body procedures means getting the patient walking the same evening or the following morning. Graduated compression stockings. Chemical prophylaxis with low-molecular-weight heparin for patients whose risk score warrants it, continued after discharge where indicated. Post-operative ICU monitoring on the first night for major cases.

Before flying. A face-to-face review, not a phone call. For major body and face procedures I recommend fourteen days, plus one to two days before surgery — not because two weeks is a magic number, but because it allows the highest-risk window to pass under direct observation and allows a genuine fitness-to-fly assessment before departure.

You will notice our published stay range starts at ten days rather than fourteen. That is deliberate and I want to be straight about it: a minority of patients — low Caprini score, a single straightforward procedure, uncomplicated recovery — are genuinely fit to fly earlier, and it would be dishonest to charge everyone for four days they do not need. Which one you are is decided at the face-to-face review, not at booking. Patients who are not fit to fly do not fly, and that has to be a conversation you can afford to have. Ask any provider what happens, and who pays, if you need to stay longer.

On the aircraft. Aisle seat where possible. Hourly mobilisation. Calf exercises hourly while seated. Generous hydration and no alcohol. Compression stockings worn for the entire flight. A clear written list of the symptoms that mean you divert to a doctor rather than wait until you land.

The symptoms that matter

Learn these before you travel, not after.

Possible DVT:- Pain, aching or cramping in one calf or thigh, often worse on standing or walking- Swelling of one leg, particularly if it is noticeably larger than the other- Warmth, redness or a darkened or bluish discolouration over the affected area- Tenderness along the line of a deep vein

Possible pulmonary embolism — this is a medical emergency:- Sudden shortness of breath, out of proportion to activity- Sharp chest pain that is worse on breathing in- Coughing blood- Rapid or irregular heartbeat, light-headedness or collapse

Asymmetry is the key signal with DVT. Both ankles swelling after a long flight is common and usually benign. One calf that is swollen, painful and warm is not.

Where the conservative advice has a point

I do not want to be read as dismissing ASAPS. Their six-to-eight week recommendation is not really a claim about aerodynamics — it is a claim about continuity of care, and on that they are right.

Their stated concern is that patients who fly home early are beyond the reach of their surgeon precisely when complications declare themselves. Haematoma, seroma, infection and wound breakdown do not respect itineraries. ASAPS notes that revision surgery may be required in up to seven per cent of cases, and Australian plastic surgeons report treating substantial numbers of patients returning with complications from overseas procedures.

That is a legitimate structural criticism of surgical tourism and it should inform your decision. The questions worth asking any overseas provider are: who reviews me after I get home, how quickly can I reach the operating surgeon directly, what is the written revision policy, and who pays for what. If those answers are vague, the flight date is the least of your problems.

It is also worth knowing the financial position before you book. Medicare does not cover overseas medical treatment, and Australia has no reciprocal health agreement with Thailand. Australian private health insurance generally does not cover procedures performed overseas and may not cover follow-up at home either. Standard travel insurance generally excludes medical tourism entirely, and Smartraveller warns that medical evacuation home can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In New Zealand the position is conditional and widely misunderstood. NZAPS states that ACC does not cover injuries from surgery overseas. A 2020 peer-reviewed analysis of ACC treatment-injury claims by Jonathan Wheeler, covering July 2014 to June 2019, is more precise: ACC "will accept a treatment injury only if the surgery has been performed by an appropriately qualified doctor," and it is "not well understood by health professionals in New Zealand that the ACC may cover some patients who have complications as a result of surgery undertaken overseas." Whether you are covered turns on your surgeon's qualifications, not simply on where you flew. If you are relying on cover, seek it in writing from ACC rather than from a clinic — mine included.

So what is the actual answer?

There isn't a single number, and anyone who gives you one without asking about your BMI, your contraception and your family history is not giving you medical advice.

What I can offer is the shape of the answer:

• For minor facial procedures under local anaesthetic — upper blepharoplasty, lip lift, otoplasty — VTE risk is low and the limiting factor is usually swelling, wound care and the risk of missing an early haematoma, not clotting.

• For major body procedures — abdominoplasty, circumferential body lift, extensive liposuction, combined cases — the risk-dominant window is the first two weeks, and a fourteen-day post-operative stay under direct surgical review is a defensible minimum rather than a marketing figure.

• For high-risk patients on any procedure, the right answer may well be a longer stay, a staged operative plan, extended chemical prophylaxis, or a recommendation not to have the surgery abroad at all. I have given that last piece of advice and will give it again.

If you take one thing from this article, make it this: the date should come out of your risk assessment, not out of your package. Ask to see the reasoning.

When to seek care

Seek immediate medical attention — do not wait to reach home — if you develop sudden breathlessness, chest pain worse on inspiration, coughing blood, or a rapid irregular heartbeat. Seek same-day review for pain, swelling, warmth or discolouration affecting one leg only; for a rapidly enlarging, firm or tense area at a surgical site; for fever above 38°C; or for a wound that becomes increasingly painful, red or begins to discharge. If you are already in the air, alert cabin crew rather than waiting for landing.

Dr. Rushapol Sdawat (known to international patients as Dr. Dominic) is a Thai Board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon practising at Intrarat Hospital, Bangkok, Medical Licence No. 17689. He holds Thai Board certification in General Surgery (Phramongkutklao Hospital) and in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University), and has been a member of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery since 2008.

This article is provided for general information and education. It is not medical advice and cannot substitute for individual assessment by a qualified practitioner who knows your history. Surgery carries risk, including risk of serious complications. Results vary between patients.

Dr. Rushapol Sdawat (known to international patients as Dr. Dominic) is a Thai Board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon practising at Intrarat Hospital, Bangkok, Medical Licence No. 17689. He holds Thai Board certification in General Surgery (Phramongkutklao Hospital) and in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University), has been a member of ISAPS since 2008 and is an international member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Dr. Rushapol holds Thai specialist certification; he is not registered with Ahpra and does not hold Australian or New Zealand specialist registration. His registration can be verified on the Medical Council of Thailand register at checkmd.tmc.or.th.

This article is provided for general information and education. It is not medical advice and cannot substitute for individual assessment by a qualified practitioner who knows your history. Surgery carries risk, including risk of serious complications and of outcomes that do not meet expectations. Results vary between patients.

How Long Before You Can Fly After Surgery? The Evidence, Not the Slogans

By Dr. Rushapol Sdawat, MD — Thai Board-certified Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon, Medical Licence No. 17689
Last reviewed: 27 August 2026

You have found two numbers, and they do not agree. The Australasian Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons tells patients not to fly for six to eight weeks after surgery. The clinic quoting you a package says you fly home on day ten. Somebody is wrong, and you are the one who has to get on the aircraft.

I want to take this question seriously, because it deserves better than either slogan. I am a plastic surgeon in Bangkok. Most of my patients fly eight to eleven hours to reach me and the same distance home again, so the risk of venous thromboembolism after surgery is not an abstraction in my practice — it is something I assess, prevent and monitor in every single case. Here is what the published evidence actually shows, where it is genuinely uncertain, and how a safe date is decided for an individual patient rather than announced as a rule.

The two positions, stated fairly

The conservative position. ASAPS tells Australian patients that "air travel shortly after surgery significantly increases the risk of blood clots, such as deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE)," and that "in Australia and New Zealand, patients are advised not to fly for 6–8 weeks post-surgery." Note the phrasing — they are describing prevailing practice, not issuing their own edict, and that distinction matters when we ask later who is actually in the six-week camp. The New Zealand Association of Plastic Surgeons makes a similar point: "Long flights and changes in altitude and pressure can complicate recovery from surgery, increasing the risk of blood clots, deep vein thrombosis (DVT), and other complications."

These are serious bodies giving serious advice, and the underlying concern is real. Surgery activates coagulation. Immobility promotes venous stasis. Both are limbs of Virchow's triad. A long-haul flight adds immobility, mild hypoxia and dehydration on top of a patient who is already in a prothrombotic state.

The commercial position. Most surgical-tourism packages, including some of ours, schedule the return flight between ten and fourteen days after a major body procedure. That number is not arrived at by clinical reasoning; it is arrived at by what patients will tolerate paying for accommodation.

Neither side engages the other. So let us look at what has actually been measured.

What the research shows

The most useful recent work is a systematic review and meta-analysis by Shea and colleagues, published online in 2025 and in print in Phlebology in 2026, which pooled seven studies covering 24,975 patients to ask directly whether air travel adds VTE risk on top of surgery.

The findings were not what either camp expects:

• The pooled odds ratio for VTE in the flying-plus-surgery group was 1.96, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.54 to 7.08. That interval crosses 1.0, which means the result is not statistically significant.

• For flights taken after surgery specifically, the odds ratio was 1.31 (95% CI 0.63–2.71) — again not significant.

• For flights taken before surgery, the odds ratio was 7.86, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.23 to 265.26. That interval is so wide it establishes nothing in either direction — it is the statistical signature of very few events across very few studies — but I report it because it is the arm that describes you on the way here, and it would be dishonest of me to quote only the arm that suits me.

• The authors concluded that "air travel may not confer any additional risk for VTE development in patients undergoing surgery," and that rather than applying a blanket waiting period, "all surgical patients should be prospectively risk assessed."

I want to be careful about how much weight that carries. The authors were explicit about the quality of what they pooled: because none of the seven studies were randomised, they recorded "serious/critical risk of bias found in the majority." A confidence interval as wide as 0.54 to 7.08 is telling you the studies were heterogeneous and underpowered, not that the risk is definitively zero — an odds ratio of 1.96 with an upper bound of 7.08 is compatible with no added risk and also compatible with a substantial one. The honest reading is: the evidence does not support a fixed universal waiting period in either direction, and it does not support the confident tone used by either the six-week camp or the ten-day camp.

What the evidence does support is individual risk assessment. That is the actual answer to your question, and it is less satisfying than a number.

What genuinely drives your risk

VTE risk after surgery is dominated by factors that have nothing to do with aviation. The Caprini risk assessment model — the tool most widely used in surgical practice — scores things like:

• Procedure type and length. An abdominoplasty with flank liposuction under general anaesthetic for four hours is a completely different risk proposition from a forty-minute upper blepharoplasty under local. Combined body procedures and abdominal wall plication carry the highest risk in aesthetic surgery.

• BMI. Elevated BMI raises risk independently and substantially.

• Age. Risk climbs from around 40 and again from 60.

• Hormonal factors. Combined oral contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy are meaningful contributors and are routinely under-declared.

• Personal or family history of clots, and inherited thrombophilias such as Factor V Leiden.

• Pregnancy or the postpartum period — directly relevant if you are considering post-pregnancy body surgery.

• Active or recent cancer, recent immobilisation, varicose veins, and a range of medical comorbidities.

Smoking is not itself a Caprini variable, but it belongs in the same conversation: it materially raises the risk of wound breakdown and skin or fat necrosis. Different complication, same origin — declare it.

A 34-year-old non-smoker with a BMI of 23 having a lip lift and a 56-year-old on HRT with a BMI of 33 having a circumferential body lift are not the same patient, and giving them the same flight date would be poor medicine regardless of which number you picked.

This is the part that matters and the part nobody advertises: if a clinic has quoted you a return flight date before anyone has taken a proper history, calculated a risk score, and discussed prophylaxis with you, the date is a logistics decision, not a medical one.

What a real protocol looks like

For transparency, this is how VTE risk is handled for my patients at Intrarat Hospital. I am setting it out so you can compare it against whatever else you are considering — including surgery at home.

Before surgery. Full history including clotting history, family history, hormonal medication, smoking and BMI. Combined oral contraceptives and HRT are stopped four weeks before surgery where clinically appropriate, in consultation with the patient's own doctor — who should also arrange alternative non-hormonal contraception for that period, since an unplanned pregnancy before surgery changes the plan entirely. Pre-operative bloods and health check. Every patient is scored, and the score drives the plan rather than the itinerary driving the plan.

During surgery. Intermittent pneumatic compression on the calves for the duration of anaesthesia. Careful attention to theatre time — combined procedures are staged rather than stacked when the total operative time would push a patient into a higher risk band. Normothermia and hydration maintained.

After surgery. Early mobilisation, which for most body procedures means getting the patient walking the same evening or the following morning. Graduated compression stockings. Chemical prophylaxis with low-molecular-weight heparin for patients whose risk score warrants it, continued after discharge where indicated. Post-operative ICU monitoring on the first night for major cases.

Before flying. A face-to-face review, not a phone call. For major body and face procedures I recommend fourteen days, plus one to two days before surgery — not because two weeks is a magic number, but because it allows the highest-risk window to pass under direct observation and allows a genuine fitness-to-fly assessment before departure.

You will notice our published stay range starts at ten days rather than fourteen. That is deliberate and I want to be straight about it: a minority of patients — low Caprini score, a single straightforward procedure, uncomplicated recovery — are genuinely fit to fly earlier, and it would be dishonest to charge everyone for four days they do not need. Which one you are is decided at the face-to-face review, not at booking. Patients who are not fit to fly do not fly, and that has to be a conversation you can afford to have. Ask any provider what happens, and who pays, if you need to stay longer.

On the aircraft. Aisle seat where possible. Hourly mobilisation. Calf exercises hourly while seated. Generous hydration and no alcohol. Compression stockings worn for the entire flight. A clear written list of the symptoms that mean you divert to a doctor rather than wait until you land.

The symptoms that matter

Learn these before you travel, not after.

Possible DVT:- Pain, aching or cramping in one calf or thigh, often worse on standing or walking- Swelling of one leg, particularly if it is noticeably larger than the other- Warmth, redness or a darkened or bluish discolouration over the affected area- Tenderness along the line of a deep vein

Possible pulmonary embolism — this is a medical emergency:- Sudden shortness of breath, out of proportion to activity- Sharp chest pain that is worse on breathing in- Coughing blood- Rapid or irregular heartbeat, light-headedness or collapse

Asymmetry is the key signal with DVT. Both ankles swelling after a long flight is common and usually benign. One calf that is swollen, painful and warm is not.

Where the conservative advice has a point

I do not want to be read as dismissing ASAPS. Their six-to-eight week recommendation is not really a claim about aerodynamics — it is a claim about continuity of care, and on that they are right.

Their stated concern is that patients who fly home early are beyond the reach of their surgeon precisely when complications declare themselves. Haematoma, seroma, infection and wound breakdown do not respect itineraries. ASAPS notes that revision surgery may be required in up to seven per cent of cases, and Australian plastic surgeons report treating substantial numbers of patients returning with complications from overseas procedures.

That is a legitimate structural criticism of surgical tourism and it should inform your decision. The questions worth asking any overseas provider are: who reviews me after I get home, how quickly can I reach the operating surgeon directly, what is the written revision policy, and who pays for what. If those answers are vague, the flight date is the least of your problems.

It is also worth knowing the financial position before you book. Medicare does not cover overseas medical treatment, and Australia has no reciprocal health agreement with Thailand. Australian private health insurance generally does not cover procedures performed overseas and may not cover follow-up at home either. Standard travel insurance generally excludes medical tourism entirely, and Smartraveller warns that medical evacuation home can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In New Zealand the position is conditional and widely misunderstood. NZAPS states that ACC does not cover injuries from surgery overseas. A 2020 peer-reviewed analysis of ACC treatment-injury claims by Jonathan Wheeler, covering July 2014 to June 2019, is more precise: ACC "will accept a treatment injury only if the surgery has been performed by an appropriately qualified doctor," and it is "not well understood by health professionals in New Zealand that the ACC may cover some patients who have complications as a result of surgery undertaken overseas." Whether you are covered turns on your surgeon's qualifications, not simply on where you flew. If you are relying on cover, seek it in writing from ACC rather than from a clinic — mine included.

So what is the actual answer?

There isn't a single number, and anyone who gives you one without asking about your BMI, your contraception and your family history is not giving you medical advice.

What I can offer is the shape of the answer:

• For minor facial procedures under local anaesthetic — upper blepharoplasty, lip lift, otoplasty — VTE risk is low and the limiting factor is usually swelling, wound care and the risk of missing an early haematoma, not clotting.

• For major body procedures — abdominoplasty, circumferential body lift, extensive liposuction, combined cases — the risk-dominant window is the first two weeks, and a fourteen-day post-operative stay under direct surgical review is a defensible minimum rather than a marketing figure.

• For high-risk patients on any procedure, the right answer may well be a longer stay, a staged operative plan, extended chemical prophylaxis, or a recommendation not to have the surgery abroad at all. I have given that last piece of advice and will give it again.

If you take one thing from this article, make it this: the date should come out of your risk assessment, not out of your package. Ask to see the reasoning.

When to seek care

Seek immediate medical attention — do not wait to reach home — if you develop sudden breathlessness, chest pain worse on inspiration, coughing blood, or a rapid irregular heartbeat. Seek same-day review for pain, swelling, warmth or discolouration affecting one leg only; for a rapidly enlarging, firm or tense area at a surgical site; for fever above 38°C; or for a wound that becomes increasingly painful, red or begins to discharge. If you are already in the air, alert cabin crew rather than waiting for landing.

Dr. Rushapol Sdawat (known to international patients as Dr. Dominic) is a Thai Board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon practising at Intrarat Hospital, Bangkok, Medical Licence No. 17689. He holds Thai Board certification in General Surgery (Phramongkutklao Hospital) and in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University), and has been a member of the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery since 2008.

This article is provided for general information and education. It is not medical advice and cannot substitute for individual assessment by a qualified practitioner who knows your history. Surgery carries risk, including risk of serious complications. Results vary between patients.

Dr. Rushapol Sdawat (known to international patients as Dr. Dominic) is a Thai Board-certified plastic and reconstructive surgeon practising at Intrarat Hospital, Bangkok, Medical Licence No. 17689. He holds Thai Board certification in General Surgery (Phramongkutklao Hospital) and in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University), has been a member of ISAPS since 2008 and is an international member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Dr. Rushapol holds Thai specialist certification; he is not registered with Ahpra and does not hold Australian or New Zealand specialist registration. His registration can be verified on the Medical Council of Thailand register at checkmd.tmc.or.th.

This article is provided for general information and education. It is not medical advice and cannot substitute for individual assessment by a qualified practitioner who knows your history. Surgery carries risk, including risk of serious complications and of outcomes that do not meet expectations. Results vary between patients.