A $15K 'Awake BBL' Procedure Is Trending Right Now, But Is It Safe? Patients Tell All (Exclusive)

• An "Awake BBL", or Brazilian Butt Lift, is an increasingly popular procedure done while the patient is conscious and without general anesthesia

• 31-year-old Courtney Banks tells PEOPLE about her experience having the procedure at SQULPT clinic in Miami

• Dr. Daniel Suissa, the founder of SQULPT, explains what an awake BBL entails

Courtney Banks first discovered the “awake BBL” through an Instagram ad.

The 31-year-old occupational therapist from Boynton Beach, Florida was scrolling the app when SQULPT came across her feed. The Miami-based clinic boasts a safe and effective alternative to a traditional BBL (or Brazilian Butt Lift), a popular procedure that involves extracting fat from other parts of the body via liposuction and injecting it into the buttocks.

“I was in this enlightenment period of reinventing myself, but also seeking less invasive beauty [treatments],” Banks tells PEOPLE.

“Coming across the ads on Instagram and seeing these beautiful women with their natural figures, I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness,’” she continues, adding: “Having the option to avoid general anesthesia was kind of a big win for me.”

An awake BBL provides more subtle results than a traditional BBL, but the main difference is that awake BBL patients are conscious, relying on local anesthesia, laughing gas and other medications to manage pain and discomfort. Per SQULPT's website, doctors utilize “tiny precision instruments and smooth vibration technology" to perform the $15,000 procedure.

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“I felt mostly vibration, and when they were extracting the fat, a kind of pinching feeling, but nothing intolerable,” Banks says of her August 2023 procedure.

The Floridian compares the experience to “going to the dentist,” saying that “there's parts that are kind of more comfortable, and parts that are a little irritating.”

Throughout the outpatient procedure, which lasted roughly 3 hours, Banks recalls chatting with the medical team and “texting pretty much my whole family.”

Related: Ariana Grande Addresses Rumors She Got BBL Plastic Surgery with the Most Hilarious Response: WATCH

She was back to work after two weeks of recovery and a year and half later, is still thrilled with her results. "The second to third month, you start really seeing your curves get a bit more accentuated when the swelling goes down," Banks says. "Once I was able to start doing exercises, I was like, 'Whoa. Now I see.'"

Marcie, 20, had an awake BBL at Squlpt in June 2024 and had a similarly smooth experience. "You can feel the doctors working inside of you, but it doesn't really hurt," she said of the procedure. "Due to it being a rather new feeling, I could say that it was uncomfortable — maybe just a 2 out of 10. but I wasn't gripping my seat with tears in my eyes."

She adds the "awake" aspect of the procedure is exactly what made her choose Squlpt. While she ended up sleeping throughout most of her surgery, she admits her attraction to an awake BBL was "purely out of curiosity to see what was going on."

For many Squlpt patients, avoiding the side effects of general anesthesia is the major draw of an awake BBL — but there are other benefits.

“When you're under general anesthesia, your muscles are completely paralyzed,” says Dr. Daniel Suissa, the founder of SQULPT. “[If a patient is awake], the muscle is active, and it’s tense. It’s very easy to glide [the needle used in surgery] between the skin and that rigid muscle to find the right plane.”

If the muscle is soft, as it would be under general anesthesia, he explains, “it becomes more difficult to find that plane,” which increases the risk of perforation.

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Feedback from an awake patient also aids in avoiding perforation. If the needle gets too close to the fascia (the connective tissue around the muscle), the patient will be able to tell. “It's not a lot of pain, it's not a big discomfort, but they feel it,” Dr. Suissa says. “They have a reaction and you know exactly where you are. So it makes the procedure much, much safer.”

However, an awake BBL is not for everyone. Dr. Usha Rajagopal, plastic surgeon and medical director of San Francisco Plastic Surgery and Laser Center, tells PEOPLE that while the recovery is usually easier, awake BBLs are "limited when it comes to larger area injections."

"In those cases, patient comfort and safety become a bigger concern," she says.

She also points out that some clinics offer procedures under local anesthesia because they may not be board-certified plastic surgeons and aren't authorized to administer general anesthesia.

The idea of being awake during surgery can certainly be alarming, but due to the ease and reduced costs of awake BBLs, it's likely that they'll only continue increasing in popularity. According to Dr. Suissa, awake procedures began in a rudimentary form in the 1970s and have made major strides in last decade, with these advancements are sure to continue.

"[My friends and family] were obviously a little nervous and concerned for me [before my surgery]," Banks says. "But when they had seen me bounce right back and getting into my normal routines again, that's when I started to get more questions like, 'Oh, my goodness, how do I book? How do I get a consult?'"

Read the original article on People