Home from the hospital
Everine tells me that the upper surgery hurts less than the lower. I did the full monty on my lower body - Anchor Cut Abdominoplasty, thighs, buttocks and muscle repair. With that surgery I had the pain ball when I came home. That surgery was 8.5 hours and they took 7.5 lbs of skin. What pain I had was mainly soreness from the muscle repair. It took me about 2 weeks to get my endurance back. Swelling lasted for months off and on. That was because the waist incision severed all of my lymph ducts and I had to get those to regenerate.
This one, is all skin - no muscle repair. I have more discomfort with this one so far it seems, but its a different kind of pain. Its a burning pain. I don't know how pervasive the sweilling will be - I can drain below - but I can feel it starting already. The drains arent pulling much.
All that said, I don't regret either one and would do it all over again. Just getting rid of that excess skin and being comfortable in my skin is worth it. Being able to exercise (when I am not healing) without skin throwing me off balance, my clothes fitting well, being more confident in my appearance. All of that is worth the $50K and the pain.
One piece of advice - if you are looking at plastics; find a surgeon who has a good number of male patients and does a real examination at the consult. My surgeon - at the consult - palpated all of my skin, measured the separation in my abdominals, determined the approximate final positions of everything. It made the entire process much easier.
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160 lbs lost. Surgeons Goal Reached in 33 weeks. My Goal in 37 Weeks.
VSG: 11/2/2011; LBL+Thigh Lift+BL: 10/3/2012; Brach+Mastopexy: 7/22/2013
Great advice, I will remember that. I have been thinking about going for an initial consult now because I would like to get started with my chin which is sagging pretty badly and really bothers me. I don't have any more fat to lose on my fase or chin so I can probably safely get this done. i'd really like to wait a year after I reach goal to get my stomach and thighs done just to make sure I can maintain my weight.
How long before you could exercise after your abdominoplasty/lbl? When they did the lbl or abdominoplasty did they tighten up your pubis? Also on the muscle repair I have a hernia that needs to be fixed too, did you have any that needed repair? I know they corset the muscles in some cases, was it difficult to exercise after having that done?
I have incisions on the inside of my legs from groin almost to my knees. I carried a lot of weight in my legs. I have u shped incisions in my groin. The mons pubis gets tightened by them pulling up from the circumferential incision.
It took about a month to get back to exercising regularly The surgeon cleared me to start running again after about 3 months.. Before that it was just walking.
I did have a Hernia that didn't show up until March that I had operated on in May. Thats why this surgery got delayed until now. The left side of my crotch is now armor plated. I can feel how much harder it is on that side The surgery there took longer because of the scar tissue that the repair had o cut through. Healing time was a lot less though.
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160 lbs lost. Surgeons Goal Reached in 33 weeks. My Goal in 37 Weeks.
VSG: 11/2/2011; LBL+Thigh Lift+BL: 10/3/2012; Brach+Mastopexy: 7/22/2013
