My BBL -1 yr post op

Hello Realself beauties,
Like everyone on here, I have been following this site for a year. I found out about RS after my first lipo/BBL a year ago while recovering. I had conservative lipo/BBL then with 300cc fat graft to each side (with a different doctor). After a few months, the booty greed kicked in. I started more thorough research this time for round 2. I came across Dr. Affifi and Dr. Hughes both in SoCal. I met with them and really liked them. Each one was different in their opinion of what they could do for me, but Dr. Hughes showed the most confidence that he would be able to give me more than what I had, even though round 2 meant he would have to find the fat from scar tissues. I started talking to about 4-5 girls on RS that have gone to him and followed their stories, and in all they were very satisfied with their results. I had two in-person consults with Dr. Hughes and exchanged a few emails (he's always so responsive). In July 2013, I put down a deposit to have my surgery on 12/23/13 (a year after the first round). I am 4-week post op now and have been recovering and now I am able to post my review.
My stats: I am a single mom of 2 young kids. I'm 5'3. Pre-pregnancy weight 105bls. After kids, I’ve been around 118lbs. Was hoping to gain about 10 pounds for this round, even though Dr. Hughes said I didn't need to. I ended up gaining only 4 pounds despite drinking Ensure by the cases. I weighed 122bls on the day of my surgery.

Day of surgery 12/23/13:
I actually wasn't too nervous as much as the first time. Having done this before and actually, having followed all of your stories helped prepare me better this time. I knew it was more discomfort and a lot of soreness and that the recovery is a long process…but hey, no pain, no gain. I was very excited to see how Dr. Hughes would transform me. My surgery time was 10:30 so I got to the office an hour before. They did the pregnancy test and the hemoglobin test as all the other blood work was done at my pre-op appointment few weeks before (BTW, all the lab work is covered in the price quote as Dr Hughes doesn't charge extra for it AND it's all done in his office which is a huge plus - I had to pay nearly $500 for lab work, physical and EKG for my first round). Once that was done, Dr. Hughes came in to see me. Even though this is round 2 and most girls on here seem to want a lot more volume, I just wanted him to focus on sculpting and to sculpt the back, flanks, abs and outer thighs as much as he could and transfer just a decent amount. My expectation wasn’t for a lot of volume. I just wanted more roundness but not be so obvious. I told him: "Dr Hughes, I know you always give more cc's than you said you could, and I don't really need more than around 600cc”. He probably thought I was crazy. Almost every BBL patient of his received over 1000cc. I showed him a wish pic and he was like "that's not even that big!!!”
Anyway, after our chat, I was told my surgery is delayed a couple of hours because his first surgery ended up requiring more work. By now at around 11:30am, I was getting hungry as I had not eaten or drank anything but water since midnight. Then the anesthesiologist (Dr. Lebowitz) came in to talk to me about any concerns I might have. My biggest fear of course is not waking up after surgery. He held my hand and reassured me that he would be there to monitor my vitals and that in all his 30 years experience (and he’s been working with them that long) that he never had that happening with his patients. He’s a really warm and caring person it seems. We talked a little more. Then I told him I was thirsty and if I was allowed to drink anything. He said actually I could have a cup of tea since it wouldn’t harm anything. So I drank my tea and waited and waited, finally at 1:15pm, I was led by a nurse into the operating room. They put that iodine solution on over my body and man, it was cold!!!! I was shaking nonstop. Then I was put on the operating table and Dr. Lebowitz came in and said he was going to make me relaxed. I was hoping to see Dr. Hughes before the surgery but I was out in seconds.
When I woke up, the first words out of my mouth were “can we get started?” as all I remembered was I was waiting for my surgery still. The nurse said “we are on done”. Music to my ears!!! I was shaking so much coming out of anesthesia and that continued for about 45 minutes. I felt numb on my body and esp. my butt and it was felt like a ton of bricks. They put me in a full compression garment (size XS) covering my butt with that hated binder everyone talks about, foams, chucks, dressings, and adult diaper. I don’t honestly know how they got my pants over all that as I wore sweatpants that weren’t too loose. Didn’t think I had much fat to transfer to buy bigger pants. My advice is you should wear a maxi dress on the day of surgery and in fact you want a couple at least the first week recovering. I wish I had bought one (ended buying one a few days later and a size bigger cotton boyshorts to wear outside of the garment).

First night back home was pretty good. I was moving around the house. They injected some pain med in my shoulder before I left and of course the anesthesia hadn’t worn off yet, so I was feeling like this is way too easy. I thought aggressive lipo is supposed to hurt. I remember from the last round that Day 2 to Day 6 were rough, so I took advantage of how good I felt that first night and spent time with my kids. I took Vicodin that night and then tried to go sleep. Oh boy sleep was not possible!!! Thanks to RS member and Dr. Hughes girl, Mesan, I had gone to LA to buy the big foam ahead of time and cut out a hole so I could sleep on my back with my butt in the hole. I placed the foam on the sofa since my bed is too high. It wasn’t really that comfortable because the foam is very dense. It didn’t help either that you have to get up every hour to pee. It was a challenge to get in and out of the foam since your mobility is so limited in the binder and garment. That first night I slept at most a couple of hours.

Day 1 post-op (12/24/13):
I got a slight fever. My throat was sore and I ended up having a bad cough which lasted awhile. But none of that bothered me because my butt was so hard like two bowling balls and that was so uncomfortable. I didn’t really want to remove the garment but needed to check on the incision sites to see how much I am draining. I got the garment removed and felt lightheaded, so I bent down on the bed and rested for a few seconds. Then I asked my sister who was visiting to help me remove the binder and the dressings. Once she saw all the bruises from my abs down to my thigh (my breasts were bruised too) and the blood soaking through my dressings, she practically ran out of my bedroom. So I was left to care for myself. (Sigh). I drank Gatorade before taking a quick shower. Came out and was dizzy again. Drank some Ensure. Ladies, stock as much Gatorade, Ensure or Vitamin water in your bedroom as possible for convenience. I had my whole nightstand filled with these and all the meds/supplies.
I did not take pics at first because of the bruising; I wish I did. I looked in the mirror and wow, Dr. Hughes gave me that curve on my back that I can’t believe it’s the same body. My waist was small and my abs was flat. But the biggest transformation was a huge bubble butt. At the time I didn’t know how much I got and all I thought was damn how am I going to hide this booty from family and work. I work in a professional office and I go to meetings a lot so I was worried for a moment, but then I know it’s all swelling and the butt will go down over the next few weeks. I put antibiotic ointment on the incision sites, covered with 4x4 gauze, then put a marble on my belly button with surgical tape so my BB wouldn’t look all funky, put on a cami, then foams over it, then wrapped the white binder and then put the garment back on. That whole process took me 45 minutes. If you are going through this, get some help the first 5 days if possible. I was so exhausted just doing this. Anyhow, I looked at my private parts and omg it was 10x the normal size (I had asked the dr. to inject fat in a dent near my bikini line and I thought to myself he must have injected fat into my labia instead...what the heck!!). It was hard and the color was deep purple to almost black. I was thinking I got myself a new booty but my coochie looks dead!!!!
It must be the XS garment they put me in is way too tight and the crotch area constricted bloodflow to my private parts. So I switched to a garment I had from my first round (size Medium). It’s the Marena brand and actually the material provides more compression than the one I got from the office and the crotch area isn’t as tight. The vagina swelling went down within 6 days and I switched back to the XS garment.
So Dr. Hughes’ trademark is 3 very small incision sites for his BBLs: one above the butt crack and two just below the bikini line (he put these 2 on my c-section). I had 2 more incisions because of thigh lipo; in the crease area below my butt, but I couldn’t see because of all the bruising. It took me a few days to realize they were there. He hides them well. I had nearly 15 incision sites from my first lipo/BBL (I got abs, flanks, knees, outer and inner thighs done). I wish I had known about Dr. Hughes then.

Day 2 (12/25/13):
I developed diarrhea from the antibiotics!!! Darn it. It’s bad enough that you’re losing electrolyte from the lipo, and you have no appetite for food, and now whatever little food you put in your stomach is running out quickly. I thought about stopping the antibiotics but I didn’t want to risk infection so I reduced the dose from 3x/day to 2x/day. The diarrhea lasted for 2 days. I was so weak. After every bathroom trip, I got lightheaded and it took every effort to waddle back to the bed and since I was feeling so drained, I laid on my back to rest with soft pillows. I didn’t care about losing volume as I just wanted to feel comfortable. The only thing I ate was some crackers and forced myself to drink Ensure or Gatorade.

Day 3-5:
I quit the Vicodin on Day 3. It caused insomnia and I was miserable not sleeping. I took 2 ES Tylenol every 4 hours instead. My back was very stiff and sore. Sleeping was a little better since I went off Vicodin so I got 4 hours of sleep at night. I moved my sleeping foam onto the floor by the sofa which was much better. I found it easier to use my knees to get up and then my arms to balance, so I was on the floor on all four, and then slowly stand up. One thing I noticed was my clumsiness. God knows how many Bromelain or Arnica pills I dropped on the floor and couldn’t bend down to pick up before my dog got to it. By the end of the week, I became very good at using my toes to pick up items on the floor. Then the kankles happened and my feet cramped up. If you are recovering alone, definitely get something to help you pick up things on the floor. Putting on socks by yourself is impossible. My little one was my angel and helped mommy with that.

Day 6:
This was the start of a turning point. I felt so much better. I drove today for a short distance. I used the back support cushion under my thigh and that worked out well. Did some light cleaning around the house and then rested. I took my first pics today. Sorry it’s the best I could do by myself.

Day 10 (1/2/14):
Went to my first post-op. I got anxiety from all the stories from Dr Hughes’ girls about getting fluid drained at their post-op by Olga the nurse. I didn’t think I had any fluid built-up since I have been wearing the binder as tight as possible and low to almost covering my groin area. Well, she tapped my lower abs and said there’s fluid in there. I didn’t look at the needle but it was small, and I was still so numb that I didn’t feel a thing. She drained 25cc. It wasn’t a bad experience at all (at least not this time until my next appt...read on). Then she showed me to wear the binder really tight and even lower. I was so worried that it would crush the injected fat in the area near my groin but the thought of coming back with her sticking another needle in me got me scared. I didn’t know how big the next needle would be. Olga said no massages for now because it can cause more swelling.

Day 18 (1/10/14):
Went in for 2nd post-op. Olga used a bigger needle this time and damn it hurt for about 10 seconds. She drained 5cc of fluid. Told me I have to take it easy as being too active causes fluid to build up. I was only going for walks around the block with my dog and I didn’t think that was bad. And of course I had to take care of my kids. But the good news is she said I don’t have to wear the binder anymore. She also said I can get massages now. Also, I found out I got 1020cc each side. I don’t know how Dr. Hughes found that much fat on me but he is amazingly good. His sculpting is on point too. I am so glad he didn’t listen to me when I said 600cc was good enough for me. I would have been very disappointed then.

About the binder:
I thought I hated the binder but I find that I like wearing it, esp. at night now when I’m washing the garment or don’t want to be in my garment now that my period started. There were a couple of nights that I went without the garment but I would always have the binder on. I got so good at putting the binder on by myself after day 1 by laying it on the bed and putting the foams on the binder and then laying down on it and wrapping tightly. It’s harder to do it standing up because the stupid lipo foams keep falling out. I put the foams inside the garment as well where the zipper runs along both sides so the garment and the hooks don’t dig into my skin.

3 weeks post-op:
I went back to work after 3 weeks. I added more cushion to the back support by cutting about 2 inches of the foam that I was using to sleep on and I taped it to the back of the back support so it raised my butt up better when I sit at work. I had a few meetings this week that I could not take the pillow to sit on so I sat on my thigh.

I use a buckwheat neck pillow in the car to sit on. That works out much better than a rolled towel. My legs don’t get numb. My booty is still somewhat hard but has dropped a bit and it’s smaller now but it’s mostly the swelling that has gone down. There is probably some volume loss and it will continue for the next few weeks but from my previous experience, the fluffing is real so I’m not going to get attached to the butt now until it finally settles and forms the shape. The fluffing happened for me around month 4 for my first BBL so I just have to be patient. All the bruising is gone now. I still have a lot of swelling on the abs and legs, especially at the end of the day. I haven’t slept on the foam anymore (got rid of it after 2 weeks). I’m now back in my bed and I put 2 pillows under my head and back, and more pillows under my thigh so that my butt doesn’t touch the bed. It’s not really comfortable. I can’t sleep on my sides too much and I don’t want to sleep on my stomach because I don’t want to crush the fat that is filling my dent. Anyway, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading. I will try to post pics at 4 weeks. Best wishes to all you ladies.

Here are my pre-ops.

Here are pics from Day 6. Sorry the angle is bad but best I could do by myself.
The 2 incision sites below my butt crease are from the outer thigh lipo and a bit of lipo back of thigh. Very sore to sit on toilet with thigh lipo. Wish I had bought a toilet cushion or something.