39 Years Old, 2 Kids, and Have Waited So Many Years for a Much Needed Tummy Tuck - Fort Worth, TX

I wanted to start off by saying that writing this review pains me because I really like Dr. Ethridge as a person. It still doesn't take away from the fact that I feel I was botched. I had waited many years to get this procedure done because I was fearful that something like this could happen. When I finally decided I didn't want to live with all this extra skin on my stomach anymore I took picking a doctor very seriously. I had three different consultations with doctors that I had already researched heavily. After all my consults I chose Dr. Ethridge because I liked his personality, his bedside manner was great, he made me feel comfortable during the exam, and his post op pics looked good. He had also been in top doc magazine several years in a row. How could I go wrong? I had a tummy tuck with muscle repair with lipo to the flank and inner outer thigh. I am 5'2" 126 pounds, but had areas that I could never get rid of no matter how hard I tried. I had the surgery and it seemed everything went great. The whole recovery I had very little pain if any. When I first saw my results it looked pretty scary with all the glue, the swelling, and pleating on the side of tummy tuck incision. It also seemed that my incision was really high,but I wasn't going to worry about that so much because I wasn't planning on showing bare tummy because I knew I would still have some stretch marks left after.I was still confident that I was going to have excellent results because I was told that I was swollen and that the pleating would go away with time as sutures dissolved. As far as my lipo it seemed nothing had been done at all, but once again being told it was swelling that would take several months to go away I let it go. Week 3 I was hanging up some clothes and felt a pop in lower ab. I wasn't stretching to far or lift anything heavy at all. Had it checked immediately because I was starting to see a bulge in lower ab, but was told it was swelling and muscle was intact. Months passed with me voicing my concerns at every post op visit only to be pacified by telling me it's swelling. At six months I went in for two different opinions from other board certified plastic surgeons that both had the same comments. The muscle repair had failed, had extra skin still, incision was high, and the supposable pleats on the sides of the incision were deep ridges from bad lipo. The $6,000 lipo to flank/ inner and outer thigh was a waste off money because after getting report from the hospital I was told only a total of 1 pound was taken. Somehow that little bit of lipo he caused deformities.I was so upset I went back into Dr. Ethridge and finally admitting that something was wrong only after informing him of the other surgeons opinions. He said he'd fix it for free, but I might have hospital charges. Needless to say the trust was gone. He offered no refund. I'm scheduled for June 30th for tummy tuck revision and lipo of flanks with another surgeon. Can't afford to redo lipo to thighs right now. :-(I will have a longer incision to try to correct the deep ridges left in both hip due to bad lipo and most likely will have a vertical scar now to lower the scar. This was by far one of the most mentally stressful surgeries I've ever been through. I pray that the next one goes much better. Sorry this is so long winded. Hope this helps someone out there.