MaleTuck

Post Weight Loss - Abdominoplasty W/Lipo - Philadelphia, PA

Good luck on your surgery! What I wish I knew then... 1. Know everything your surgeon plans to do to you. Be comfortable with the plan. Ask a million questions. Write them down so you remember. 2. Get your home ready before the surgery. Put everything where you can get to it without navigating stairs (if possible, especially for the first couple of days) or bending over/reaching high. An electric recliner would be awesome, but a wedge pillow on a firm bed/couch is ok too. Get your Rx filled before surgery day if possible so you don't have to do any running around on the way home. Have bandaging supplies at the ready. Ask your doc what you should buy. 3. Start taking a stool softener the day or two before surgery. Really. 4. Get some oversized synthetic material t-shirts and sweat pants. A couple of sets. You are not going to fit into your regular cloths for a couple of weeks. Oversized is better because the waist band will feel tight and cause an hour-glass shape for weeks. You might also want to invest in nylon or synthetic underwear one size too big. Blood and secretions will wash out much easier than from cotton underwear. 5. Take pictures the day of/before surgery. Pick one day of the week for pictures and take them every week. At some point you'll wonder what the hell you did this for and the pictures will be worth a million bucks. Good luck!

Thanks for the updates. It looks like you're doing great. There may be edema that seems to come and go for weeks following the surgery. I generally notice mine worse at the end of the day, but wake looking pretty un-swollen. While you may have some flab, it is also normal to have a little fluid buldge over the suture line for a while. I'll be that you find this improves week after week. Hang in there. It takes a long time to recover from this major surgery. I found that exercise helps a lot! Good luck!

Congrats! I have a similar story, procedure and scars. My first surgery was 8/3/12 but i needed a revision about a month ago. Having the drains out will really feel like a turning point. Hang in there. You'll likely have some more edema. It takes several weeks for the edema to resolve but you'll feel better day after day. I found that exercise really helped. Less pain, increased post op energy and less swelling. Good luck!!

Huge edema! I had that too. Lipo creates a lot of swelling and it takes a long time (months) to go down. Talk to your PS. Good luck!

I'm 2m4d post op. I still have a great deal of edema. I work out several times a week, but get pain with use of the ab muscles. The other day I tried to do a pullup with very poor results! We've just to to stay the course. Everyone keeps telling me that things will get better with time. It's so hard to be patient. :)