Reconstructive after skin grafting. Am I too deformed to fix? (Photo)

Dear Phenomenal148309,
Thank you for your questions and pictures. I am sorry this happened to you.
As you can imagine, this is going to be an involved series of reconstructive surgeries. For your abdomen, you could have tissue expanders placed in your upper abdomen to expand or stretch out the remaining unaffected skin. This tissue would be stretched out over time by filling with increasing amounts of saline. Once enough tissue has been recruited, this skin could then be pulled down to the lower abdominal incision, after all the skin graft is removed, redoing the skin redraping of the tummy tuck.
As for your breasts, tissue could be taken from your back and transferred to the breasts to resurface with non-skingrafted skin. Both sides could be treated with latissimus flaps to resurface the breasts after removing the skin graft. This will create donor scars on your back, so you need to decide if it is worth it to you to have improved skin over your breasts at the expense of new scars on your back.
I encourage you to seek out a board certified plastic surgeon in your area for a consultation with you to develop a plan that makes sense and works for you.
Best to you as you look forward.

There will be reconstructive options for you.
And situations like you’re on despite how traumatic this may be it is important to slow down and move forward at the right time.
You need to recover emotionally and physically.
All scar tissue needs to be completely mature before considering the next step.
It’s hard to tell if you have enough skin on your upper abdomen to be able to close the defect on your lower abdomen. it will require a careful assessment and you need to be very selective in choosing the correct providers.
If there is insufficient tissue on your abdomen to close the defect the tissue needs to be brought to the front using free tissue transferred or free flap surgery. this involves harvesting blocks of tissue with its own blood supply, micro vascular re-anastomosis of blood vessels to keep the tissues alive in the new location.
These are complex operations that are usually more commonly done at academic medical centers.
It may require being in the hospital for more than a week including stay in the ICU.
Tissue can be taken from your back such as a free latissimus flap or from your inner thigh.
I suggest you talk to the plastic surgeons who did your initial reconstruction where you were treated for the necrotizing fasciitis.
Consider consulting at academic medical centers in your area.
Reconstructive options would never make you hold like you were before your procedure but should get you looking better than you are currently.
Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul or taking tissues from other areas is sometimes justified and sometimes not.
This type of work may be outside the scope of summer plastic surgeons.
You’re definitely going to stay with surgeons who do complex reconstructive surgery on a regular basis.
While there are plenty of plastic surgeons who do complex reconstructive surgery in the community this type of work is often done at academic medical centers.
I recommend all patients have multiple in person consultations before choosing any surgical procedure or provider and the same is true for you.
If you move forward with reconstructive options and these are going to be very involved complex and invasive operations.
You have to ask yourself if you’re willing to go through the inherent risk that goes with having those types of procedures. recognize that there is inherent risk with reconstructive surgery as well.
In regards to making quality assessments and delivering a levels of success it is paramount to choose the right provider.
I suggest having at least five consultations preferably with local plastic surgeons who have extensive experience reconstructive surgery especially with free tissue transfer.
Best,
Mats Hagstrom MD