Brachioplasty/Mastopexy after weight loss

After a long and exhausting search of the best surgeons in my area, I narrowed it down by a laundry list of requirements until I had decided on Dr. Levens. Some of my requirements included: Length of experience and type of experience, other patient's reviews, historical data on his practice, community outreach, and proximity to location (I didn't want to travel). The most important part of the process was evaluating the doctor and their teams. We had to gel, and out of the three doctors I had chosen, Dr. Levens and his team set the bar extraordinarily high. He is compassionate, informative and completely understood my end goal. His staff is so kind and supportive, never did I feel pressure or any urging to rush things. They appreciated the time I took to make this decision (first elective surgery ever) and made me feel secure in my decision. I am looking forward to seeing the fruits of our labor!

Thank God for Google Voice or I'd never be able to offer this update since my arm strength is pretty poor right now. So I'm 5 days post-op and it's been an interesting five days. My arms are still super sensitive and I'm walking around like C-3PO. The worst of it is my armpits because of the type of incision and the decision to extend into the chest wall to get that pesky boob fat. I know in the end it's going to be outstanding I can already see the results of my doctor's excellent work but as so many have said on here it's hard going initially.

To make things harder I only had a friend stay with me for the first day and then I've been on my own sense which has made the experience all the more challenging. I would have to say if I ever recommended this to anyone I would tell them to not do these two procedures together unless you have someone with you 24/7 or at least a week if not longer because it's just too tough to manage yourself. I'll take this as a lesson that I need to learn to reach out to others :-) I can't help that I am usually a self-reliant person and have that attitude that I can see myself through anything. Well I can happily confirm that I have learned my lesson and have all of my friends and Neighbors on speed dial.

A few things that have been extraordinary helpful this past week have been pre cooking meals ahead of the surgery so all I have to do is pop things in the microwave. I moved everything down to the lower shelves of my frigerator for ease of access and also moved dishes and other supplies to the countertop so I wouldn't have to reach that far. I set up both bathrooms like little mini drug stores with all the supplies that I need like rolled gauze self sticking Ace bandages surgical pads and the like. As for some things that I purchased that of made experience better I have to say things like Scott flushable body wipes and baby wipes have been a godsend. Also if you're in Amazon Prime user I highly recommend getting on there subscribe & Save program so you can have all of your heavier items delivered directly to your door on regular intervals. I set this up about 2 months ago to test it and now I have everything from laundry detergent to toilet paper delivered directly to my door. Given that I live a Condo building without an elevator that was probably the best thing I decided to do.

I purchased quite a few things in advance of my surgery like compression garments for both the arms and the breasts as well as this Nifty memory foam body pillow that's actually made for pregnant women what works really well for elevating your arms and keeping you on your back to sleep. I am a side sleeper so you can imagine how difficult this is to do.

as soon as I'm able to hold my phone for longer than 2 minutes I will try to take some pictures of my supplies and of my current results. I'll also post the doctor provided pre-op pictures so you can see the difference.

So today is officially 6 days post-op and I can say I have definitely been more active. Drove myself to Walgreens today took a shower even redressed my own bandages myself. I can definitely see an improvement in range of motion and flexibility so it looks like we're heading in the right direction.

Today was also the first day that I got a really good look at my incisions because prior to this the only time I had actually seen them was in the doctor's office and it had been kind of one of those quick once over because I had an audience.

So in my initial consultations Dr Levens had communicated he thought we were going to go with a lollipop for the breast lift with a small J incision at the bottom and for the arm lift it would extend for my elbows to my armpits so a basic arm lift.

Prior to going into surgery the doctor and I had discussed options and I had communicated to him that once I was under and he was doing his thing if he felt something needed to be changed I would give him carte blanche to do so in order to achieve the best look

That as a given, what he ended up doing was a full anchor scar for the breast lift and an extended arm lift or what is called a thoracic arm lift. A thoracic arm left starts about 2 inches below the elbow extends all the way up to the armpit and then goes under the armpit about 2 inches into the chest wall. The work he did was definitely more extensive.

As you can imagine I was quite a bit shocked because I know we had discussed lipo in little bit of my lower arm as well as in the armpit area so to see these incisions took my breath away. I don't think I really thought we would go that far however in hindsight I had quite a bit of loose skin and he had commented that in order to get a smooth transition it might be needed.

That is one thing that I really was impressed with regarding Dr Levens is that he is not against exploring options in order to achieve the best look and he did exactly what he needed to do to guarantee that the end result would be what I was looking for.

Given what I have shared so far I can now understand why my recovery has been a bit slower than I expected. All in all I am relatively fully functioning at 6 days out I can raise my arms to just above my head and I'm able to drive my car and do things pretty much as normal with a few caveats. My favorite is that because of the gauze wrappings I can't actually get dressed LOL so I ended up going to Walgreens and some sweatpants and a kimono robe. I am sure the staff there appreciated my attire.

Showering was a bit tricky, but wrapping myself back up again afterwards by myself definitely was a project. I still have some pooled bruising around my armpit as well as my elbows which makes it sensitive to lay them down even on pillows and the armpits themselves are just too uncomfortable to contemplate. Anything and everything hurts there.

As for the boobs I don't feel much of anything except an odd twinge every now and then or when I sneeze that sudden tensing of the muscles causes a little flash of pain for a moment but it quickly goes away.

I'm hoping tomorrow the doctor will be able to put me in my compression garment so I can get out of these gauze bandages.

I can honestly say already though I can see a difference. Even with my arm still swollen they are significantly smaller than they were and as for the boobies I I'm still trying to get used to them because they've never been where they are supposed to be LOL it's something of a shock to suddenly have Venus de Milo boobies :-)