Nobody Warned Me About the Pain

Ok. Last you heard from me, I was suffering in the 12th circle of hell with nerve pain 3 days after my coolsculpting. I'm happy to report that the pain is gone - it had begun to subside about 4 days after I posted the review and was completely gone about 3 days after that. I had some leftover Vicodin from my BA five weeks prior and I ended up taking one every night for the 4 nights of the worst of the pain. It helped with about 25% of the pain and I was grateful for that 25%.

Now that I can think straight, I'll give a short review of the facility and then get into the update.

First and foremost, the only complaints I have has to do with my own body's reaction to the procedure and a little about the procedure itself - not at all with where I went or my practitioner. I went to Belcara in Baltimore, MD and it was everything I could have hoped for in a facility. The staff, nurses, doctors and facility were all grade-A. I will recommend them to anyone I know and sing their praises as any opportunity I get.

I've reread my review and honestly, I still stand by everything I said. Even though I am no longer in pain, it is unforgettable to me. It could be because I've never experienced nerve pain before and that, apparently, I fall into that 10-20% of people who have this late onset pain after coolsculpting. Who knows?

It's challenging to show the true results in these quick phone pictures, but they're there. Everything fits differently, my midsection feels tighter and I'm looking forward to these next several weeks of seeing final results. I went into the procedure with the understanding that coolsculpting will only remove about 25% of the fat from the area. I want to say that it did more than that. I won't say it's been dramatic but if I had to give a number, I'd say it was closer to 35-40%.
I did not change my diet or activities at all. I did exactly as my practitioner said and went about my business as usual and waited for results.

I guess after the review I wrote, the main question would be, "was it worth it?" I can say that I don't feel like I wasted my money. I see better results than I expected and there are another several weeks yet before I see final results. So as far as getting what I paid for is concerned, yes. I got what I paid for.
There is a caveat to this, however - and that is the pain. As made evident by my review, the pain was such that it brought dang-near poetry out of me. I mean, it was such that I made mention of Satan's second cousin exploring unusual punishment techniques.
To put it in perspective, I slept with my entire body covered except for my abdomen. One night, I'd slept as usual with nothing touching my abdomen but kept waking up from sudden, stinging pain that reverberated throughout my midsection. I finally got up and went to the bathroom to just feel sorry for myself. It was then that I saw exactly one dog fur on my stomach. One 2-inch dog fur touching my stomach caused me relentless pain. This was my life for about 6 days. Respite could be found in the bindings of post-surgical wraps intended for people recovering from tummy tucks. If a shirt rubbed the area, I had to talk myself out of crying.

When the pain began to subside, it was like I was living in a whole new world. I was Jasmine on that carpet singing with Aladdin. The sun was brighter. Food tasted better. I had forgiven all my enemies and vowed volunteer time to a cat rescue. There wasn't enough I could do to show the universe my gratitude.
There is only one tiny thing beyond that. I write this 2 months post-procedure and it was only last week that the numbness completely went away. How-hecking-ever, the residual numbness was welcomed with open, enthusiastic arms as long as it wasn't the pain.

So I guess what I can offer to anyone thinking about getting the procedure done is this. The money part. I personally feel was worth it. I got a little more than the results I expected. That was the easy part.
The thing you will be gambling with is 1: whether or not you'll fall into the 10-20% of people who experience what I and many other people experienced with the pain and 2: if so, will it be worth it to you for this procedure.

If it was only the money, I'd do it again. But because of what I went through afterward, I will not. I can't even say that I'd advise anyone against the procedure. The results are there. You just might... you know, end up wishing you were in a coma for the better part of two weeks or feel like you're being punished, all at once, for six days straight for everything bad you've ever done in your life and all your lives before it.

I'm only three days post-procedure and the pain is nearly debilitating. There's nothing quite like nerve pain. There's nothing quite like this procedure.
The only word I can really come up with is "barbaric." I don't think I'd do it if I had it to do over again. It feels like a punishment for just not going to the gym.
I had a breast augmentation five weeks ago and recovery didn't hurt this badly.
The procedure itself made me legitimately question what I was doing with my life and my body and how I could have possibly fallen this far from grace. The suction, the numbness, taking the device off and the massage afterward - it all felt so barbaric and experimental. The suction pain was dizzying. The cooling process was a walk in the park. The removal of the device and subsequent massage made me see stars. I saw stars from the pain and had to dig deep into my very soul for the strength not to cry and beg for time to be rewound.
I am three days post-procedure and now it is everything in me not to cry from the CONSTANT electrical, prickling, surprising pain. It wakes you up in the night. It makes you double over out of nowhere from a shocking, sudden stabbing feeling. The pain is like a group of electrical angry hornets are following you around all day and randomly decide to sting you all at once at varying times and degrees.
It is the kind of pain that makes you wonder if it will ever end and makes you wonder if you should start making plans for managing it for the rest of your life.
What makes this pain a special kind of awful is that it is just shy of debilitating. It dances on the threshold just enough to make you believe you can get through it between the moments of stabbing electricity ripping through your abdomen and effecting your very emotions.
The pain is such that you become lethargic from constantly physically and emotionally managing it from one bout of horror to the next.
I cannot fathom, for the life of me, why nobody warned me of what life was to be like in the weeks to follow the procedure.
I was sold when I saw before and after photos and hearing a woman tell me that she had the procedure done and was back to work an hour afterward. What that woman failed to tell me was that it would be like a punishment from Satan's second cousin who was practicing unusual punishments for sinners who decided to get coolsculpting instead of just toiling away at the gym like everyone else.
I want to apologize to my past self for all the times I talked myself out of going to the gym. I want to tell my mom she was right about everything and that I shouldn't have dated that one guy and I should have learned how to sew and I should have eaten better and exercised more.
I wish I spent the money on a personal trainer. I wish I spent it on veggies and water. I wish I spent it on a juicer or one of those chopper things.
As I write this, the angry hornets have been attacking my abdomen like I've kidnapped their queen and I have to choke down sobs of regret.
Whether or not I come out the other end of this with an amazing tummy, I'm never doing this again.
And if I don't come out the other end of this with an amazing tummy, I'm going to tell myself that's what i get for being lazy and eating poorly. I'm going to tell myself that's what I get and then carry my tummy pouch over to the hecking gym and exercise like I always should have.
If anything comes of this at all, it's that I've learned my lesson. I want no one else doing anything to my body unless it involves my husband making it feel good.
Now I'm off to look for a hecking personal trainer so I can do what I should have done instead of coolsculpting.