51, Two Kids, One Pregnancy (C-section), Substantial Non-surgical Weight Loss. Newport News, VA

1 year update:

My first surgery was 1 year ago today. I am quite happy with the results. I no longer think about the surgery every minute of every day like I did at the beginning. I’m still thrilled with how flat my stomach is. Surprisingly, because I did the breast lift more for my husband than for myself, I’m really impressed with what the doctor was able to do in the lift and implant placement. My breasts look better than I even remember them as a twenty-something, although I’m the odd one that wishes I was a D rather than a DD. I’m continuing my workouts and keeping the weight off.

My recommendations, after a year of experience following my surgery:
1. If you’re going through weight loss, have most/essentially all of the weight off before surgery. Surgery only took 2 ½ lbs of skin off for me so I’m glad I was essentially at my goal weight before surgery.

2. Be in really good physical shape before your surgery. I did a lot of cardio and strength training very regularly and ramped it up in the month before surgery. This helped me immensely; I was back on my feet relatively quickly. I went out to dinner with my family two days after my surgery – I was slow and needed a stool to get into and out of the van but I made it. It did me good to get out of the house.

3. Make sure you have great support at home. My husband was a drill sergeant and followed the doctor’s orders to a tee. He had me up walking as often as I was supposed to, there’s no way I could have done it on my own if only for the fact that I wouldn’t have woken up to walk as often as I was supposed to. I think this is another reason I was on my feet relatively quickly.

4. Exparel is a wonder drug. I had to pay extra for it and it was worth every single penny. I was able to move without too much discomfort and I was able to cut back on the pain meds

5. Get active after surgery as soon as your doctor allows. I was back in the gym 8 days after surgery. I was only walking and very slowly but I was back, keeping the routine.

Just my thoughts, based on my experience. Hope everyone is doing great and is happy with their surgery.

I had another revision recheck. The surgeon feels better about the left implant. He, and we, think it has dropped some since the last checkup and he thinks it will continue to drop. I'm supposed to continue on the Singulair for another month and get back in touch with them if I have any other problems or if I'm not happy with how things settle out by the spring. He advised me to make sure I wear supportive bras so I don't undo the work he did. I asked about the area above my belly button as I wasn't sure if that was still swollen or if I still had more work to do to lose the rest of my fat. He checked it and said the swelling is 90 or 95% down, that there was a tiny bit of fat under the skin but that if I lost enough to lose that little bit, my face would lose too and I'd look odd. He says it's just some extra skin from being so overweight. He said the only way we could get rid of it would be to do a fleur de lis skin removal and that would leave a large vertical scar. He doesn't think it's worth it because there really isn't much excess skin. I'm fine with that - I'm comfortable in a bikini with the small bit of extra skin so no reason to cut me open again.

I hope everyone is healing well!

I had my second post revision checkup. The surgeon is still not happy with how the left implant is sitting. He's worried about capsular contraction - apparently tissue builds up around the implant too tight and prevents it from settling. He put me on Singulair (normally for asthma) - it's supposed to help with the contraction. He also showed us some massage techniques to try to loosen things up. I go back in a couple of months for a recheck - if there's no improvement, we'll have to schedule another procedure to open up the scar tissue again.

At least the right one is much improved and acceptable. And, the left one isn't so ugly anymore but it's still a little funky looking. Fortunately, under clothing, everything looks fine. Poor hubby is the only one that has to see the weirdness.

I hope everyone is healing well.