Hopefully SmartLipo is Really Smart! - Roseville, CA
I am 5'3", 145lbs. I am in pretty good...
I am 5'3", 145lbs. I am in pretty good shape and run 3 miles 3 times a week, plus do yoga several times a week.
I had smart lipo done yesterday on the outer thigh, inner thigh, and inner knee. I go back in 3 weeks for hips, lower abdomen, and upper abdomen. Total cost for 6 areas was just over $10K.
SURGERY: Experienced only minor discomfort, but overall it was pretty easy. I thought being awake would be way weird but it wasn't bad. When they fill you up with the lidocain, it feels and looks gross, but is not painful. A few times I could feel the heat of the laser. And a few times during the suction when the doctor got near the edges of where the lidocain was I could feel some discomfort, but nothing really bad. I took 1mg Xanax and a vicoden before surgery. I didn't feel loopy during surgery at all, I felt alert, but got a little sleepy and a little out of it by the end.
PAIN: I slept for a couple hours after I got home from the surgery. When I woke I hurt pretty bad and I was soaking in drainage and it was gross. But I got up and took a shower and felt much better after that. That was the worst part of the pain I have felt. I laid there for about 30 minutes feeling pretty shitty before I decided to get up. But getting up, moving around, and I think getting more drainage out in shower helped me feel much better.
Today, I am ok today. I had my surgery from 7am - 10:30am yesterday. I am luckily able to work from home today. My husband stayed with me all day yesterday after surgery. Today I am home alone but getting around myself totally fine. I am stiff and I walk funny, I am fairly bruised, but overall feel fine and am only taking tylenol.
DRAINAGE: Way more disgusting and excessive than I had expected. YOU MUST HAVE A SECOND COMPRESSION GARMENT. I feel like they should automatically give you two garments, there is no way you can suffice with just one because they get so soiled. When I got home from surgery I was a little out of it. I laid down on my bed (we had LUCKILY prepared bed with a shower curtain liner and many towels for me to lay on as to not ruin the bed. This was totally needed) and after passing out for a couple hours I woke soaked in nastyness. My garment was soaked, even though my port holes all had a maxipad over them. I had to wash the garment, I luckily happened to have a Spanx I could use while the one they gave me was in the wash, but it is not quite long enough to cover my inner knees.
I left surgery center at about 11:00 and took a shower at 2pm. I stood there and pushed a bunch of drainage out and it was way gross lol. They say have someone in the bathroom with you for your first shower in case you pass out. My husband was in the bathroom, took my nasty compression garment to wash it, saw blood dripping down my legs, and I thought my HE was going to be the one to pass out! There was blood everywhere. It is really bad. He put towels down as a pathway from my bed to the bathroom so I didn't mess up the carpet. You seriously need an extra garmet and about 700 towels and hopefully someone to help wash everything.
I took ANOTHER shower at around 8pm that night and pushed more drainage out. This time after the shower I put the other compression I had washed earlier back on, and my husband put the spanx in the wash. Again, the spanx was soiled even through the maxipads. I took a third shower when I woke this morning at around 9am. The drainage has slowed considerably. But I still had to wash my compression garment I wore to bed last night again.
I found it easiest to stand in tub after shower and tape the maxipads over the port holes. Then use a wash rag to wash excess blood that is dripping down legs. Then step out of shower onto a towel to put compression garment on (Pretty hard to do when you are sore, that part kind of sucks). Then put some sweats on and head back to bed to rest after laying a new, clean set of towels down over shower curtain. You need to wash a set of towels and the compression garment you are wearing each time.
SUMMARY OF MUST HAVES:
-- A second compression garment
-- A shower curtain liner, or some kind of plastic protection for your bed
-- Lots of towels for the bed
-- Maxi Pads and surgical tape to cover port holes
-- A blanket that is easy to wash
-- Several pairs of sweat pants (you will want to swap out and wash these also)
-- Also towels to protect carpet where you will be walking, literally blood drips down your legs, it gets all over the place. I suggest laying towels out from bed to bathroom.
-- Tylenol
RESULTS:
TBD. They say they removed 3.5 pounds of fat (I can't remember number of cc's). That didn't seem like a lot to me considering my thighs are huge lol. Thighs were my biggest area of concern. They are so swollen and bruised it is hard to tell, although my outer thighs do already seem to look smoother than before. Will continue to update as I heal and add pics soon.
Sorry I keep forgetting to upload my photos to my...
-- Got surgery Wednesday morning
-- Worked from home Thursday and Friday. I was stiff but able to get around fine and could have gone in to the office if I had needed to, especially Friday.
-- Walked (slowly) 1 mile both Thursday and Friday and was fine. Seemed mobility made the pain lessen. The more I sat, the stiffer I was.
-- Friday night I went dancing lol. Literally, 2 days after my surgery, went out, wore heels I was fine. I was out for 3 hours and left early not because of pain, but because the leakage was bad still and the maxi pads filled so decided I better go.
-- Saturday I went to baby shower and then to dinner party, was on my feet all day. Again, the more I moved the more I leaked that was the only issue.
-- It took over a week for the leakage to stop but it was really bad for like 5 days
-- I rested most of the day Sunday then I jogged (much more slowly than usual) a 5K on Monday evening. I was pretty sore the next day, that was probably pushing it.
-- I walked/jogged another 5K on Thursday (8 days out)and I was OK that time.
-- I jogged again at day 11
-- I was back at my normal 5K pace on day 15
-- I did a 5K race this past Sunday and my time was about the same as the race I did just prior to the surgery. That was 2.5 weeks out and all the pain, stiffness, etc was totally gone.
-- I'm still wearing the garment all day, even when working out. I hate sleeping in it, it is uncomfortable, so a few times in the night I've ripped it off lol. But for the most part I wear it all the time.
I am still unsure how I feel about the results. I don't see a difference in my inner knee, which is frustrating since the Doctor added that at the last minute. My inner thigh looks the same too. My outer thighs seem to be smoothed out a bit. However, my thighs are visibly uneven. One is definitely bigger than the other which is frustrating. All the pain and swelling seems to be gone at this point, I leaked so much it seems most of the fluid made its way out of me, but still my thighs are very uneven.
I go in for my second surgery this week. I am going to talk to the doctor about the thighs. This next surgery I do Hips, Upper and Lower Abs.
I was originally supposed to do upper arms too. But then they added the inner knee at the last minute during my last surgery like I mentioned. Instead of doing arms I might just not do that at all and call it an even swap (knees for arms). For one, doing this in the summer is silly. If you do it do it in the winter when it is more comfortable to cover up. If I do arms, they won't be able to do it until July and I don't want to wear long sleeves in July. But the main thing is that so far the results are OK, but not worth what I paid. I want to wait to see how it all turns out before forking out more money.
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Ok Posted THIGH pics. -- Before pics taken about...
-- Before pics taken about 2 weeks before Surgery (Surgery was on June 1st).
-- Pics at exactly 1 week!! My Captions lie lol, I just looked at the date those were actually Wednesday, June 8.(which makes more sense the bruising wasn't that bad after 2 weeks. Will see if I can update captions.)
-- Pics at 19 days (Monday, June 20). Plus some pics of bruising and the gory carnage u can look forward too lol.
Day after tomorrow, on to more fat sucking fun! Will see how the abs go.
I was going to post an update tomorrow and put up my pics. It will be two weeks tomorrow for me. But so far I am not super happy with th results. The swelling and bruising is almost gone but my thighs don't look that much smaller AND they are lop sided (one is bigger than other). I hope they are just healing at different rates lol. They added my inner knee at the last minute (I was supposed to do arms but did inner knee instead) and I don't see any difference in my knees at all. But anyway maybe after I post my pics and can compare them I will see a difference it's just in the mirror I don't see a big difference and my clothes still fit the same.
I have another surgery for hips and abs next week. We will see how it goes!