Minimal Incision Arm-Lift & Arm Lipo at AGE 53- with Daniel Shapiro

Hello my lovely arm-lift ladies! I’m now a little more than 1 year post from when my minimal incision arm-lift was done, late September of 2015.

Wow...it’s been a busy 6 months since my last post and overall I’m slowly making progress in restoring my skin texture and overall arm-shape. I’ll start with:

MOBILITY/ACTIVITY:
Mobility after the 6-month mark should not of a concern and it sure wasn’t for me as I began full training 4.5 months after surgery.

ARMPIT SCARS:
My right arm scar has faded so much it’s barely visible, however, there’s still a purple mark on my left arm-pit (where there’s quite a bit of tension). Overall, my incisions (scars) healed nice and tight and on either arm the scar has NOT widened.

SKIN QUALITY:
I’m going to post quite a few pictures to do a comparison for everyone to see and I want to be honest about my result!

I tried my best to duplicate the same standing & arm positions for my before surgery & after surgery pictures.
Remember on my last post I said, QUOTE: “At about week 10 or 2.5 months (once the swelling subsided) I noticed that my arms began to get lumpy. I also noticed that there was a tremendous amount of scar tissue that was forming”.

I’m going to post that 2.5month post picture and put it beside my 1 year post picture. Big difference…and YES your ARMS can and could get worse before they look better!

Believe it or not the back of my right arm is STILL slightly numb! I feel it’s still not completely 100% healed.

I often wonder why my skin took on such a crepey texture following that disastrous arm-lipo I did almost 9 years ago. Here’s the top 3 things that I felt lead to my crepey, thin, loose and flaccid, sagging, arm skin following my original lipo procedure.

#1. Loss of muscle to my shoulders, biceps and triceps
#2. Quick & Sudden Fat loss (lipo)
#3. Damaged Fascia as a result of the liposuction

So…the best ways to remedy loose crepey skin? I did the following:

#1. I began a muscle building program for the whole arm including: shoulders (to help pull the arm-skin up, biceps to help fill my arm and triceps to help give tightness to the arm.
#2. Thermage and minimal-incision arm lift (to tighten & remove excess skin)
#3. Start working the fascia to improve circulation and skin appearance.

OVERALL:
After 1 year I’ve certainly seen a huge improvement and very glad I did the minimal-incision arm-lift. I’d say I’m still at a 75% improvement . I think my elbows are less wrinkly and skin texture is nicer. However, I feel that over the next 6-12months I’ll continue to see some more improvements as I continue to soften and iron out my fascia.

I don’t think the fraxel did much of anything, except leave stupid strips on my arms…ugh (but pretty much faded) and the Thermage helped a tiny bit.

So…browse through the pictures and let me know your thoughts? Can you see a difference? I feel I do…one thing is for sure, you must be pro-active in improving your own body after any type of surgery as surgery its self is not the whole cure to crepey arm skin.

So that's it ladies...have a great Christmas and Happy New Year…I’ll do another post Spring of 2017 to show you how much I've improved my arms through muscle building and fasica & scar tissue treatments.

Life has been so busy...and I've been meaning to get this post up on the 6 month mark...but I see I'm now 7 Months post, yikes...so here goes:

MOBILITY:
My full mobility of my arms began to return just after Christmas. I was able to hang from a chinning bar by the end of January bearing all my body weight on the incisions. My full work-outs were in full swing by February 1st (4.5 Months Post)

ARMPIT SCARS:
As you can see in my photo's the arm-pit scars stayed VERY tight and thin. The purple color is now beginning to fade more and more. There are only spots on my left arm-pit where it's a bit red on the scar in places. I'm hoping by mid summer the scars will be absolutely white. I'm extremely HAPPY with the incisions Dr. Shapiro did!

SPITTING STITCHES:
That annoying Spitting Stitch resolved it-self by the end of February (6 Months Post) before everything felt smooth & soft.

CONTROL GARMENT:
I wore my Control Garment right up until January! So a full 12 weeks...I was trying to wear it until February, but I felt that my skin was no longer benefiting from the compression, as the garment began to feel baggy and loose on my arms.

ACTIVITY:
My full GYM activity returned to normal as of February 1st (4.5months Post). This included lifting heavy load overhead, hanging from a chinning bar, etc;

SLEEPING:
I was fully sleeping on all sides, arms up overhead by 3 months post (mid to late December)

SKIN QUALITY:
My skin is slowly getting smoother & tighter. When I reviewed my operative report Dr. Shapiro removed 125cc of FAT from each arm. I realize this was a very small amount of fat, but non the less I was very concerned. The back of my right arm remained very numb and is JUST now returning back to a normal sensation. At about week 10 or 2.5 months post (once the swelling subsided) I noticed that my arms began to get lumpy. I also noticed that there was a tremendous amount of scar tissue that was forming. However, I wasn't worried about it, as I just am now seeing that the scar tissue is beginning to soften and my arms are beginning to smooth out...whew!

OVERALL:
Well. I'd say after 7 months since my arm-lift these are the TOP 3 changes I received:

#1. 75% Improved Upper Skin Texture!
#2. 50% Smoother Upper Arms with less lumps & bumps!
#3 Upper Arms are more defined & contoured

With all that said...I noticed that my elbows remained wrinkly. Soooo on Tuesday, April the 26th I underwent:

Thermage to my Elbows and Arms and full Fraxel 1927 to both arms! I'm only 4 days post from those two procedures...and I just can't wait to see the outcome in a few months time! My skin responds very well to thermage and I'm hoping I'll get a good result from the fraxel as far as: reduction in age spots & increased skin tightness. I also feel that training hard in the GYM, eating good nutrition and letting mother nature do her healing is a big part of good recovery from this surgery. I feel this surgery would not benefit a lady, if she had heavy upper arms. My overall measurements of my arms remained unchanged...the reason I decided to do this surgery was to smooth out & tighten my upper arm skin. This surgery does NOT give you a 100% improvement...you'll still have less than perfect arms but I was only expecting 50% improvement and that's what I got plus a little more :) OVERALL I'm very happy with my result thus far and expect that my full result will be seen between 10 to 12 months time.

Hope these pictures and information helps you to decide if this surgery is right for you...I'll do my next up-date at 12 months post :)

Have a fabulous summer ladies and don't forget to wear your sunscreen on your entire body :)))