so thrilled with my results! Plus Size TT and Lipo

Well, it’s been 4 months almost to the day since my surgery. This is the first week I’ve been able to sit up, plank or push up without sharp pangs in my stomach, and finally seeing the light t the end of the tunnel on that! Unfortunately my play dates with “swell hell” have continued (& apparently could do for another 6-8 months?) and for the last ten days of my cycle before menses I am typically quite bloated. When I work out hard - take the grueling spin class or row hard, I swell. If I drink more than 1 alcoholic drink, I swell. If I eat too much salt, I swell. I fly for work, and if I do any of those things in combo with flying, I swell A LOT. That said, if I am swollen I sleep in my compression garment and it helps a lot. I also wear compression socks inflight and they seem to help with the overall swelling, strangely. Nothing else seems to help except drinking a lot of water. I started taking collagen recently and it really seemed to help speed that internal healing so that I am now feeling so much less pain on movement. I wish I’d taken it right after surgery!

Three months out and I’m back to full activity, but my abs are still painful getting up or in any sudden jerky moves. The more active I am, the more swollen I am still and I’m ready for the summer to be over as heat makes everything worse it seems. At this stage things like swimming are still painful when I stretch etc but spin, jumping on a trampoline, brisk walking, rowing are all fine! I think I’m probably 3-4 months away from being fully healed and I’m still wearing my compression garment most nights - it really does help!

I’ve had the opportunity to do a little clothes shopping in the last month and find myself fitting into 10-12 very routinely. Yay! I am still feeling swollen, but if I have a rest day, wear my compression garment, don’t eat any sodium and don’t drink any alcohol, I wake up with a very flat stomach - almost a 6 pack! Exercise, heat, salt and alcohol in almost any amount all cause me to swell up pretty considerably.

I’m also finding that premenstrual swelling symptoms are very much intensified, and my cycle was a little unpredictable the first couple of times. I’m hoping these things just continue to settle down over the coming weeks.

I’m still very tender on the sides and numb in places on my back and stomach. I feel burning and twingy at times - I’m thinking it’s the nerves waking up still. The only really annoying thing is that some of the lipo holes have not healed properly yet... which is odd because my belly button and my scar are both healing really well. My doctor advised to put a dab of neosporin on the wounds and be patient. In the meantime I’m using cicatape for my scar and it’s coming along well.