35 Year Old, Lost 200 Pounds - Made it to the flat side on 12/11! - Seattle, WA

Hard to believe I'm coming up on my 4 month post surgery date this Saturday. December seems like so long ago.. it wasn't even Winter yet (I hate Winter and cold), now it's Spring and doesn't get dark at 4pm anymore. Love it!

Anyways, I had my 3/4 month follow up with my PS yesterday. He said everything looks great and I don't really have any issues so I'm pretty much done. I can't see any reason to go back unless some kind of problem shows up, but at this point I can't imagine it would.

He did say that if I'm still swelling the way I am after a year or so they can always do an ultrasound and see if I have excess fluid. I'm still having the "damn I look good in the morning, omg I look pregnant at night", swelling. I completely understand how long it can take for this to improve so I'm not really worried. I do still wear some kind of compression top a couple times a week though, it seems to help. Or maybe it helps in my head lol

Oh and that weird little scabby thing I posted about last month, it was the tied off part of an stitch that had popped out and didn't want to dissolve. His nurse cut it out for me so that area should finally heal up normally. She said so many people just cut them out themselves, but they'd rather you not do that because its not always sterile. Trust me, I'm fine with having medical people do it, I mean I did pay a ton of money for this, why should I do it, right???

She also gave me some Mepitform to try out on my scar. Does anyone use this? It's pretty expensive which is why they just gave me one little patch to try. She said to try it out for a few days and see if it irritates my skin because if it does I can't use it and then I'd be out the money if I had gone and bought it without trying. I tend to have sensitive skin but so far I don't see any issues. Had it on for almost 24 hours now.

I should take some more pics... too lazy to do so at the moment though :)

Hard to believe that 13 weeks ago today I had my TT. It wasn't even winter yet, I was dreading the season. Now here we are almost spring yay!

I'm supposed to have a 3 month follow up with my PS but I slacked on making the appointment so I can't see him until the beginning of April. Will end up being more of a 4 month check up lol.

So I feel like my swelling is worse now than it was the last time I posted. I had stopped wearing any kind of compression garments but have since returned to them. I realize swell hell can last for months and months, I guess I just didn't expect it to get worse than it already was.

I also have been having more pain on my incision line. Well.. I guess pain is the wrong word, but it's wayyyy more sore (compared to not sore at all weeks ago). I can only assume that it's just my nerves healing and regenerating, combined with the swelling because it seems to feel worse at the end of the day. It doesn't feel muscular at all, only at skin level.. hard to explain, hopefully someone out there knows what I'm talking about.

I also have this weird little scabby area that isn't healed. I'm not sure if it's a stitch? Both the scar and the scab are things I plan to talk about at my appointment.

Other than that, things are great. I'm still happy with the decision to have the surgery, even if the little pooch never goes away it's 100 times better than it was.

I posted a couple pics.. the side by side shots are me at 5am and then around 10pm. Talk about swollen!

So today is day..... ummmmm... actually at this point it's easier to measure in weeks. Today is 6 weeks, 3 days since surgery. I do have the weeks marked off on my calendar since I'm not supposed to lift anything heavy for 8-12 weeks.

My life has pretty much returned to normal, it's almost like I never had the surgery. Been wearing some shaper type things during the day, my binder at night. I still swell up by the end of the day, when I wake up in the morning I'm mostly flat again.. then repeat. I never have any pain, sneezing doesn't hurt, just leaves me with a weird numb feeling..although laughing still feels weird. I've been using Palmer's Vitamin E oil on the scar now that it's healed.

I'm starting to think the slight little pooch I have above my incision is there to stay. Before my tummy tuck I did already have a 6-7 inch scar across my stomach from gallbladder removal surgery. And while we did talk about how your skin changes after one scar and all that, I'm starting to think my existing scar prevented him from making it as tight as I would have liked it. Don't get me wrong, my results now are 500x better than how I looked before and I don't regret anything, but we all want it to be perfect. Definitely something to talk to him about at my 3 month check up.

Anyways..here's some pics