25yo | Vaser Liposuction on Inner & Outer Thighs | Over-sharing All the Way ;) - Sydney, AU

Apologies for the absenteeism, however I consider it to be a very good thing how easily time flies and life goes back to normal. The biggest reason for not writing anything was that there really wasn't much to report, after the initial awe and confusion life went right on with no consideration of how sweaty I might feel under all that viscose. It has been almost 8 weeks now and my legs look like they've always been this way. No bruising, no tenderness, no more lumps, scars are fading quickly and the swelling has all but subsided save for a few sneaky patches. The results are in and i'm stoked. Have another look, it's OK i'll wait.
I could not be happier with the result and i'm even more surprised by how quickly i'm getting used to it, how easily I forget what I looked like before. The front is not too different just more streamlined, the back is where the real party happens - one of the first things I noticed was how much rounder my butt looks! It's an optical illusion because the eye is not drawn to the 'boop' at the sides but I didn't realise what a dramatic effect that would have.

I have a few thoughts on the whole process, some of which i've arrived at independently and some that have been provoked by comments on this review.

On the clinic:
First of all I want to address my initial concern with Dr Ajaka being abrupt at my first consultation. I have since found out that he was experiencing pretty devastating personal circumstances at the time and I do not believe that my initial meeting with him is an accurate representation of him as a doctor or a person. In all of my interactions with him since he has been calm and very kind, and I have heard him speaking with other patients who clearly adore him.
I do however find it extremely strange that the doctor I had my consultation with was not the doctor who performed the operation. I had a bit of email correspondence with the clinic too and everyone referred to Dr Ajaka as being my surgeon. He was the doctor I researched and put my trust in, and I was never told that another doctor would be performing the entire procedure. To realise mid surgery that someone I had just met whose qualifications I had not had time to research was operating on me was pretty shocking. This is something that surprises me more in hindsight, at 10 minutes into nitrous oxide and chill I couldn't have cared less who was in the room or if they'd ever opened a medical textbook.
I feel somewhat conflicted critiquing this because I am honestly so impressed with Dr Kishida's work and overall I am incredibly happy with the clinic and its staff. I am sure there are many reasons as to why a doctor might be swapped out, however I consider it to be totally unacceptable to not notify the patient as soon as possible. Had I known earlier that Dr Kishida would be my doctor and having access to reviews like this one (i'm not alone, there are other very positive reviews of him) I would have been more than happy to have him as my surgeon.
Overall the clinic has been pretty great though and very quick to address any issues. I have had little follow up with any of the doctors directly, it has mostly been nurses and the physio, but they seem to know exactly what they're doing and I trust them completely with my aftercare.

On the recovery:
My best piece of advice (and one I wish i'd listened to myself) is be kind to yourself. There was something so instantaneous about the actual procedure that doesn't do justice to how traumatic the experience is for your body. Any high expectations of how it will look or feel or move are not helpful, there is literally nothing you can do but look after yourself and get through each day. The time will pass and it will get easier but don't push your body too hard, it's using most of its energy healing all those little nerve endings you ruthlessly detached.
Oh and be prepared to have your body crushed by the physio. The massaging is good to do yourself and harder is always better, but nothing will prepare you for your last massage where the fat gets 'sculpted' back into place so it's not just one big lump. Apparently this is like, a 'thing' that body builders (and lipo patients) do for muscle definition and I turned into a 4 year old hollering the place down. I have a lot of spider veins in that area which heightened the sensation apparently (I never really touched them before because of my whole 'stop poking it' attitude to body pains) but whatever, that [RS bleep] makes grown men cry and i'm not ashamed to say I did not endure it gracefully.

I also want to say that yes it is possible to get through recovery by yourself, but always have a back up plan and access to help. I had a few people emailing me about getting by without a carer but i'm a [RS bleep] person and didn't reply to them in time to say ALWAYS HAVE YOUR PHONE WITH YOU IN CASE YOU ALMOST DIE. You won't almost die, but JUST IN CASE. Having my phone in my pocket was a huge mental relief knowing I could get help if I ever needed it. Also I really really really did need it that one time, so yeah, the phone thing.

On the results:
A consistent issue that came up on here with people who had their thighs done was that they were worried not enough had been taken. I was aware of this going in and discussed it with Dr Kishida whilst showing him Cosmos before & after reference pictures that I liked. I had 1.1 litres total removed from my inner and outer thighs and I think it was the perfect amount for me (I was 178cms and 65kgs when I went in). I'm supposedly still shrinking so I might even get a bit more off, but this is very much in proportion with the rest of my body and is also exactly what I asked for.

I'm going to go right ahead now and sound just like That Guy from the glossy pamphlets but this is definitely one of the best decisions I have ever made. I don't "Wish i'd done it sooner!!!!" because I feel like I made this decision at exactly the right time for me. I gave myself enough time to bond with my body and let the idea stew long enough to feel 100% comfortable with the decision. Financially it wasn't possible to do it any sooner, but now the money doesn't even register as being a concern. The only thing I would do differently (if it had been possible) is to aim to have the procedure in autumn or mid winter, I walked right into a Sydney spring heatwave 3 weeks in and I do not recommend it.

This has been such an exciting experience and I am more satisfied than I ever thought I would be with the results. I am also so shocked by the words of encouragement and support (and occasional abuse but whatever it's the internet, waddya gonna do ¯\_(?)_/¯) it has meant a lot to me to find such a supportive community of wonderfully curious, funny and honest people. This can be such an alienating thing to go through and I will be forever grateful to have found the reviews and comments that guided me through this experience. I hope this review has been helpful for anyone considering this procedure or doctor or clinic or even just wondering if that lumpy bit is normal.

Thanks for all the support, i'm off to go look at my butt again.

This has been an exciting week. The swelling has really started to recede offering glimpses of what lies underneath, the bruising is fading which is a satisfying way of knowing my body is healing, I tried on a pair of tights that I bought years ago and never wore because they weren't very flattering at the time and then I spent the day strutting said tights through the eastern suburbs feeling absolutely fabulous. Confidence +10

I also had the opportunity to have coffee and a debrief with another patient who had been to the same clinic. I've been pretty open about the whole process, talking my friend's ears off about all these new sensations/emotional experiences but it was really nice to be able to speak openly with someone who 'got it'. You can cut out the 10 minutes of 'justifying my decision' [RS bleep] and get straight to the "how weird is it when [insert gross side effect here] happens?".
It was surprisingly cathartic and I strongly recommend it if you have the chance.

On the topic of weird side effects, be prepared to have lumpy bits all up inside ya. I thought it could be avoided if you did the massage every day but it just seems to be part of the process. I only noticed it at 10 days post and I totally lost my [RS bleep] when I felt it, thinking it was because of something i'd done wrong. I can't feel it through the garment though so I don't know if it started hardening earlier and the massage that the physio does is very different to how I was first shown.
She gets right in there like she's working knots out, kneading particular areas that hurt at the time but feel magnificent afterwards. I copped some flack during my first session for not using the arnica cream on my bruises, I hadn't bothered because I figured no-one was going to see my legs anyway and to be honest I was kind of proud of them, but apparently bruising = bad. Like swelling it is generally a sign that your body is sad in that spot and anything you can do to make it heal faster/hurt less is going to be beneficial to the healing process.

As for the rest of me i've been off any medications all week and everything seems to be settling down again. There is still a tightness around the inner thighs when I stand up/sit down but once i'm up I can walk around like a perfectly normal human being. There are still areas that hurt when I touch them, in fact pretty much everything hurts when I touch it, but if I DON'T touch it i'm fine :D
I'm employing my mum's attitude to medical treatment - if it hurts stop poking it and it won't.

I know there's still a fair way to go, and lord knows i've still got bruises and bumps and suspicious lumpy bits, but I think the biggest surprise is how much this has changed my confidence. I never expected to be this happy with my results, and certainly not so soon.
I consider myself to be a reasonably confident person who has a very healthy relationship with their body, but I feel like I've levelled up. My body and I are good friends, I treat her pretty well and occasionally we have little affirming sessions where I tell her how grateful I am that she's mine. It took me a long time to feel this comfortable with myself and I had been worried that pursuing something as drastic as liposuction might trigger an avalanche of body issues, but so far it hasn't. In fact my body appreciation pendulum has swung far in the other direction and I am feeling a joy that I hadn't allowed myself to anticipate lest I be disappointed with the outcome. I had hoped at best i'd look more in proportion, I never let myself expect to be HAPPIER because of this - but I have to say that in all honesty, right now, I most definitely am.

I'm staying realistic, I know that this is the first-love head over heals kind of rush that comes with exciting new things, but i'm enjoying it and I intend to make an effort to celebrate this body even more and show it off as much as I can. After all, I paid good money for it.

This has been an odd week. I am very happy to say that I am feeling over 9000 times better today than I was immediately post-op, but I'd also like to clarify for the rest of this post that I am sure my recovery is in no way typical. I had been very sick before the operation so my body was already running low on the energy I needed to heal and I had an allergic reaction to something I was prescribed so my body was fighting that at the same time. As of Monday last week I was on a butt load of drugs including 2 kinds of antibiotics, panadeine forte, anti-inflammatories, panadol, antihistamines, anti-nausea medication and Gavascon for heartburn (taking a pill every 2 hours does not a happy stomach make). Those last 3 were only on the list to treat the symptoms of the others.

I had considered not reporting this next bit as I was concerned that it would put people off and I want to make it very clear that I haven't heard of anyone else experiencing this. But I had promised myself I would be honest about the entire experience, even when it gets gross or scary (you will see both during this post).

After having a weekend of feeling a bit fragile and dizzy I decided to cut myself some slack and call in sick for Monday, I thought myself fully capable of going to work but I wanted to rest while I could. Around 5:30am that morning I woke up with severe heartburn so painful that it sent my body into shock. Like full on, my body is seriously not coping, wave after wave of "do I throw up or pass out first?" kind of shock. I held it together pretty damn well for 20 minutes before I realised things were only getting worse and called my housemates for help. They came in to find me as white as my sheets, delirious and flailing about in a pool of cold sweat. After spending too long attempting to get advice from a surprisingly useless woman on the 24-hour medical assistance hotline we called 000. By the time the ambulance arrived it had been 40 minutes since the ordeal began (for those of you playing at home that's a full 3hrs in 'I think i'm going to die' time) and the waves of shock were finally slowing down. The paramedic stayed with me until my heart-rate climbed back up but I declined going to hospital, just starting to feel even slightly better was the most amazing relief and I was just glad it was going to be over soon.

I now know that this was all a reaction to having way too much medication in my system as opposed to the actual procedure, not to mention how prone my body already was to going into shutdown mode or breaking out in hives as a coping technique. By 10am I was more or less fine, save for an ominous dull burning in my chest, and when I called the clinic they were very quick to respond. The receptionist had a doctor call me back immediately and we talked through what had happened. He took me off one of the antibiotics (I only had one day left on that batch) and all of the pain medication including the anti-inflammatories. I bought Gavascon for any future heartburn and chose the bright pink coloured bottle for show. It tastes like a toothpaste syrup but I have never loved anything more in my life, I carried it with me everywhere this week and used it after every pill/meal for the next 3 days. I was quite sore without any pain medication and so I put myself back on the anti-inflammatories after I had finished my other course of antibiotics. Once they started working the rest of the week was a breeze.

If I remove this event from my recovery timeline everything else has been pretty standard and pain is fleeting and totally tolerable. The first few days back at work I was obviously a bit stiff, but I just took my time getting in and out of chairs and avoided bending down or lifting anything heavy.
To be honest my biggest problem, from a day-to-day point of view, was trying to walk like I wasn't constipated. This was tricky for several reasons.
The first being that, let's be honest, I was a little constipated (you can thank the panadeine forte) although I doubt this had too much affect on my gait. The second was the deep suspicion I held towards my swollen inner thighs that were supposedly touching. The area is still numb and I can only describe the sensation as being similar to waking up with a dead arm - you are aware of the tingling weight of your own body and your brain knows that there is tissue there that should feel things, but all of your skin senses are muted. I do not like this, not one bit. The third and largest influence was that the hole in this garment sits far too far towards the back for my liking. Because I had my inner thighs done I have to wear the leggings as high as possible and the pee hole resists all attempts for me to rotate it forward. As if my vagina wasn't angry enough from the double dose of antibiotics I threw at it, now it also has to deal with intimate elastic grazing at every step.

As for the progress of my actual legs i'm in good spirits. I consider myself very lucky to have seen them very briefly (in a garment) before the swelling really set in so I think I have a good idea of what lies underneath. They seem to have peaked in terms of swelling exactly a week after the procedure and now they are just hanging out being puffy together, i'm told it will start to get better in the next few days.
The bruising looks bad but doesn't feel anything like a normal bruise, at least not on my inner thighs - the part showing purple wasn't even an area they treated! As far as I know they didn't touch that area and the lack of skin numbness confirms this, however i've tried giving the bruises a mighty poke and they don't hurt either. Lord knows what they think they're healing down there, but it is satisfying to have something that looks conspicuously painful for when I get nerve twangs firing in the back of my leg. This started a couple of days ago (again, it's all healing I tell myself) and at least I have photos of SOMETHING to show my friends so they know how much sympathy to express. The part that actually hurts is disappointingly normal looking.

I'm going to end this in much the way that I usually do - by reminding you and myself that yes, things got weird and super uncomfortable, but i'm heading in the right direction. Every day my legs are looking better or feeling stronger and I'm so excited for this process. Even the awful bits.