33 Yo, Tall, Thick Limbs and Excess Arm Fat Tampa, FL

I have my doctors cell phone number and I've been texting him my progress photos and questions and he has been really great about texting back and calling back. He is very patient and kind and comforting. I've been asking questions about my garment, my medicine, etc. it seems that my questions always come after normal office hours but the doctor never seems to mind my texts. I just really want to emphasize to the readers of my blog that at only 6 days past my surgery, I already have skinnier arms than when I went in for surgery even with my current swelling. I also weigh about one pound less. I chose Dr. Su to do my arms because this truly is his specialty! I really wanted the very best surgeon/outcome for my arms, I went where I saw that the clinical photos online showed the best work I could find anywhere! I decided before even meeting the doctor that I wanted my arms to look like the arms of HIS past patients who had lipo. If I had gone in for the consult and he had been prideful and pompous or [RS bleep] and short with me; I still would have chosen him to do my work! But he is completely sweet and concerned and personable! He really spends a lot of time with you and I just cannot say enough good things about him as a doctor; you just can't ask for more. Please be patient for my photos, I will ask for my "before" photos to post and I will post some of my own progress photos at the same time.

This is the continuation of my 5 day post op update. So I've spent 23 hours if every day in my compression garments and I have a love/hate relationship with them. When they're on, they itch and rub my armpits raw in certain spots. They also prevent total arm bending ability. But when they're off, I feel throbbing. According to my doctor and nurses, the height of my swelling will be at two weeks post op so I might be getting more and more swollen with every day but I think that some days I'm less swollen than other days. I've been keeping my sodium intake on the low side. I've even lost weight since before surgery. On day two post op, I stayed on pain meds and stayed in bed all day. On day three post op, I felt like getting up and walking around more in the house and stayed on the pain meds but I cooked and fixed up the messy spots in my room and was able to use my arms more. On day four post op I didn't need as much pain meds and I was being pretty active around the house. Today is day five and I haven't taken any pain meds. The only thing that ever hurts is putting back on the garments after waging and drying them (dry on low setting). I have to return to work in two days and I'm nervous that I'll be really stiff and uncomfortable but I will give an update then too. I have a follow up with Dr. Su in one week.

Well today I have reached 5 days post op. I'm starting to feel more limber today. For the past 5 days my arms have been stiff feeling. Moving and bending them was uncomfortable. I've been faithfully taking the prescribed pain meds as directed (every 4 hours). I believe that I may not have been the average liposuction candidate or patient because I have a poor response to pain (medically known as veso-vego (spelling?)) it means that if I feel pain, my blood pressure goes really low and I feel faint. The thing is that THE PROCEDURE DID NOT HURT! It felt like having a deep tissue massage. It felt like pressure but not pain. But The doctor asked me to flex my muscles during the procedure. Since my arms were numb, I could not tell how hard I was flexing them. In fact, I could hardly tell that I was flexing them at all so I flexed every muscle in my body for the entire length of time I was on surgery. By the end, I was so exhausted from flexing that I think I caused my own veso-vego (spelling?) response! I'm an over achiever and tend to "over-do" things a lot. In fact, I'm on a low carb diet and I probably eat only 20 grams of "net carbs" a day and no sugar, wheat or starch. So you can see that I can be extreme. So in retro spect of the day of surgery, when my blood pressure was low and I was feeling faint, perhaps it was due to my "flexing every muscle in the body" for hours which burns a lot of calories and then add extreme diet to the picture and you can see that I was possibly acting like a bad patient. But let me talk more about the procedure and then I'll tell you how great everyone responded to my recovery. When I went to the office the morning of my procedure, I was weighed, BP was taken, pre-op photos were taken, Dr. Su drew on my with marker, showed me where he would be contouring my arms, the nurse washed me down over my surgical clothes to disinfect me and then layers me down on a heated surgical bed. Lynn the nurse them covered my feet to keep me warm and cozy. Then Dr. Su spoke with me to comfort me and proceeded to give me small injections of lidocaine (no different than getting prepped for a dental filling) and I did not feel him place tiny little incisions for where he would place the cannula in for the liposuction. The next step was when he placed the cannula in and placed additional lidocaine inside the fat tissue (tumescent fluid). I requested that I would have a thin towel places over my eyes so I couldn't see my procedure which really gave me comfort and dimmed the brightness and allowed me to just consentrated on "flexing" and not on what I was seeing. I recommend this for anyone who might have the procedure done. Anyways, I was chit-chatting away with the doctor and the nurse the whole time. I never took the Valium that was prescribed because it is only for anxiety and I did not have an anxious feeling. The nurses changed and my second was Shawna. She was a doll because during the procedure, I felt her touching me to give me comfort and support (on my legs). I can't say enough about how that small gesture was so paramount in my over all positive experience. Half way through the procedure I was given Vicodin. It was necessary because the first arm was all done and it was starting to feel stiff and tingling as the lidocaine was wearing off. Then the second arm was finished rather quickly and the pain med was kicking in, I felt loopy. The nurse have me a sugary beverage to keep me feeling good. The doctor stood me up to look in the mirror at the work he had done since inflamation had not yet set in! I told him that my arms looked "sick!" Because I could see all of my muscles (which I work really hard for but couldn't previously see due to thick layer if fat) and he asked me if I wanted anything else contoured and where I'd like to see things"taken-in" further. Then he showed me my results again after the second arm. I was ecstatic! Then we finished up and got into the Rm compression garments and wrapped in absorbent pads for the fluids to run out. Shawna the nurse stayed with me for a really long time to make sure that I was feeling well and could walk myself out to go home. She was so great to me as we waited for the Vicodin to wear off and my blood pressure to normalize and she even shared her lunch with me and continues to keep my sugar up and keep me hydrated until I left. I really love Shawna!! So then I left and got more pain meds at the pharmacy and are a large strawberry fields sld from Wendy's and went to bed. No will add photos when I can get them from Dr. Su at my next follow up visit.