Cross Post - Sleeve 2012, Sugery 2014
I went ahead with my plastics on April 14. I was on the fence and back and forth and finally trusted the doctor's recommendation. I am currently 150 and have lost now 100+ lbs from when I stopped weighing in 2011 (I got depressed and just stopped getting on the scale). I have lost 75 lbs since surgery. 90 lbs since the 4 week pre-op exam before the sleeve when they weighed me at the doctors office. I had been diligently dieting and had managed to knock off 10+ lbs in about 2 months.
I am pleased with my results. I posted some pics. The surgeon removed lots of skin, did extensive muscle repair on my abdomen. However, they ended up not removing any fat via lipo that they didn't use elsewhere. They took 1300cc's of fat and put 650 on each buttock. He wanted more but was unable to find it. I found that amazing. My body fat isn't that low but for some reason, they can only process and re-use certain fat that they are able to harvest via lipo.
Doing it all at once was nuts. I didn't want to miss work more than once and I travel quite a lot so I opted to knock it out in one surgery. The recovery was brutal. I am not sure I'd have done it all at once had I known how tough it would be. I had some complications that caused the pain management to be a little tough. I had an arm lift, upper body/bra line lift, extended tummy tuck and lower body lift. I also traded out my implants for smaller silicone versus the larger saline. I had an inframammary fold repair on both sides, which has been quite sore, not really painful. The arms pull and make mobility tough but they didn't really cause excessive pain. The lower body lift was tough. I couldn't use my arms to move around and I couldn't use my abs (still can't). The lipo sites didn't hurt. I was bruised badly but the pain wasn't bad. Apparently, I have what they call nerve pain at the LBL incision and that was brutal. Even with the local pain killer pumped into the site at surgery, I woke up in extreme pain and lived there for about a week.
The surgeon said the less pigment a person has, the better they typically scar but they less resilience that their skin has. I am extremely pale so I don't think my stomach would have gotten much better. He didn't lipo any fact from the abdominal area. He said it was lots of skin and tissue. That made me feel better about doing the surgery now, rather than 5-10 lbs lighter. He also convinced me to go through with the arms/bra line/upper body lift. I am really glad I did. The pain was manageable and the scars aren't going to be bad. I was really worried about the scars but they are healing nicely.
If you have any questions....feel free to ask.
I planned a week to two. I ended up taking the two and then worked from home the last two. My first big meeting is Wednesday. I could easily have used another two off. I had some help but not nearly enough. I just didn't realize the impact in order to plan properly. But we all made it and the teenagers lived without being sent off to military school so life is good !
