It's been two weeks since my butt lift, thigh lift, and tummy tuck. I would recommend it to anyone. Here's a few things I've learned in the past two weeks and just general comments for the next girl considering the surgery.
1. Start taking a stool softner as soon as you get to your room or home. It just makes life easier. The sedation and meds will lock you down and restarting is tough. It's better to just make it easy because you won't have the abs to "push" when needed.
2. Cough drops are a must. You will never appreciate how often you cough and clear your throat until your belly explodes when you do it.
3. Diet Sprite goes a long way to "scratching" your throat when needed and settling your tummy. I drink about one a day over the course of the day. Even now my tummy rolls a little when I take my meds and the sprite just helps settle it.
4. Sugarfree Lemon Jello is my friend. For some reason I love it and the citrus makes me happy. This might just be me but I do have a serving a day. Besides, Jello actually has some amino acids in it for muscle retention that you can't get in any other food source. Eat up.
5. I use an old neck tie of my husband's to pin my drains on when I shower. You can pin the drains to the necktie and put it around your neck to shower comfortably. You can also lay it on the bed while you towel off and dress without juggling drains.
6. Walk, walk, walk even if you don't love it. I think getting up and just forcing myself into moving has made the difference for me. I'm at two weeks and I only take pain meds (1 pill) before bed and then again in the middle of the night just to rest comfortably. I've been doing that for almost a week now. I've been able to just do Tylenol every four hours outside of that.
7. Eat pineapple. It helps with the swelling. I eat a serving and later I can tell the swelling is going down some.
8. Plan your meals like you would before surgery. I'm a big believer in feeding the body good. This whole time I've been working hard eating plenty of fruits and veggies. I have continued to cook and prep up simple things that are clean and good for me. The worst thing for recovery is to eat junk just because you don't feel good. It will only make you fat (and hey, I didn't have this surgery to get fat again) and you will have to break the habit once you get moving. Think of it like pregnancy. The habits you establish while pregnant are the same ones you will carry into post-baby.
9. Plan "workouts". By this I mean plan to have structured walks each day. I can't really workout but I can certainly get in timed, slow walks several times a day. Makes you feel like you are in control and that you are actively doing things to get better other than resting. The other great thing is that these walks will help build a stamina base for when you get back to exercise. If you do nothing those first couple of weeks back in the gym will be terrible. Trust me, the walks won't be a lot of fun. I'm usually sore, swollen, and achy halfway through but I do it so I can keep my body moving forward. Too much rest and you don't challenge the body enough. Walking is what gets your mind clear, fluids pushing through, and the poopie regular. :)
10. Do not fall in love with your body the first few days. I looked better at two days than I do at 14 days. The swelling is HUGE. I weigh less but can't wear clothes I wore prior to surgery. You have a new body and it takes a few weeks for things to really release and settle in. My legs sometimes look bigger than before surgery because of the fluids. Some days one leg is much bigger than the other leg.
My booty is VERY LARGE compared to before. It has a lot of "packing" in there that was built with my own skin to give me a nice shelf booty. Right now it is hard as rocks and swollen. It's SORE. It's normal, too. You will be on your back a few weeks and it will look lumpy and strange. It's nothing to worry about. That is a ton of trauma and it takes weeks for the body to quit storing water and collecting fluids. Until then, you will have to appreciate the trouble to have a nice backside.
11. With a tummy tuck it is VERY NORMAL for you lower abs to be numb and flat as a pancake. Your upper abs will be swollen and hang over the lower abs. You have a lot of muscle in the upper half that are sewn together and, again, the body stores water where it needs to heal. It might be months for that phenomenon to stop. Don't think your surgery was a failure or that you are overeating. It's just the way the tummy heals.
12. Your clothes probably won't fit. Even though I'm smaller on the scale, the water I'm holding in all the surgical areas have me bigger in clothes size. Sounds strange but a lot of tissue was removed and a lot of water is taking it's place. I have pants that won't fit that did before surgery because my booty is so much bigger right now. That's OK. Dress comfy and know your size will be determined after about two months.
13. The scale. You can't put a lot of faith in it. I weigh less today and at two weeks I've leveled off on losing. I was losing about .5 lb a day from my pre-surgery weight. I will blog more on this because I'm not sure where the weight will settle in at. I had a little over 6lbs total removed after they added back in tissue to my behind. I went in at 150 and today was 143. This is why tracking what you eat matters. You don't want to diet but you want to eat maintenance calories on the low end because you aren't moving a lot. I'm 5'6 and I'm eating around 1800 calories a day to maintain. If I was exercising I would maintain at 2200 calories a day easy.
14. Don't think you made a mistake. I felt that way when I had my breasts done and this time I expected the Frankenstein look at week two. You see, you are looking crazy but you feel like more than two weeks has passed. You still can't do much but feel you should be further along. It's normal to look wild, feel helpless, and wonder what you did. Just know that 99% of the people who go through this LOVE their results and you will too. Two weeks is nothing. Four weeks is nothing. You are in it for the long haul just like me. It will take six months of healing and changing to really appreciate the final results. Look forward to the time in recovery when you can work on what you want through exercise while your body also heals itself.
That's my two week advice. I'm feeling good. My stamina is decent. I'm used to being super active and the hardest thing for me is to slow down. That is the tough part. My body feels pretty good, I'm way ahead of healing schedule, and will start lifting again next week. I'll be blogging the modified workouts on my other site - Women's Anti Sofa League.
For this week I'm focused on 30 min. slow paced walks, working on PNP, and keeping myself in bed with feet elevated so that the booty can continue to heal. :)
And, for the curious... this is some afters. Yes, I'm showing my ass for all to see and even those high school buddies from Facebook. Ugh. But, this is me and I want people to see that this is the price I had to pay for years and years of not taking care of myself. I'm not sad but I beg you twenty-somethings to change your ways now while you still have the skin elasticity to recover from dramatic weightloss! For you moms...get your act together so your kids won't be a Corinne one day. You are setting the tone with how YOU eat.
Rear Shot: My bum as lots of lumps and such but those will smooth out. Some it is where the drains were and they "collapsed" that area temporarily. As the weeks go on you will see it look more like a regular tushie. You can also see a couple of places where scar lines are moving around which will settle in too. The best part of the backside is how smooth my legs are now. I love it! You can't see from this picture how loose they really were but in person the changes are DRAMATIC.
Side Shot: You can see from the side shot where the upper abs are holding fluids. Very normal at this stage. And, it gets more pronounced as the day goes along because the more you move the more you hold recovery fluids. Just know you will make a lot of potty at night! The side shot shows more how tighter I am now.
Front Shot: You can see my legs are smoother but they are holding a good bit of fluids. Man, I had a good tan prior to surgery! You see a lot more visual change in person.
OK...that's my novel on what two weeks has been like. I will give another good update when there are more changes. Feel free to post questions and ask me anything. As ya'll know, I ain't got nothing to hide.
As far as how much you need it's variable. If you follow any of my 