Excess Skin

Hi Everyone!

I have my surgery scheduled for April 12th, and as the date is approaching I'm finding that I am starting to freak out about the excess skin that can occur after WLS. I am hoping to lose around 80-100 pounds with this surgery.

I was just wondering if anyone was willing to share their experience with this topic? Right now I'm not sure if this surgery is the right way to go, if I am going to have all this excess skin and still be extremely ashamed of my body. 

I really appreciate any responses.

IMO, it's far better to have excess skin than excess fat. Excess fat can kill you. No one really loves excess skin but it can't kill you, and if it really affects your enjoyment of your body, you can save up for plastic surgery and get it taken care of. Neither one is ideally attractive to most folks, but only one is deadly.

I do have some excess skin, but since I don't tend to dress in booty shorts and halter tops, no one can tell unless they are either an intimate partner or a health care provider, and those sorts of people should be able to deal with it. I don't love the look of it, but I still do my best to regard it positively: it's a reminder of how strong I am and how hard I worked to get where I am. And the truth of the matter is I look a lot better now, with clothes or stark naked, than I did as a morbidly obese person. A couple hundred pounds of extra fat is not an attractive state of affairs except to a serious fetishist, not to me anyway.

Also, I remind myself that no one really looks like the sleek, glossy pictures of flawless skin and toned muscles that you see in SI Swimsuit issue or something. Even those models are mostly photoshop. We all have bumps, bulges, and scars here and there. Better to have a few extra folds and be active, happy, and wearing a size 8 than sitting at home. miserable, with all that skin still present but stuffed with mounds of fat that would have probably caused me to keel over dead soon.

I definitely meant to add in just because of losing the weight at a rapid pace, as compared to without the surgery. Thanks for sharing your experience! :)

How much excess skin you're left with isn't the result of losing weight quickly -- whether you get excess skin depends on your age, your genetics, how fat you were, and how long you were fat. The idea that you can avoid it by losing slowly or without wls is a myth. Lots of post-wls people do have extra skin, but that's because we tend to be a lot more successful in our weight loss overall than people who don't have surgery. So don't look at this as something you could possibly avoid by trying to lose weight without surgery. You'll either have excess skin or not, but weight loss surgery is what gives you an exponentially better chance of actually losing the weight to see

Nikki is another poster here who has linked to tons of her pictures of pre-weight loss, post-weight loss, and post-plastics. If you see her posts you might check them out -- very inspiring!

Thanks so much for taking the time responding and clearing that up for me! That really helps a lot 

I lost significantly more weight than you plan to lose, and I had quite a bit of excess skin.  I elected to have a fleur-de-lis tummy tuck and it turned out great.  My tummy looks like it did when I was 14, before the weight gain started.  So even if you have excess skin, there is a solution.

I posted pictures of my excess skin and the results of my tummy tuck on my profile. You can take a look if you are interested.  I thought my tummy still had a lot of fat when I went in for the tummy tuck, and it turns out it didn't.  It was all skin. 

I still have excess skin on my inner thighs, though it doesn't bother me.  There is surgery for that as well if it did bother you. 

Again with only 80 to 100 pounds to lose, you may have no problem at all.

best wishes,

Carol

Thanks for sharing ! I'll definitely check out your pictures :) that's a lot of help 

Search the forums for "loose skin," this is a topic that comes up often.

How saggy you'll be depends on a lot of factors. Age, weight distribution, skin elasticity, how much extra weight you have and how long you've had it. Lotions and creams and exercises can't prevent or fix it.

I had surgery relatively young (31) and lost 140lb. My tummy is a little jiggly, but totally manageable with shapewear. Others have lost similar amounts and looked far different.

Thanks I'll definitely check it out ! :) 

I lost 140 lbs and had/have lots of excess skin.  Had abdominoplasty and it took care of the stomach but my butt/legs and inner thighs are very saggy.  The thing is, you already have the skin now, it's just filled out with fat.  There will be a certain amount of bounce back but depending on a variety of variables (age, skin type, how long skin has been stretched out) you may still end up with some.  It's really nothing to be worried about - think of it as a symbol of your success.  Work hard for it.  Don't deny yourself life-saving surgery because you might have skin after.  You'll be proud, trust me.  Not that you may not want to have it removed at some point if it's an issue - it gives you something to save for, but that said I'd much rather have the skin 'empty' than filled with fat.  Let it happen then worry about it.