How soon after panniculectomy can i go back to work

I had my first appointment with my plastic surgeon today. I'm having a panniculectomy done by DR. Michael Kutka. Right now I'm submitting medical history to get my insurance to cover the surgery. Fingers crossed! 

My biggest concern about the surgery is how much time I have to take out from work. Oddly enough I'm more affraid of not being able to pay rent than the surgery or pain. My job is very easy. I basicly just sit all nigh****ching patients. Don't have to do any physical activity.

Thee surgeon sais it takes 2-3 weeks for patients to go back to work or at least untill the drain is removed. I really don't want to be out of work for that long. Has anyone had this surgery? What was the drain like? Did it interfere with anything. Did you have to keep it exposed or hidden under compression strap? 

When I had my gastric bypass my recovery went very well. Hardly any pain at all and was up and about on the second day. I'm hoping for similar results from thia surgery except more pain i think. 

I went back to work after 2 weeks, but I honestly could have gone back before then if I had needed to do so (I also sit all day).  Even at 2 weeks out, I still had one of the two drains in, but I wore pants/skirts with large pockets and loose shirts/blouses over them to help hide the bulge of the drain in my pocket (I just ran the tubing up over the top of the binder and the pants/skirt waistband and put the bulb in my pocket).

Some people, though, don't have drain tubing that is quite long enough to do that. You can always ask your surgeon to give you a little extra tubing length when he puts the drain in.

The bulb portion of the drain has to be outside of the binder or whatever compression garment you have.  Only the tubing will stay below it.

Since the panniculectomy does not involve cutting any muscle, even though it's a very long incision (from hip to hip) I had very little pain after the first week or 10 days. The only pain I had after that was at the very endpoints of the incisions.  Those would hurt when I would twist or bend because the skin would pull.  The main portion of the incision didn't hurt a bit.

Lora

 Thank you that makes me feel alot more confident. How do you like the end results of the surgery 

Well, I certainly LOVE not having that apron of excess skin hanging down onto the tops of my thighs, but...

1) I was only given a choice of having the surgeon leave my existing belly button or cutting it out (and having NO belly button)... I wasn't given the option of having him make me a new one (and he was literally the only surgeon within a 60-in drive who would accept insurance for the procedure) so I opted to have him leave it.  The problem is that it is about an inch below where it should be and it has a bit of a "hood" over it.  I think I might have been happier with no belly button at all.

2) I still had a fair amount of excess skin above my belly button, which is not addressed in a panniculectomy.  I didn't like having a flat lower belly and then having this big muffin top above my waist, so I paid out of pocket for a tummy tuck and removal of that excess skin.

The aesthetic outcome really depends a lot on how much excess skin you have on the rest of your tummy.  If you have a lot of it at, and above, your waist, I would suggest that you at least investigate the possibility of having that excess skin removed, too (although you will have to pay for it out of pocket). The surgeon can remove the excess skin across your ribcage without doing the muscle tightening (and without the cost!) of a full tummy tuck. I didn't know that back then (although the surgeon I had probably wouldn't have done it anyway).

Lora

Lora, any tips on how to get insurance to cover it?

Most insurance plans require a certain period (6 months is quite common) of physician-documented rashes or other skin issues along with documentation of non-surgical attempts to deal with the skin issues (prescription cracks or powders... Nystatin is a popular one). 

That is usually the easy part. Some policies (like mine) also require that the pannus hangs down below the public bone. Unfortunately, either it does or doesn't, and most insurance policies want photographs as documentation.  I have known people, though, whose skin issue were so severe that they were able to get the panniculectomy approved even though the skin didn't hang down quite far enough.

Some policies very explicitly don't consider alleged back pain caused by extra "skin" because skin alone weighs very little.  It is the weight of remaining fat that causes back pain and except in very special cir****tances (people whose pannus is extremely large and makes them unable to walk), insurance will not pay to have fat cut off.

Ask your insurance company if they cover reconstructive surgery. Many companies will not cover it even with documentation.

Good point.