Round 3 scheduled!

I am officially scheduled for my medial thigh lift (and neck lipo) on 12/17.  I am very excited!  I am looking forward to wearing pants again, as my big thighs do not look good in size 6 pants!  I am a little nervous, because I hear that the MTL can be a difficult recovery.  Do you guys think that 3 weeks will be enough time?

April

Are you getting lipo with the lift? I have the exact same problem- I just started to wear some size 6 pants, but my legs don't fit well. When I talked to my two potential surgeons, they said the MTL would smooth the skin (get rid of wrinkes) but wasn't really a reductive procedure. I'm curious if you heard otherwise, because I'd rather not have the big scar!

He'll actually be removing an estimated 5lbs from each thigh.  I will have the "hockey stick" incision.  It will go a little past my knee as I have a pocket of skin and fat right there!  He will lipo as well.

April

 

are you getting the silohuette  lipo facelift?

Actually, he does not want to do any form of facelift on me as he says I am too young.  He wants to just lipo and use compression.  I am not sure if this will be enough, so when I go see him in Sept for my BL/BA follow-up I am going to ask again.  I DO trust him, I just want to make sure lipo only will take care of the problem.

April

Congratulations April on your upcoming round 3!

Congrats on getting your surgery schedule.  I'm targeting the same time frame for mine.....

Sorry I can't help with the recovery time question much 'cause I haven't had it done yet.  But you know me I've asked LOTS of questions.............what I've heard from a lot of people that it's a tough surgery to recover from and many stayed home from 5-6 weeks.  Can you plan to be off for another 3 weeks if needed?  You might be one of the quicker healers and be ok to return to work in 3 weeks just don't push yourself way too much.

Keep us posted.
Ruth

Congrats on your upcoming round three. Appears that you took yours in the same order that I did.

The MTL was the worst of all recovery-wise for me.  Not so much with pain itself but with my legs swelling anytime I was up more than 30 minutes or so. 

I work from home at a desk behind a computer (here I am now).  With my LBL I was able to sit at my desk, get through emails and such even a few days out with no problem.  By a week out, I was sitting for at least a couple of hours at a time.  By 10 days, I was working pretty much normally with very little discomfort on minimal pain medication.

With my MTL, I figured it would be easier.. boy was I wrong.  The slightest amount of time up and my legs were swollen from top to bottom and hurting something fierce.  I did have a small area pull apart in the bend of the hockey stick incision on both legs but both were no problem and healed nicely.  To thwart of the swelling, I spent the vast majority of 2+ weeks in bed with my legs as elevated as I could get them.  I gave up sitting at the desk at all and worked entirely from bed on a laptop for over 3 weeks.  I also went from wearing the original compression garment I started with (a marena brand that went below the knee) to one that went to the ankle and also wore support hose with them.  When things subsided a bit, I shifted to Thigh high support hose and wore those daily, all day, for a few weeks. 

It was the only surgery my PS put me on Lasix to try to help with the swelling.  My legs after surgery looking like someone had taken a baseball bat to my thighs both front and back due to to the lipo he did.  Some of the bruising took a few weeks to go away.

Again.. pain-wise for me, it wasn't much of an issue except for pain from swelling.

Thanks so much for the info.  I am hoping the pain is as minimal as the other two procedures.  I only was on pain meds for 5 days, mostly for sleep.  I do worry about the swelling, but mostly about the wound healing.  I have heard so many stories of wound separation..yikes!  The ankle-length compression garment sounds like a good idea.  I have a marena high waisted breif and like it enough.  Thanks again!

April

 

I have incisions from groin to knee, and also on the outter hip.  I flew from Colorado to California at 2 1/2 weeks post op and attended a conference with lots of sitting and lots of walkinf doe 5 days.  I did have one day of really bad swelling, but that was partially due to my allergy to tape and bandaids.  I had horrible blisters.....