How long did you wear your binder?

 I'm seven weeks out now.  My PS told me I don't need my binder anymore, but I'm much more comfortable with it on.  He says he has patients that keep it on 3-4 months.  How long did you keep yours on?  I'll be wearing compressors on my legs for a long time since my lymphatic system seems to be going beserk.

Jan

I'm 8 weeks out and although I've not been wearing it much the last few days, I do prefer the support it offers, especially for my back.

I'm a fan of doing it if it feels good! Have a good weekend!

Denise

I wore mine for right about 6 weeks, but after that I found some compression shirts at Walmart for 10 dollars. Not sure about compression shirts or the like for women but mine cheap and they help provide support, wear one 23 hours a day. I didn't have my arms done so the short sleeve ones I cut off and made a vest out of it cause they were digging into my arms. If you go get one maybe get 3/4 sleeve as these might fit  better without digging in, but if you have had your arms done already then short sleeve would proably work good.

Bubba

After abdominoplasty -- 4 months 24/7.

At my 3 week check up my dr said I could quit wearing mine.  I was in shock!  I still wear it to sleep in and I wear a cammi type support shirt under my shirts every day.  I had a friend who had gone through the same thing and she said she wished she would have worn one longer.  She thinks it would have given her better results.

I don't know if it's the swelling (4 weeks out) or what, but if I am not wearing something supportive, I feel weird.  So I prefer to wear one.

I'm 3 months out and still wear my compression vest. It sucks, but I feel so much better with it. Keeps the swelling down.

My PS says 4 weeks with binder. I'm at 2 weeks now. At week 4 I'm going to switch to a shapewear garment that's less extreme than the binder but still supportive (one person recommended a brand called flexees). They have some good cheap options at Target. If you are having too much compression for too long, you'll do yourself a disservice because you're compressing the lymphatic vessels in your abdomen and you'll be letting a lot of fluid and other cellular byproducts stagnate. It keeps swelling down by compressing those lymph vessels and the tissue spaces that can hold fluids. But once you take that pressure away, everything that *would* have been flowing through the area starts moving through at an accelerated rate, so of course you swell more. The constant compression smushes your lymphatic system, so it doesn't work very well when you don't have compression. I don't know if I'm doing a very good job of explaining it. But you need to wean yourself off of it, and re-train your body to move fluid. Your lymphatic system is already compromised, so you're gonna swell. But you've gotta give it a chance to do its job.

Agree w/ Lizzie.  Didn't differentiate between compression and shapewear.  It was SHAPEWEAR I wore for 4 months; only wore true COMPRESSION for about 4 weeks.  Sometimes I'd wear the compression garment in the evening w/ my PJ's.  Not too tight -- just a little extra support.

 I don't really understand what you are saying.  I thought compression was good to keep the lymph nodes from swelling, especially on my legs.  My left calf can double/triple in size because of the lymph nodes swelling.  I'm not sure how much swelling is in my stomach and lower back/butt, but I have an unreasonable fear that if I take it off, my stomach will go back to what it was before surgery.  I think it's going to take me a long time to accept that I have a flat stomach now.

The lymph nodes themselves don't really swell. Think of them like train stations. They're connected by lymphatic vessels, channels that your body uses to move fluid. Your blood 'leaks' plasma (water) throughout tissues as it travels around your body. Lymph vessels are where this extra fluid collects. They lead to lymph nodes, train stations, where the body sorts through the fluid and gets rid of cellular debris, fragments, trash, etc. It's part of your immune system. These lymph nodes are all connected in one giant network throughout your body. Fluid moves upward throughout the network, sifted and processed throughought lymph nodes, and eventually gets dumped back into your blood in a vein at the base of your neck.

So when you have surgery and some of these lymphatic vessels are cut, the fluid that would have traveled past that area of your body is suddenly getting dumped there helter skelter. That's the swelling you're experiencing. So for example if you have a tummy tuck, the lymphatic vessels in your abdomen are interrupted by the cutting. They will regrow, but it takes a long time. In the meantime, you wear compression garments to keep the spaces in that tissue compressed so that fluid doesn't have room to collect. But after a while, if you keep using the compression garments for too long, your body will get lazy and won't be stimulated to keep regrowing those lympatic vessels in the area because it doesn't need to, there isn't much fluid moving. Use it or lose it, as the saying goes. Also, you NEED to have fluid moving freely, because that's how it gets filtered of toxins and viruses and bacteria. I'm not saying you need to go cold-turkey. But wean yourself off the garments. You're gonna swell. But you have to train your body to handle fluid on its own again. Hope this helps!