Having a really tough time

Hi everyone,

i am 10 days post op but am having a really tough time recovering fom LBl and TL. I have had two wounds open up. It looks horrible, and I have been struggling with pain throughout the recovery. Right now we are packing the thigh lift wounds wet to dry. Supposedly will take 2 months to heal. Am I ever going to heal and feel better? What about the scars? I appreciate any help you can offer? Everyone says this o be expected and I am pretty tough but ...

Hi Ann:

I am sending you a "hug".  I did not have any wounds to open up with my FDL tummy tuck but I understand that thigh surgery is the worst to do this.  I have seen several people on this site that have had similar experiences about packing their wounds.  It does take longer to heal but scars should heal fine unless there is debridement involved.  Even then I heard that the PS can make the scar smaller with a scar revision.  You will feel better, you are just in the really rough stage of your recovery.  Take care.

Thanks for the responses. I think I am just having a tough time being away from home does not help either. Any good thoughts would certainly be appreciated.

Hugs from me, too. I had a TL on 1/10/13, and I had two openings in my incisions as well. I know it's horrible right now, and I had many days of crying "what did I do to myself?" but I promise you: it will get better!!! It took a few weeks for me, and it took a lot of patience, but now I'm finally feeling back to my usual self, and I'm back to Zumba and running, so I'm very happy with that! My thighs still get swollen, but that's normal, I'm told. As for the incisions, there is not a huge difference between where the opening was and the rest of my incision. The incision is slightly wider where it had opened, but only I can see it because I know it was there. Anyone else who looked probably wouldn't even notice it. My wounds were packed too, and once the surgeon discontinued that I dressed them with bacitracin and gauze every day until they closed up, and since then I've just been putting coconut oil on them (and the rest of my incisions, too) and everything seems to fading well.

Good luck with it!

Thanks so much- this is exactly what i was feeling and appreciate your support. I just need to get the opening to the point the surgeon will let me go home- whatever that may be.

I had the lbl at the same time as the tl too, and that's a tough combination, and is prone to incision problems. 

Mine dehissed at the "Y" intersections where 3 incisions came together - all of them by the crotch. So much fun. 

Mine got worse before it got better, which stunk because incisions had been fairly healed shut within days, before they started to separate. 

Be as still as you can, and don't move more than you must. Keep the area dry, or it will get worse. If any places stay damp because it's open, occasionally use a hair dryer on the warm, NOT hot and gently dry them. I hope you heal up quickly, and that your surgeon has given you a long guestimate just to be conservative.

Thanks so much. This is exactly what happened to me. We are doing wet to dry dressing changes. I am okay with them closing slowly. I just want to be able to go home as I traveled out of state to get this done. I am so home sick and think the wounds can close just as easily at home as they can out here. sob sob. Thanks for the support.