Plastics at 5'4" and other questions

Hey Gwen!  How exciting that you are starting to investigate.  As you know, I love love love love Dr. Michaels.  Tell him Emily and Cyndy sent you - me and NYMom are his fervent fans, and we are both thrilled with our experiences and results.

So thinking back, I was around 155 or 160 (160 was my goal I had set for myself) when I went for my consult.  I thought I wanted boobs and a tummy tuck, and was willing to deal with my saggy arms.  When i had the consult, Dr. M pointed out that once my front was fixed, my back would look extra saggy and bad, and he pulled and prodded my skin to show me the results I could get from a lower body lift.  So I opted for an LBL and BL without implants.  

I work from home and was online just a few days later.

I opted to do arms once the rest of my body looked so good, and I did arms six months later.

Here is a doc that I put together since I knew I would forget stuff as time passes.   

And if it's helpful, here are my previous posts on plastics and my two year surgiversary (I am about to make my 3 year):

Plastics: http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/plasticsurgery/5309071/X-p ost-Everything-I-wished-I-had-known-and-everything-I/

Two year surgiversary: http://www.obesityhelp.com/forums/rny/5445401/My-two-year-su rgiversary-with-a-before-and-after-picture/

I agree with LauraInTexas - this is the fun part (minus the expense and pain LOL).  I love love love my new body!

Did you see my PM I sent you a few days ago? I obviously am much taller...LOL.

While I did have bandages and compression...I had no problem feeding myself, maybe the long arms?  

All my surgeries combined - the same as you are looking at... The Doc took off in surgery a total of 5 1/2lbs. That being said after each surgery I did lose weight- just as part of the "I just had surgery and feel like C*** and am recovering" --not trying to. I always bottomed out and then regained some of it back... not all of it. Actually initially after each surgery I gained - about 4lbs with 2 of them and with the breast/arms I gained 10lbs! That was scary.... So I am down  20ish pounds total from the 3 surgeries- between what he took off, and what I lost.

I did see it, yes!   So much information and I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off the past few days so I haven't had time to digest it all to properly reply.  I should have at least sent a thank you sooner - I'm sorry.  THANK YOU.  

I'm 5'1" and was weight stable for 2 yr before my PS.  I went to Dr Sauceda in Monterrey Mexico as I wanted several procedures done at one time with one recovery period.  I took off 8 weeks.  I had a lower body lift, breast lift, arms and small thigh lift then 4 days later a full neck and face lift including upper and lower lids.  I was in the clinic for 7 days and 7 days at the Hampton Inn with Dr Sauceda and his RN Paty coming by daily to check up on me and help me with my shower, and getting back into my compression garments.  I was 59.  I have no regrets.  It was less than my new Prius!

I'm 5'3" and weighed about 158 pounds which was a loss of 139 pounds from WLS when I had my first plastic surgery.  I had my WLS in 6-2001 and had my plasitcs in 2004.  I rationalized the cost of my surgeries and what a new SUV would cost -- but last a lot longer!! --- (and it has!!)

I initially was scheduled for the first surgery a tummy tuck, breast reduction breast lift and arms.  I returned to work after the first surgery in about three weeks, but I still had a lot of discomfort - I still was unable to stand up straight, and when I returned to work my boss said to me, "Good God girl, are you ok?" -- I said, "YES!!! I can't stand up straight but I have a flat stomach!!!" --- and I was sooooooo proud of that!!!! -- I still laugh about that even today -- twelve years later!!

The second was to be an upper thigh lift, butt lift, neck lift, lipo, as a bonus a nose job!!  I waited about four months to have the second surgery -- in retrospect I probably should have waited longer.  Plastic Surgery takes a large toll on your body and as a RNY patient it is very difficult to get in the amount of nutrients espically protien to heal well.  In my case I experienced some severe complications during surgery and woke up in the ICU -- not exactly what I had planned. The surgery was stopped after a bit more than two hours.  So rather than a time intensive suturing of the hip to hip incision on my back side -- it was stapled closed which made for a large scar but saved my life.   I caution everyone to realize that surgery can cause unwanted situations or even death -- but even with my severe complications I wanted to complete my project --- ME! -- I was off work for about two weeks for that surgery and not in nearly as much pain as the first time. 

Due to the complications from the second surgery I had to jump thru a number of hoops (for my safety) and yet I still wanted to finish my surgeries.  I waited a bit more than six months to have the third surgery, which was the inner thigh lift, (the upper thigh was cancelled) neck lift, and nose job.  Recovery from the inner thigh lift was the most painful of ALL my surgeries combined.  I remember being in unbearable pain a full two weeks after my surgery I thought -- what have you done to your self?  Slowly but surely the pain subsided and I returned to work after four weeks.  The swelling from that surgery was incredibly slow to return to normal -- several months to return to normal.

While recovering at home I needed help and I had a good friend stay with me for ten days the first two times and a full two weeks on the third surgery.  I would recommend a loose fitting front button satin night shirt so that you can get in and out of bed or the couch easily and I would highly recomend waxing your arms so that the surgical tape for IV's don't pull the hair out of your arms.  I wan't able to do much more than sleep and just recover -- the neck and nose surgery required no looking down, reading or computer work.  Besides the pain meds kept me sleeping most of the day.

I stayed in the hospital three days the first surgery and four days for the second and third surgery.  Belive me when you are a self pay, (as my plastic surgery was not covered by insurance) rather than an insurance provider pay patient, the quality of care and the attentiveness of the nurse staff  was second to none!!  The private room accross from the nurse station was outstanding, my calls to the nurse station were efficiently handled, my guests had a comfortable sitting area and ammenities made avalible to them was a nice touch.  As a self pay patient, I was able to determine my discharge date without some bean counter in an office making a determination on when I should go home.

So long story short, don't be in a hurry to complete all your plastics, let your body heal fully between surgeries.  Do as much as you can program wise and personal training wise to be in the best shape possible before surgery.  Be patient!!!  The final results take a good period of time to attain.  Do as your physician suggests -- they are doing miracles for you and do have the expertice that you as a patient do not.  Select a surgeon who specializes in WLS reconstruction -- our bodies are very different in many ways from people who have not had WLS.

Best wishes -- 

Hi Gwen!  Late to the party here but I also used Dr. Michaels (tell him Holly says Hi as well!).  I had arms, LBL, breast lift (though a minor one compared to most) and then later an upper back lift.  I'm not your height, so the weight questions aren't relevant to me, but the rest I can help with.  If you click on my name you can see where I made several detailed posts outlining how things went.  The issue with bending your arms and feeding yourself will totally depend on how far down your arm the scar extends.  I think for many, the scar only goes to the elbow, not below it, so you can still bend your arms.  Just would depend on your body/skin!

I had the LBL, BL, and AL all done in a single 12 hour surgery and my ass was hobbling into a government office to fix a locked pin on my key card 4 days later, and I was doing some work from home on my laptop within a week's time... but only by necessity because other people in my office F'ed up and I had to get some paperwork executed by a deadline.  I was pissed and unhappy about it, but I was functional mentally.  I would imagine that part of it just depends on how you react to taking narcotic pain meds.

I would definitely say that you can't or shouldn't get thighs and tummy done at the same time, so depending on what all you want, it might take more than 1 surgery.

I got my surgery done right before the Christmas holiday (Dec 17th) since I always take the week between Christmas and NY off anyway.  I think I took complete off work for 2 weeks (well, minus that stupid bit of teleworking for a few part time days about a week out.  And then I worked from home full time for another week or 2, but that had more to do with how tired I got from being up moving around and just discomfort of wearing work appropriate clothing in all the garments, etc. I was fully functional from a mental capacity pretty early on.  If you have the ability to really break your day up between classes and homework and studying, then that's even better because you can break/nap as needed.