What to expect? - UBL/mastopexy

My second surgery is in 15.5 days and I realized I haven't thought much about what my recovery will be like. I'll be having an upper body lift (back, sides) and mastopexy (lift, no augmentation).

What can I expect movement wise in my arms? Will I have full range of movement or will this surgery impact them due to any work on my sides?

I assume I'll need to sleep on my back for some length of time - any suggestions on how to force that? (I'm a roller.)

I keep thinking that this surgery should be easy, because the body parts in question aren't ones that move a lot, but then I start thinking that I must be missing something. And, unfortunately, since we all have different surgeries in different combinations, it's hard to read someone else's post and figure out "okay, what exactly is due to the mastopexy and what is due to [this other procedure] that was done at the same time?"

Any advice, comments, stories about these two specific procedures and what I might expect? I know this will be the easiest of my three surgeries at least, so I'm grateful for that :D

I can't tell you about the back, but I had an arm lift that also went 5 inches down my side chest from my arm pit. That scar healed well and after the first 2 weeks caused little trouble. The same for the breast lift. The glue itched and I rubbed it a little bit, but not enough for it to come off sooner than it should. Those two areas were the easiest recoveries.

The most trouble was when muscles are moved or a lot of lipo was done. So, my arm lift was a longer recovery, and the lipo on my thighs (about 5 L removed) took about 3 weeks until I was moving easily.

I hope it is a good recovery!!

Though the only one of those surgeries I have had is a lift, I can certainly say that the lift was the easiest out of the 4 procedures I had at once. There was really no pain at all. I did combine my lift with an augmentation, which just gives an added feeling of pressure and tightness in my chest, but definitely breasts are the easiest part of my recovery.

You didn't have to sleep strictly on your back with your previous procedures?

I am also a roller but actually, using a wedge pillow has helped. I didn't think I was going to use it at all, but have recently found a great benefit to it. I have my big foam wedge pillow, with a regular old pillow on top of it. Because I'm so elevated, if I do roll, I wake up due to the drop. :P

It's so hard to figure out how a recovery will be when we all combine things so differently, eh? :D I appreciate the information!

I didn't have to sleep strictly on my back with my first surgery. I couldn't have slept on my stomach anyway due to the abdominal work (I tried a few times for like .000001 seconds, but that wasn't until 3 weeks out or so). I think I was able to sleep on my sides around week 3-4 and that was a very happy day! But with the breasts, I'll be restricted to back sleeping for SIX WEEKS. Which seems like forever. UGH. And I don't want to sleep in my chair for that entire time, since that would suck massively. (I'm envisioning having to be bungee corded to the chair so I won't move - LOL.)

I'll definitely be using my wedge pillow since, like you, it does help me stay on my back. I'm considering one of those long pregnancy pillows as well and sort of building a pillow fort around my body :P

The breast lift was a non-issue for me, since I had it with the tummy tuck and that was by far the worst of it. I don't know about the UBL, but for me, most of the pain that I had was from the muscle tightening, and I'm assuming there will be none of that involved.

So exciting that it's coming up quickly.

I had the UBL and a revision to my arm and front of pubic. Easy recovery. You can sleep on side or back. My BL before didn't keep me from sleeping on my side. I did try to sleep on my back. Work would only let me take 3 weeks, but that was enough. Took 8weeks with LBL, BL, arms, sm thigh and facelift.

Good luck!!! I have no advice because I haven't gone through it. We have the same surgeon and when I was at my pre-op last week he mentioned another WLS patient who had done the same thing in getting. He may have been talking about you! :)

Congrats! When is your surgery?

Aug 11th!

I see I've asked you this before :D Super exciting. I hope you have a great experience.