I am not at my lowest weight yet so I cant get a referral for plastic surgery but I am curious how much it is.

If you have had a lower body lift, thighs, breast aug, arms or chin/face work and will be OK with sharing, please let me know how much it cost and was it worth it.......thank you. I know it is personal so thank you in advance.

Plastic surgery costs vary across the country, but I think planning for about $40,000 would be a good start.  I look at it as the cost of a nice car but it will last me for the rest of my life.

I want my thighs done. That is it. Thighs were teh ONLY area that didnt snap back and ended up saggy (like 3 "boobs" on each). 

Totally worth it. we have worked so hard to get back to "normal" and we should not feel guilty about finishing the job to totally be "normal" again.  Otherwise, what was the point?

I agree with White Dove. 40K is a good estimate to start with. Going to Mexico or a residency plastic surgery program could be less expensive, but usually you get what you pay for, so be wary. Be sure your surgeon has experience with bariatric patients and insist on seeing lots of before/after photos.

I don't have any words of wisdom for you, but I do have kind of an add-on question...for everyone who's had plastics, how did you decide what you really wanted/needed? How did you prioritize? I'm hopeful my only "need" will be my arms, where I've always carried a disproportionate amount of weight and which are making it really hard to find any clothes with sleeves that fit. But I certainly have a lot of loose skin on my stomach and inner thighs, too; it just doesn't bother me as much. Do any plastic surgeons offer package deals for multiple procedures, or should I really only aim for the top priority, then see if something else bothers me more down the line? I'd like to lose another 50 lbs still, but with this much excess skin at 30, I'm scared of what I'll look and feel like in 20 years.

I did my panniculectomy first because it was huge and was still having to wear baggy pants and tunic length shirts to hide it.  The plastic surgeon was also supposed to do a mons lift (self-pay) along with it, but he backed out at the last minute, so six weeks later I had the mons lift and the arm lift done by another surgeon.

My thighs can be hidden (and thigh lifts have a pretty high complication rate), and industrial strength bras will lift my boobs up, but I had always had fat arms and wanted to be able to wear short sleeves (or NO sleeves) again, so my arms were my second priority.

Lora

Thanks for sharing! I didn't know that about the complication rate for thigh lifts, but it certainly makes them even less of a priority for me. I've never been comfortable wearing shirts with sleeves shorter than elbow length...I've always had a "second elbow" where the skin folds, and now they're extremely saggy as well. It's actually harder to find shirts that fit well now than when I was in a 3X.

I had the same problem... Even though I still have enormous boobs after losing weight, for a while I was actually having to buy blouses a size up because of the size of my upper arms!

Do you have a link to more information about the complications on plastic surgery for thighs? For me, this area is the very worst--really awful--and I still have 40 pounds to lose!

This website has some info, but note that some of the things that they consider "minor" include swelling for up to a year afterward and skin breakdown (necrosis) where it requires removal of any dead skin/tissue which results an open wound (which can range from something as small as a dime or something that runs the full length of the incision!) that must heal up on its own from the inside out (sometimes with the aid of a wound vac).  I had that happen with my tummy tuck, and it took 5 months of cleaning and re-packing the wound twice a day to get the wound to heal and new skin to grow over it.  Instead of a thin incision line, I have what look like burn scars.  It seems that in this article, anything that doesn't require further surgery is considered "minor"!

Here is a list of potential complications, but there is no information on how frequently these things occur. According to this site, 2/3 develop some type of complication.

Some plastic surgeons won't do thigh lifts on WLS patients because 1) the skin inside our thighs is so badly stretched and the circulation to it is so poor, and 2) many patients and/or surgeons end up disappointed with the results.  I have seen a couple of thigh lifts that look great, but I have also seen some that look like the surgeon did nothing but cut out some excess skin down the inner thigh and then sew it together with no contouring at all... and it looks very strange. I am sure that the result depends on what the thighs look like to begin with (how much skin, how much residual fat, the condition of the skin) and the quality (and cost) of the surgeon.  Definietly NOT a surgery you would want to try to cut cost corners on IMO.

Lora