A question to you grads out there

Lady at the bra shoppe reminded me to hand wash and  hand dry to keep its shape.  

I admit I use laundry bags and hand dry.  

I did a search by specialty bra stores and saw 2 in the Richmond area. 

Lauren - I am so sorry for the pain you are feeling and I think it is exactly what you say it is - the weight off all the excess tissue pulling on your skin - a more supportive bra might help rather than a tightening up......

My advice for what it is worth is:  

Go to your doctor now and complain as much as you can, as often as you can, about the pain and the rashes etc - make sure they see you and document every single trip about it - go even if it is not too bad - take pictures of everything - this may help you to get your plastic surgery paid for - you may get a tummy tuck and a breast reduction out of it - so the pain is unlikely to go away without all of that, so if you can get the insurance to pay that will help you out considerably - try to turn it into something positive.....

Hope you can stand the pain until then......

Jackie

good advice.  This is something I will make a note of and try and get into the doctor to get documented.  I've been needing to do a routing PCP physical/wellness check for well over a year now so the timing would fit.  Then I could complain about this pain and have documentation of that.  As for rashes, I haven't had many problems.  BUT i do notice that my belly button is growing increasingly challenging to stay on top of (i.e. not get a rash).  It should be interesting to see how this summer fairs for me.  I already have my dermatologist on tap with the game plan of coming in if/when the rashes start.  She seemed to know exactly what my purpose in that was and was encouraging about it.  :)

Definitely sounds like stuff I experience.  I tend to be really stiff in the mornings and hurting in my neck, shoulders.  I really tend to bruise and leave marks when I scratch all the time.

As for the bra factor, when I was fitted after losing the weight, it was suggested to still try full figure style bras as they would probably fit better and hold the extra breast skin better.

Full figure bras are still the way to go for me because even though I have gone donw my cup size is still large to accomodate the excess skin and all.  I still wish I could get into those little cutesy printed bra's though. LOL.   Alas, I would rather something sturdy that fits me better.  I'm a far cry from where I started though.  It used to be that I could only order catalog or some of lane bryant's upper size range.  At least I can roll up in a regular kohls now and pick something out!  :)

This sounds rough Lauren. I hope you can get this figured out.

By the way, I remember at the OH Conference we were trying to figure out the proper name for a "bra maker". Did you figure it out?

LOL, we did discuss that didn't me.  No I still don't know the official term.  I looked up "bra maker" in wikipedia and came up with nothing.  :)