Question:
Are there any alternatives to arm surgery? (Effective exercises, skin creams, etc.)

   — keshana P. (posted on May 9, 2005)

May 9, 2005
you can tone your muscles but only surgery actually makes the skin smaller. the scarring is bad, elbow to armpit. Mine got very thick and ropelike. After 7 months it is finally starting to fade just a little, Dr. says probably a year for it to look acceptable. The surgery tightened the skin but not the muscle. I have done thousands of pounds of weightlifting to get the muscles toned and now the shape of my arms is awesome if I do say so myself. but, be prepared for the trade off of a really big scar for less skin.
   — **willow**

May 10, 2005
The visual of the scar will vary from person to person. I have seen pics of wonderful looking arm scars and some not so nice looking. My arms is one of the things left that hasn't had any PS yet. I have HUGE hangy arms, 99% skin and little fat, so I am an ideal candidate to have a good result. I have healed well from all 3 previous PS and all of my scars are nice a flat and fading nicely, so I have no reason to assume my arms would not turn out the same, but anything can happen. Any kind of surgery and scaring is a crap shoot. You can have the best surgeon in the world and can still end up with a crappy scar. So you play the odds and make the best choice you can and then work with the end result. One of the things my PS does is have us use scar tape for about 3 weeks after the glue comes off. I truly believe that my scars look as good as they do because he glues the surface and I had no surface stitches. I have a tendency to show every stitch hole, so glue is a wonderful answer for me. It is much more expensive than sewing the skin, but I was after the best result. This is his standard anyway. It takes about 2 weeks before you start picking off the glue and then once that is off you put on strips of scar tape. It is called Mepiform. It is not cheap but oh so worth it. <p>In answer to your original question, only if you have a little arm sag and have great skin tone can you hope for things to shrink up. I actually have some reasonable muscles under the excess skin, but the skin will never go away by itself. Truthfully my arms bother me the least, even though they are huge batwings, so they will likely be the last thing I ever get done.
   — zoedogcbr

May 10, 2005
Oh how I wish!!!!! My arms were HORRIBLE looking!!! Not that they looked great before surgery either. I think I was more embarassed by my arms then any other body part. I tried exercises and anything else. They didn't get better. I had lipo to remove the excess fat in the arms. That certainly helped them get smaller. But it left me with excess skin. I had that removed by just having the armpit incision rather then the "to the elbow" cut. I'm happy with the results but even after almost 2 years, the scars under my armpit are still pink. Thank God nobody looks under my armpit!!!
   — Patty H.