What They Don’t Tell You About Liposuction
Plastic surgeons advertise beautiful people with beautiful results.
That’s what we are all looking for, right?
What they DON’T show you is what an ACTUAL recovery process looks like,
because if they did, they probably would have a lot less business.
The FULL recovery takes a YEAR.
Granted, by 3 months you have a pretty good idea of what your final results will look like, but things don’t quite look right. The remaining 9 months are where very subtle changes take place that make you look like you are, well, you. The refinement that transpires in the time after 3 months can’t be seen on a daily basis, but you can see changes from one month to the next.
Also during that time swelling is a real pain. While the first 3 weeks of swelling are the worst, you will continue to have swelling off and on for up to a year. At the 3 month mark, it will be minimal when compared to 3 weeks, but that one night at month 5 or 9 when you go out for your best friend’s birthday and grab Mexican food and margaritas will quickly remind you that you aren’t fully healed. You went out looking like a million bucks in your hot red dress and woke up the next morning feeling like the Goodyear blimp.
In order to get your best results, you are looking at 8 weeks of full time compression wear.
And, after that, you will probably still be wearing it for a while.
Compression garments are a necessary part of liposuction recovery. Without them, you run the risk of fibrosis (lumps and bumps), swelling that is out of control, and more tenderness and pain than is necessary.
Good compression garments need to provide resistance to fluid accumulation. That means when you are ready for a stage 2 faja (generally around day 7-10 post lipo), that garment should be fairly stiff.
HEAR THIS: SPANX IS ABSOLUTELY NOT A COMPRESSION GARMENT!
While the first week or so is spent in a fairly comfortable stretchy spanx-like faja, that will not cut it for the remaining 7 or so weeks of your initial recovery. The Stage 1 faja is just for support of the tissue and should NOT compress you. Compression too early can lead to necrosis. You need to give the body about 7-10 days (assuming a normal recovery) to regrow the blood vessels that were severed during lipo BEFORE you compress. Strong compression during this first week to ten days can deprive the skin of much needed oxygen and nutrients, so be patient.
You had best budget a significant amount of money for aftercare – probably around $2,000 or so.
BEWARE: There are people out there in the post op recovery business who can cause you harm. Inform yourself before booking with a person advertising post op care.
The first few days after surgery are really rough and you will probably regret having had the surgery.
This is a totally expected phenomenon. Most people have a really hard time during the first 3 days.
After that, life gets better, but I can almost guarantee you that you will have a thought similar to “What the F*&K have I done to myself? I could have lived with the way I looked! It wasn’t worth it!”
By then end of your initial recovery (8 -12 weeks) you will probably be planning a second surgery.
It wasn’t that bad, after all…
People think I’m crazy when I tell them that they will experience a form of amnesia once the major part of the recovery is over. “How could I possibly forget?!?!?” they ask. “Oh, you will.” I reply.
Sure enough, towards the end of their massage package, they start talking about other surgeries they are thinking about.
Did You Also Have a BBL?
If so, here are some BBL recovery tips that you will probably want to know.