My scars are lighter – but still very much there. I still don’t feel my belly (and never will.)
There is still a very inelegant bump where they put me back together that will probably never go away. Perhaps if I lost a TON of weight… but I don’t need that level of misery.
I am still excited any time I see rectis diastasis mentioned online – because I suffered too much, for too long, for no reason but my own ignorance that this is a real thing.
This blog gets crazy traffic.
GEEZ people. I guess I resonate or have good SEO or something. Most of you are spam commenters but I appreciate the real people.
My daughter is now 7 and the pregnancy with her is what caused the explosion. She sort of understands that I will never feel my belly again but it’s still mostly a mystery to her young mind. I really hope she doesn’t have such ridiculously stupid fascia. I hear it can be genetic.
Depending on the day I still have VERY dark scar lines. On a good day it turns mostly white. Has anyone else noticed scars seems somewhat changeable throughout the day?
If I got this surgery to be vain, then I’d be really upset at the fact my scar line is very, very, very far from invisible. I see some photos and it’s like DAMN…. you can’t even tell. I will always be a little “try not to gasp” to a new doctor look, I think.
My only other experience was getting a few moles dug out of me and those took many, many years to not look purple, so I’m not surprised I still look sliced up!
Good luck to all on this journey. It’s a wild ride.
Sorry I don’t do much on this blog even though it gets quite a few daily visitors. Goodness!
Because of the severity of my surgery (honestly I hadn’t looked my before photos for YEARS and holy crap was that belly bad!!) I still, five years later, have very thick scar lines and general thick, not smooth bumpiness like where the skin was reattached. I am not saying my surgeon wasn’t great but it’s just this was a major, major surgery!!! My super high stretch marks were basically pulled down above my pelvic bone. That’s a lot of different skin to pull down and reattach. 🙂
The other day someone posted on Facebook, “I miss….” and I instantly thought to myself:
My belly button!
I miss my belly button. How weird is that. I never gave it much thought and it wasn’t some model looking bb. But now mine is very surgical looking, with little pucker marks all around it.
I also miss not feeling my stomach. I sometimes get itchy where I don’t have nerve endings…not sure how that works but man oh man it’s frustrating.
I also have “scar pain” if I press too much on my sides. It’s sorta gross.
I forget about this blog! Here are some updates.
Itching when you don’t actually feel the skin because of the dead nerves is CREEPY and one of the most annoying lifelong results of this surgery (for me.)
My scars are also still really bad but again I knew going in because I had two small moles removed and it was countless years and years before they stopped being so purple.
I stumbled upon my old photos (some are posted in this blog) and what strikes me is how some of the photos don’t seem “that bad” compared to how it actually was on my body. It makes me realize that looking at someone isn’t the same as being in their skin.
A year ago I did a weird sports massage type thing, and she pressed down real hard on my scar line and it HURT REALLY REALLY BADLY. Not sure what that means but yowsers!
I still get bloated but I THINK I am mostly to my “regular bloat” versus surgery bloat. 🙂 If I really watched what I ate I’d probably not be so bloaty but I don’t really care that much.
Sorry I don’t blog much.
It took six months post surgery but I am TOTALLY PAIN FREE. Unbelievably amazing.
It is probably just in this third year, and mostly I’ve only really noticed say the last 4-5 months, that I am almost NEVER bloated anymore. The surgeon said it would take a very long time and she’s not kidding. It was so frustrating to have a big ol’ belly for at least two years…but finally, I am truly enjoying the flat stomach.
My scar is still dark. I’ll try to post a photo soon. I also scar dark and it takes many years to lighten (at least that was the case with surface mole removals I had done.) I also dislike my belly button because it has the surgical marks, like dots, where the belly button was probably sewn together. However, I am not upset more than a slight “eh!” feeling. I’m lucky I have one at all since it was so severely herniated and the surgeon had to fight hard to get it to cooperate at all in the surgery to make me a new one (that, by the way, is no longer centered, but naturally is to the right of my center. Sorta balances me being slightly left politically I think. 😉 )
I’m in awe how many people read and find this blog, but yay!
GOOD LUCK to anyone considering it!
This much I knew then, and still know:
If you’re not absolutely, positively hating your stomach, and if nobody really gets why you’re doing it, DO NOT DO IT. The photos I saw on message boards from thin chics who really didn’t need the surgery resulted in many seriously disappointed women. They often look worse after the surgery due to bloating, the scar line, and sometimes lack of shaping because it was just a little nip.
Wow, this is a very neglected blog, my apologies! I think you get really absorbed in the tummy tuck world, deal with HUGE recovery, then life goes back to being busy!
I’m now like 18 months out and still have a wicked dark scar line (but I scar easily.) The scar line also defines where I swell above or below. I confirmed with the dr that this being a MASSIVE surgery is just going to result in tighter skin where they had to sew me back together. It’ll never look pretty.
From my surgery it took another SIX MONTHS for my nerve damage to heal (near my tailbone.) I am now a YEAR without chronic pain!!!!
So yeah, my body is absolutely night and day better than it was pre surgery and all that time feels like a long ago dream. The surgery itself and recovery were extremely intense but because I had a horrible daily existence with pain, I’d do the surgery again in a heartbeat.
The women I feel badly for are those who honestly aren’t “that bad”. This surgery permanently messes you up. Some days I look pregnant with bloat. Maybe once a month I have that “WOW, I’m a Barbie doll thin!” in my stomach. Otherwise it’s somewhere between flatish and slightly poofy. So if you have a little belly, know that they may remove all that skin but you may still bloat! I’ll take bloat over the “do I tuck my stomach into my jeans or let it flop OVER the jeans” though.
So I KNOW for sure I’m not losing my mind. There is part of a stitch in my weirdo belly button. I can’t see it fully to know if it’s spitting out of me from the insides or what. It’s gross but yet my entire umbilicus, with the hernia I had, is just totally ruined. After all I’ve been through I could really give a rats tush.
I still swell and know already about the four month “swell hell” so ANY swelling I get I know is normal and will go away. I do freak out still when I see puckering fat, but I realize it’s all just swollen bigger than the other areas and will eventually be smoother.
I need to go back to the physical therapist at some point for all my nerve damage. I was talking to my sister in law and I felt guilted into taking better care of my own body. I deserve to have no more pain but that won’t happen with a lot more work helping those nerves heal.
Tuesday I’m getting sterilized with the Essure procedure!!!!!!!!!! I have the medical need (heart damage being the biggest killer if I got pregnant again.) So insurance and the other add-on program means I will just pay $200 for the radiology fees! The Essure tries to bill out at 5K. We’ll see what my insurance says that “real bill” should be, but whatever that is, this add-on will pay for it. (I have a 5,000 deductible which means I basically consider myself uninsured, but I’m paying 450/month to be “uninsured” up to 5,000.)
So whenever I sit wrong in my car seat, my incision lines hurt a little because they go so far back.
Wearing belts is weird because I can’t feel if it’s too tight.
I’m a huge arm crosser but when you can’t FEEL your belly it doesn’t feel right to put pressure on it!
My swollen days now make me feel big when seriously, I am THIN and haven’t been this thin is a very, very, very long time. It shows how easy is can be to forget!
I was actually more fashionable while fat because I had to find things that fit and didn’t make me look pregnant. I wore 5 shirts all summer but they were nice. Now I’m wearing tank tops (dh finds SEXY, big time!) because it’s summer and I look good! But I feel more sloppy in my normal clothes again… ah, the irony.
I’ve started to lift my 2 year old and it doesn’t hurt, but the dr says 3 months which would be July 7thish. I’m mostly NOT picking her up but it really is a PITA because I can’t trust her in public… so we mostly avoid parks quite yet.
I’m crazy busy lately so sorry I don’t blog more! life moves fast.
ooooooooooh! ONE HUGE news is I’m getting a consult tomorrow for Essure, the permanent birth control. I’m on a high deductible private insurance plan, but I’m also low income but more important, between my heart, hernias, pelvis, nerve damage, I have a cardiologist, physical therapist and surgeon saying NO MORE KIDS. So one of them has to fill out a form saying this is medically necessary, and I will get this procedure FREE (normally 5K.) Basically whatever my insurance doesn’t pick up, the dr office takes as a write off. It’s a cool thing the government mandated a few years ago for the underinsured or non-insured. It’s NOT insurance but for special doctors and clinics, you can get free healthcare.
oooooooh and my hemotoma surgery bill just came. An insane $3,300! But because that was 100% medical, not vanity in any way, that insurance thing I just mentioned will just write off those bills and I won’t have to pay. Thank GOD! (Though honestly, I’d rather not have nonstop financial stress than get “free healthcare”. We’re getting there……… career changes take time to build up good income!)
I also took some pics today but not sure when I”ll get them posted. =)
Sorry I’m neglecting my blog! Life moves forward so fast. The first week of being mobile was VERY tiring but the second week was better and this third week is even better. I’m feeling my nerve damage again and not sure why I hadn’t – if maybe not moving much helped?
My belly is still numb, can sometimes, like today, feel a little like its tugging. My scar is a “smile” scar so it’s low on the front but then goes up on the sides which is a bummer since peeping a shirt up I bet people will see the scar. It’s still pretty darn dark but I don’t honestly care. My husband says it feels more natural than before, like the skin belongs together versus being “held” together.
Swelling is getting bad but I’d read it may get a lot worse before it gets better. But still, “crazy swelling” amd I’m still insanely thin! The FUNNIEST thing, and I promise I’ll post more photos, is when I have just ONE CURVE. I kid you not, it’s so funny to lift up my shirt at night and have ONE sexy curve and the other side is swollen. The sides seem to have their own swollen lives. 🙂
So I’m in the clear to run, walk, whatever! It’s very liberating and I’m excited to be more like an equal, non-blob member of this family and household!
I didn’t wear my binder (or Spanx) at all today and it went well! I do seem quite swollen but the experiment will be doing the same motions TOMORROW with the binder! It might just be the increased activity creates the swelling (surgeon said this will happen) and the binder doesn’t really do anything.
It took me til like… YESTERDAY to figure out why they would do the lipo before cutting. I’m finally like, DUH, they can remove most of the skin with the scars where they enter you to remove the fat! I have one red blob that must have been high up and just got pulled down.
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