One Year After Surgery One year later, your abdominoplasty should be fully healed, and results visible. Your inflammation should be gone, and your scar faded. Although the latter will never completely disappear, it should be nearly invisible, and hidden beneath your underwear line.
A tummy tuck will leave a permanent scar
This will run along the horizontal incision line, stretching from hip to hip, right above the pubic bone. While the scar will fade a bit over time, it will remain visible for years to come.
Post-surgical swelling diminishes gradually over a year to a year and a half after a tummy tuck. However, there is no specific time schedule for each individual's recovery. If swelling seems unusual to the patient, then it is time to consult with their plastic surgeon.
While it can take up to 6 months to fully recover from a tummy tuck, you will make good progress after 2 to 3 weeks. Most people can return to work at the 2-week mark and resume their usual workout routine after 4 or 5 weeks.
Because a tummy tuck is a more extensive surgery, patients need around 10 to 14 days to recover. The results are long-lasting, and the removed fat cells won't grow back—but remaining fat cells may expand and the skin may re-stretch if you gain a large amount of weight.
Where do patients gain weight after a tummy tuck? During body contouring procedures like a tummy tuck, fat cells are eliminated from the body and cannot return. Because of this, patients may gain weight in other places like the buttocks, legs, arms, and breasts.
Swelling is a normal part of tummy tuck recovery, and while most of it resolves within the first 2 months, some residual swelling can last for 6 months to a year.
A Flatter, Firmer, Slimmer Waistline With Abdominoplasty
You will notice a change immediately following surgery, but if you still have a small belly in the weeks after surgery, do not worry. Swelling can take several weeks and up to one year to fully resolve. You will have the waistline you desire, in no time at all.
Sometimes people do not have a totally flat abdomen after tummy tuck even though the excess skin and fat is removed due to the fact that the intra-abdominal contents still remain intact and are still behind the tightened abdominal muscles.
For the majority of patients, the feeling of tight skin after tummy tuck resolves within 6 –12 weeks after surgery. In some cases, it may take longer to regain normal sensations as the nerves reestablish their connections and the tissues continue to heal and settle.
Liposuction to Contour the Upper Abdomen
As a result, some patients still have upper abdominal fullness following surgery. This area of concern can be addressed with liposuction three to six months after the tummy tuck procedure.
This study found that 8.2% reported pain within the past week between 3 months and 9 years after abdominoplasty, most often located under the umbilicus in the same location as the incision line, suggesting direct nerve injury in this area as the primary cause.
Swelling after an abdominoplasty is common
When you undergo this operation, both the blood supply of the surgical area and the lymphatic system are influenced. Since this operation needs some incisions along the pubic area, the skin above it, as well as the blood vessels, will be manipulated.
Tummy tucks can produce belly buttons that are too round, too narrow or too tight and have a visible circular scar around them. “This is often a dead giveaway for a tummy tuck.”
Tummy tuck results are considered permanent in that the skin and fat cells that Dr. Greenwald removes during the procedure cannot grow back. Likewise, any internal sutures that he places to repair stomach muscles are designed to remain in place indefinitely.
A common sign of an undesirable tummy tuck is poor repositioning of the belly button. If you see that your navel is too high or too low, it might be that it's been misshapen, while pulling and tightening of the skin has distorted the original shape and position.
A traditional tummy tuck doesn't make your waist smaller. It removes saggy skin on the stomach. However, when combined with liposuction, we can remove fat from your love handles, lower back, or around the waist. With stubborn fat removal techniques, you can achieve a shapely, voluptuous waistline.
With a full tuck, you will lose more weight than you would with a mini tuck because you probably have more excess skin and fat to be removed. Finally, the opportunity to lose the most weight after abdominoplasty is reserved for clients who choose an extended tuck.
Excess skin that is removed during tummy tuck surgery should not come back. However, body contouring procedures do not necessarily prevent unwanted changes in your appearance over time. For example, weight gain or pregnancy may cause the skin to stretch out again after a tummy tuck.
The surgeon tightened the muscles optimally, but you were too active after surgery and stretched the muscles during repair, which resulted in the protrusion. Lie flat on your back. If the stomach is flat, re-tightening of the muscle surgically will help. If the stomach is protruding, you need to lose weight.
Weight Gain After Tummy Tuck
While there may be an extremely small amount of redistribution, it is generally not an issue to be concerned about. In general, redistribution will not be an issue unless you gain more than 20% – 30% of your post-procedure body weight.
Because your tummy tuck will result in some swelling around the site of the incision, it's completely normal for your upper pubic region to seem larger than normal immediately following your surgery. Try to be patient as your body heals and you anticipate your final results.
Vegetables and fruits. As with any diet, fruits and vegetables are recommended, especially dark leafy greens. Other good foods include red onions, broccoli, pineapples and apples, and capers to decrease swelling faster. These provide your body with essential vitamins to help you heal and fight infection.
Abdominoplasty is designed to remove fat and tighten loose skin in the abdominal area, which can have a positive impact on the appearance of the mons pubis. However, if the pubic area is more than minimally saggy, a tummy tuck won't help enough.
Tummy tuck surgery results will vary depending on a person's age. For example, a younger patient can expect to see very smooth abdominal skin after abdominoplasty. However, an older patient's skin is typically less elastic than that of a younger person and won't automatically “snap back” to fit the body's new contours.