Hello! My name is Adrian Richards and I'm a plastic and cosmetic surgeon and today I am going to be talking about the recovery period and possible complications associated with tummy tuck surgery. So it's important to realize that tummy tuck surgery, also called abdominoplasty surgery, is a significant procedure. It's probably one of the larger procedures we carry out as a plastic surgeons.
So what sort of recovery period can you expect? Well, it really depends on what sort of tummy tuck you've had. I've talked in other videos about different types of tummy tucks ranging from scar revisions through mini tummy tucks to full abdominoplasties.
Okay, so recovery period essentially depends quite a lot on whether you have had your muscles repaired. If you've had your muscles repaired, because they have been brought together, your tummy wall has been tightened, you will take longer to recover, because it's sore, it feels like you have done -- you ever done too many sit ups, it feels like that but for a prolonged period of time.
We will normally say to most patients they will need to take two weeks off work. If you have got children don't lift them up for at least a week. You need someone looking after you for that first week. You can probably return to work, normally after two weeks but really six weeks off any physical exercise, gym or anything that's going to involve the tummy. So every person's recovery is different but if you had a tummy tuck with muscle repair you really need to be thinking recovery a bit like a cesarean, so that's six weeks off any physical exercise, okay.
Now how to heal it. What are the complications for this operation? Every operation does have complications and it's important to discuss these freely and openly with your surgeon, because you need to be aware of these before you embark on this form of surgery.
So I'm going to run through them starting with ones that tend to appear early and ones that tend to appear late, but the early ones which normally would be around the operation time are ones that are to do with the operation itself. So you can get problems with the anaesthetic and you need normally to have a very thorough pre-operative assessment with the ECGs, blood tests and all those things to check that you're fit and healthy before the operation. So with modern anaesthesia these risks are very, very uncommon. There are very low incident, but you need to have a full assessment first, very important.
Second thing you can get in the early postoperative period is bleeding as in any operation, this is very, very rare with tummy tuck surgery, but if you did get any bleeding, if a blood vessel opened up in the area that had been treated, you would need to go back to the operating theater and the surgeon would need to stop that bleeding. So it's not normally a long term problem, it's a bit annoying and set you back a little bit, but in the long term not normally too much of a problem.
Okay, the problem you can get from the abdominoplasty is called seroma, and a seroma is basically a collection of your body fluids in the cavity created by the tummy tuck. So the surgeon has to remove this amount of tissue which leads in traditional tummy tucks, a potential cavity and your body will tend to form fluid, and if it does this fluid will collect in what's called a seroma which is a collection of fluid in your tummy area.
If you get this, if it's a moderate one normally your body will absorb it, but if it's a significant size over sort of in a 20 or 30 mils, we would normally arrange for an ultrasound to assess the seroma and then aspiration of the seroma which is done under ultrasound guided control nowadays, and the fluid is drawn off. You may need this done two or three occasions.
So the technique I've been using really to reduce the risk of seromas is actually to obliterate this potential cavity in the tummy for fluid to collect by placation sutures and in this technique the cavity is actually closed with a number of sutures. So there's really nowhere for the fluid to collect. And I actually haven't had any significant seromas in the last six months since I've been doing this technique and that's been a real advance for me.
So long term, longer than a seroma, obviously you can get infections. Infections are rare, you need to make sure that your surgery is done really in a laminar air flow theater which is the latest type of theaters where the air is changed regularly. Ask your surgeon about that, whether it's a laminar air flow theater. I think it's very important, particularly for tummy tuck surgery.
So the infections can occur. If you think you are getting an infection, very, very important to contact your surgeon immediately to get assessed and possibly you might need intravenous antibiotics just to sort out this potential infection.
Longer term problems with tummy tucks normally relate to scarring and scarring is typically slightly red and raised initially following the surgery, and then over three to six months to a year the scaring will fade. So in the first six months, scaring is going to be slightly red and raised and then, particularly if you can massage the scar with Bio-Oil that will help the scar mature, and soften and fade. So most scars by a year to two years are pretty flat and silvery and obviously the scars vary a lot between individuals.
Occasionally people do need revisional surgery and this is normally related to the scar. So if there is a problem with the scar, particularly you can get raised areas on the end of the scar which are called Dog Ears, it's not a very nice term, but that's what they tend to be called. Sometimes these may need to be removed. Now Dog ears really shouldn't occur in my opinion, because essentially the surgeon should really have to deal with that in the initial procedure.
So essentially, just running over what I have talked about, tummy tuck surgery is not a small procedure. In my care, in my practice it involves a two night stay in hospital. You are going to be off your feet for at least a week, although we do like keeping you mobilizing to prevent particularly the risk of DVT's. DVT's are blood clots in your legs which can, in very rare occurrences, can spread to your lungs.
So it is very important in that early period to keep the legs moving, keep the circulation going, so you are very low risk of blood clotting in your legs. Following that, really two weeks before going back to work, and if you have had your muscles repaired, six weeks before returning to any sort of physical exercise. So I hope that's been helpful.
If you would like any more information about abdominoplasty and in particular if you would like to know more about the complications and risks please contact us either on our website which is aurora-clinics.co.uk or you can always phone us and we will be happy to discuss these issues with you. So thank you very much for watching the video and we hope to see you soon.
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