trina4ufl

Hi all! Hope everyone is doing well! I just had a TT and breast reduction covered by insurance and am just over a month out. I'm now 133 pounds down total from when I started this journey. I am so much happier. I will say the biggest things that helped were regular fills and follow up appointments, and going to the gym at least 3 days per week, sometimes every day. This has really changed my life!!!

My insurance paid 100% for a breast reduction and TT after I had lost 120 pounds with the lap band. I went to the consult and the plastic surgeon took pictures and submitted it. It really depends on your insurance company and how well your plastic surgeon's office writes it up. If you don't have luck with one plastic surgeon, you should try one who will aggressively try to get your insurance to pay for it. The more documentation you have, the better, but I didn't have to provide anything. The plastic surgeon's office handled everything. Good luck!

I have lost 133 pounds so far. The LAP-BAND® works if you work it. Get regular fills and go to your follow up appointments religiously. Follow the rules and make working out and regular exercise a part of your daily routine. I love the LAP-BAND®! Good luck! If you are curious, check out my blog.

Your body will change drastically! I would definitely wait. I am almost to goal and just had a TT and breast reduction paid 100% by my insurance and my lap band surgeon still thought I was doing it too early. If you lose more weight, your breasts will sag. Get a 2nd opinion.

So plastics recovery is going well. My weight went up about 8 pounds but then went down 10 in one week. I think I was having major swelling. I went to the lap band doc and got a fill and am now super tight. I weighed myself and I am at 197.6. Onederland!!!!!! First time since I was a teenager. My stomach is looking much better. It's lumpy when I sit down, but looks good standing up. My breasts look awesome. They are still healing though and I can't wear any underwire bras for another month. It's really hard to find bras with no underwire. I'm pretty happy with how I look when I'm in clothes right now. I have alot more confidence and when people see me, they say WOW you look awesome! I am now in a large size in tops or shirts and still a 14 in pants. I'm not sure if that will change when the swelling goes down all the way or not. I am 5'9"/5'10" so that's not bad for my height. I would need to lose another 20 pounds to reach my overall goal. I've started back at the gym but taking is slowly due to the swelling I've had and the belly button issues. I go back to work next week :scared2: I've really enjoyed the time off. Things are going well though. I'm really happy about the results of my surgery!

I had a follow up appt. today at the plastic surgeon's office and one of the drains on my hips came out. They think the other one can come out on Monday. It's still outputting quite a bit of fluid. It has to be below 30 ccs output in a 24 hour period before it can come out. I am ready for it to be gone but I understand that it greatly reduces the amount of painful swelling. My left side has been hurting and I'm not really sure why. My new belly button was leaking some fluid and the Dr.'s office thinks that some of the fluid from the belly button may be going to my left side. They stated everything looks really good though and that i shouldn't be worried. I no longer have to put bandages on my incisions. I can just wear the surgical bra and the compression garmet. After 2 weeks, which is Tuesday, I only have to wear the compression garmet during the day, not at night. I have to wear the bra 24/7 for 6 weeks total. My breasts are starting to look really good and the Nurse Practitioner mentioned how they seem much rounder and I agree. My stomach is also starting to look flatter. I asked her if it was going to be totally tight and flat and she said that they pulled it tight and flat during the surgery, but that because of the swelling, it is lumpy and swollen. She said that it will get flatter and tighter, but that because the skin has been stretched from gaining and losing alot of weight that it loses the elasticity so it may not be as tight as it was in the surgery. I'm hoping that wearing these compression garmets will help it get tighter. I don't know if I mentioned this before but originally the surgeon said that he'd have to do free nippple grafts for my breast reduction because of the length of my breasts. In this scenario I would definitely lose all sensation in my breasts. I wasn't happy with this so he said that he would try to do the normal way which is moving the entire nipple and the attachments, but that he may have to switch mid surgery if the tissue wasn't getting blood supply. Well, he was able to do the normal one and I have full sensation in my nipples! This is a big deal for me and I am super happy about it. I definitely credit his surgical skills because I read alot about how if your nipples are a certain length from where they need to go that they have to do the free nipple graft--which is taking them off completely and reposiitioning them which guarantees a complete loss of sensation in the nipple and they will not get erect and you cannot breast feed. But, yay, that is not the case for me! He had also talked about the possibility of having to do a vertical incision to get the stomach tight which would have meant a long vertical scar. However, he did not have to do this either, so everything went really well. I'm feeling better every day and the office staff was so nice. They said I am a very easy patient. I'm super excited because I wore a shirt tonight that I have saved since I was 15 years old (I'm 31 now). It has been too small since I was 15, but it was my favorite shirt ever. I tried it on tonight and it fits perfectly!!!:thumbup:

Thanks!!!!!!!

I had a full abdominoplasty and the first 2 days it hurt alot but they gave great pain meds and you get through it and then it's smooth sailing. I still have 2 drains in and have the okay to shower. I have surgical glue for my incisions and I think that makes a difference. Good luck, you'll do great and it is soo worth it!!!

So I'm about a week post-op and starting to feel much better. The first few days were rough. It was really painful. The breast reduction was a piece of cake. I had almost no pain at all and the drains came out after 2 days. The only thing that is uncomfortable is that I have to wear this special bra 24/7 for six weeks. It's pretty comfortable, but it is white and shows if my shirts are not really high up on my neck. At first, my breasts looked kind of uneven and I was paranoid that they were not symetrical, but as they are healing, they look good. I'm very happy so far with them. As for the abdominoplasty, this sucker hurts! First, your stomach muscles just kill you because the surgeon sews them together really tightly so getting up and down out of a bed or chair or whatever is really painful. Then, your sutures start to really hurt so you can't straighten out because your skin has been stretched and sewn together. I had to learn that they key is to keep your legs as close to your abdomen as possible so that it limits the stretch. The good thing is that they gave me 2 different narcotic pain killers and valium to help relax your stomach muscles. This did keep the pain tolerable. The first two days are the worst and then it gets better. Now, I almost forget about the pain until I go more than 4 or 5 hours without pain pills and then the pain reminds me. I've stopped taking the really heavy pain killers and the valium, so now I'm taking the loratabs about every 5 or 6 hours as needed. I can get up and down without too much pain and am feeling pretty good. My stomach looked bad the first time I saw it. It is sagging and my new belly button is gross and ragged. The plastic surgeon's office swears that my stomach will be flat and tight but it's not yet. It has gotten better as the days go on. Apparently there is a lot of swelling right now that is causing it to be lumpy and saggy. I guess that's why I have to wear compression garmets for 4 weeks. I am already sick of this compression garmet. But, I could live with that because it's really not that bad. It's not that tight. It's kind of like wearing a spanx bodysuit. The worst part is that I still have 2 surgical drains that fill up with blood and fluid. There are two tubes, once coming out of each hole in my hip. The tubes lead to plastic drains about the size of light bulb. These fill up with fluid and you have to empty them and record the measurements about 3 or 4 times a day. THe problem is that they are a pain to carry around. I have to sleep on my back because of them which I've gotten used to, but you have to find a way to hide them under your clothes. I went to the grocery store with my mom today and I thought they were going to stop me because I look like I"m shoplifting because of the outlines of these plastic things under my pants. I have a doctor's appt. tomorrow at 9:30am and there is a possibility that they will take them out, but I'm doubting that they will because they are still filling up with fluid regularly. The good news is that I am currently at 200.3 pounds on my home scale. I was at about 213 or 214 prior to surgery. I always weigh at least 3 pounds less at the lap band doctor's office. I'm just waiting and waiting for the scale to read 199. I'm ready to be in onederland! I have been eating pretty normally. My band isn't very tight but I haven't had a huge appetite but have been eating pretty well. I still have a lot of swelling so I'm hoping when that goes down, the scale will too. They took off 11 pounds when they did the surgery, so that means I've lost a few more since then. I also actually have a waist! Once I get these drains out, I can wear clothes other than sweats. I'm really looking forward to still having 5 weeks off of work to recuperate! My mom just left town but I'll probably go visit my parents in Orlando in a couple of weeks. For now, I'm just relaxing and keeping in touch with my friends here.

So I had my surgery for breast reduction and abdominoplasty on Tuesday. They said it went really well. I did have a lot of pain and discomfort, but I am also heavily medicated, so I've been sleeping all the time. The breasts really don't hurt at all, but the stomach muscles hurt a lot the first day, and the sutures have hurt the past two days. I have my follow up appointment today. They removed 11 pounds altogether. I haven't seen the results yet because I'm in this body "armor" and support bra and I can't take it off until after my post-op appt today. I'm almost afraid to see it because I know it's going to look bad at first. I did look down right after surgery and was woah!! and the nurses thought something was wrong, but I said, my stomach is gone! It was a really great feeling. My mom is here taking care of me. I think it would be almost impossible to do this without someone here because I need her help just to get in and out of bed. The stomach hurts alot whenever I move, but as long as I stay still, everything is okay. My back and neck are really sore from having to sleep in the same position. All in all, not super fun and very uncomfortable, but not intolerable and definitely worth it if it ends up looking/feeling good. I'll post more soon.

Thanks so much for the support!

I work out hard at least 3x a week and have loose skin on my belly, chest, upper arms and upper thighs that won't go away. My insurance just approved me for a breast reduction and abdominoplasty and I'm scheduled for surgery on Oct. 5th. They are paying 100% and I a very excited. My next worse area is my arms and I am willing to pay the $4000 to get them fixed, but my surgeon says that I will have to wait, as they can only do so much surgery at one time. I know I will have scars and that it will hurt, but I have to wear shapewear every day and I live in FL so it is HOT! Also, I look terrible in a swimsuit or without clothes on. I'm super excited about the prospect of a flat stomach and firm boobs!

Okay, so I haven't posted on here in forever. I've been kind of just caught up in my life, which I guess is a good thing. I also haven't had anything significant going on with my weight or the band. I haven't had a fill since last December and I haven't lost anymore weight. I have been working out regularly and I think I have more muscle and less fat. I'm still around 210 pounds though. I went for a consult with a plastic surgeon and I've been approved for a breast reduction and an abdominoplasty. My insurance is going to cover it 100%!!!!! I am really excited about this. The surgery is scheduled for October 5th. I am 5'9" and have a large frame, and I truly felt like I was going to have trouble losing any more weight. The plastic surgeon said that there wasn't much fat left--it was mostly all skin, which makes sense after losing 120 pounds. I can't even imagine myself with a flat stomach and firm boobs. My ultimate goal is to be able to jog. I can somewhat job for like a minute at a time, but my overall fitness is pretty good but I'm weighed down by the weight on my upper body. I am happy I haven't gained any weight and I've settled into a pretty healthy eating routine. I'm hoping that this plastic surgery gets me where I want to be, or at the least gets me able to exercise the way I want to. I could play tennis again! In case you don't understand what a big problem I have, the surgeon says he's going to take about 7 or 8 pounds off of my chest. In other news, I was dating an older guy for about 3 months and he just dumped me via email. Then I found out that he's been dating someone else for a couple of weeks now. How many times am I going to let my heart get broken? Everything in my life is going awesome except for my love life. I guess I shouldn't let that get me down. I need to focus on me right now anyway. I'm going to have about a month off work to recover and my mom is going to be here for the first week. Will my stomach really be flat? Will I be able to buy single digit bra sizes? I am so excited!Tags: lap band

Thanks for all of the support!!!