Hi guys I'm 31 F from Australia. I'm 5'6 and 125 kilos (275 pounds). I had my initial consultation for vertical gastric sleeve and will be getting it done on the 15th of March 2017.

It's 12 weeks till surgery and my biggest concern is loose skin. I can't see any way to get around it. I've read/watched heaps of blogs/vlogs and every one that has had vertical gastric sleeve surgery has loose skin to some degree.

I can already tell my problem areas will be my inner thigh, upper arms, lower stomach and breasts. After obsessively scouring the Internet I put together a list of things that might help get my skin in the best shape before my surgery date.

Am I being delusional or is it worth a shot?

- Adequate Water and healthy diet

- Vitamins (Vitamin A/C/E, Biotin, collagen)

- Bone broth

- Dry brushing

- Renu28/Bio Oil/Vitamin E cream/oil

- Weight training

- Swimming

- Pilates

- Compression garments

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Anything is worth a shot !

every one that has had vertical gastric sleeve surgery has loose skin to some degree.

This is the crucial line. Are you going to discover some combo-miracle approach that succeeds where others have failed? Probably not. On the other hand, it can feel good when you believe you are taking proactive steps, and feeling good is lovely. So, if you can afford ($$$) all of those things without any impingement on your finances, go for it! But if it is going to cause you financial stress, the emotional benefits of feeling good about being proactive will probably be canceled out. Your call.

A good diet and adequate hydration is essential for overall health, including your skin, but don't expect any miracles from it. The problem is with figuring out what might be helpful on this problem is that there are so many variables involved, not least of which is genetics, that is't difficult if not impossible to devise a proper test or study to evaluate how a particular product may work. It may provide some benefit for one person but not another. Someone may chime in online saying that they did x,y,and z and had little loose skin, but no one (not least of which is the person making the suggestion) can say whether they would have gotten the same result from doing nothing.

Various exercises, again, are good for overall health and may provide some benefit on the skin issue; your age and relative youth plays in your favor on this. Building musculature to replace the lost fat is useful in some places - think upper arms and thighs; building the pectorals can be useful particularly for the guys with manboobs, but unfortunately for the ladies, breasts are full of fat and they will probably need to be tightened or filled up. These things only work to some degree - people who are only moderately obese by WLS standards may get away with it while those in a more extreme starting state will still have more excess than can be filled with muscle. Also, think of the abdomin, how the "ideal" six-pack abs compare to the typical obese person's belly - there's no way that musculature is going to fill in the difference there!

As Bufflehead indicates, if if feels good that you are doing something proactive and it isn't inordinately upsetting your finances, they won't do any harm and they might help. Much like some of the diets that you may see people doing - there may not be any indication that they do anything beyond what the basic caloric restriction is doing, but people feel good doing something beyond the basics.

You can try whatever you want. Exercise helps some because the muscles grow a little to fill in the loose skin. But overall skin just can't bounce back after it has been stretched out so far. The problem isn't just weight loss surgery, losing weight by any method results in loose skin, even women who have been hugely pregnant (like with multiples) have problems with loose skin.

Even people who look thin can have problem areas. Why do you think shape wear is a billion dollar industry?

If it's going to happen, it's going to happen whether you do everything on your list or not. The sad fact is it mostly comes down to genetics and the amount of time you've carried the extra weight. What you'll see a lot of is people genetically predisposed to having good skin elasticity giving all the credit to hydration and cocoa butter, when those things likely didn't make a difference. So if you choose not to do those things, don't be hard on yourself if you have loose skin. It couldn't be helped.

But personally I'd rather be thinner and healthy with some saggy skin than have that skin filled to bursting with fat!

Thanks for all the replies

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I had the VSG in August of 2015, reached my goal weight months ago and have continued to lose, and still do not have any loose skin. So it's not true that everyone who has WLS will encounter this issue. There are a lot of factors to it, such as your age, genetics, the length of time you were at your highest weight, how much you lose, and how rapidly you lose, in addition to lifestyle choices such as nutrition, exercise, and self-care. I lost weight quite slowly, and I think this aided in my skin's ability to adjust. I'd plan on following the nutrition guidelines about food and drink, exercising daily as soon as you're cleared to do so, taking care of your skin but not obsessing over it, and being optimistic. I never encountered most of the fears I had prior to the surgery - no complications, no loose skin, no gauntness or premature aging, minimal hair loss, and I reached my goals.

There are many obstacles before you get to the loose skin stage

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I don't think it hurts to try! It's really so variable depending on your age, health, skin elasticity, etc. I was similar to you in starting stats. I did have skin on my tummy - excess enough that insurance covered a tummy tuck and panniculectomy at 18 months post op. My inner thighs have a little and my arms have more than I would like. The skin removal surgery for my stomach was TOUGH and I have no interest in doing it again for any other part of my body. I've come to accept that my skin may be looser than others in some areas, but it is well worth the sacrifice to be able to do the things I can do now, and to have gained so much of my self-confidence back.

So, I guess my point is, sure....I think it's worth trying all of those things. Why not!? But in the end, know that I would do the surgery 50 times over even with the saggy skin. It just really wasn't a deal breaker to me.