The following post from our forum is from a man who had Panniculectomy, Gynecomastia & Plication Surgery two weeks ago after losing 100 lbs of weight. He is surprised at the amount of swelling and fluid retention after his operation.

Date: 11/01/2011 Submitted by: Mark2 Weeks After Surgery (Panniculectomy, Gynecomastia & Plication Surgery)

Hi Tanner – 2 weeks post surgery and still have one drain, about 50cc daily.

Seeing surgeon for follow-up tomorrow. By far the most surprising part of the ordeal so far has been the post surgery bruising, swelling and fluid retention. Even the surgeon has been surprised at my reaction. Lucky me. Am hoping he manually drains me tomorrow. Otherwise not feeling too bad. Worked 1/2 day today and am bushed. More to follow. Thanks for your inspiration. Mark

RESPONSE

Date: 11/01/2011 Submitted by: Tanner

Mark,

50 cc per day? Your getting very close to drain removal time (roughly 30 cc per day for two consecutive days is what I was told). I wouldn’t be
surprised if the surgeon removed your drain tomorrow.

I know what you mean with the swelling. I don’t remember how long it was forme but it seemed like a very long time before my swelling went down. For weeks after the surgery I kept thinking to myself “maybe I should have lost more weight before I had the surgery”, but most of that turned out to be the swelling.

Many people want to know about going to work after surgery. Did you feel that you were ready to go back after two weeks or could you have used some more time to re-cooperate? Also could you tell me if you have a desk/office job or a job with a lot of physical activity?

Let me know how the follow-up visit goes. Good luck tomorrow.

Tanner

Follow-up Message
Hi Tanner – just got home from the follow up appt. Drain will stay in until at least Friday (have another appt. scheduled). He did drain both sides of my chest and got 625 cc of fluid total. Whew. No pain at all – he shot a local into the area first. Everything else is actually feeling a bit better day by day.

As far as going back to work goes, I probably need three weeks of rest. I’ll handle a couple hours per day at the office this week and am able to get a lot done from home. My job is a desk job and two weeks probably would have been enough for just the tummy tuck, but the two additional procedures probably knocked me out a bit.

I’ll keep you informed and hopefully someone can benefit from my experiences.

Mark