I had excess skin removal surgery completed by Dr. Wallace as a result of losing nearly 200 lbs. I had skin removed from my chest, abdomen, and inner thighs. My chest and abdomen recovery were both pretty uneventful so this will primarily focus on the inner thigh recovery process I experienced, since it was a bit more involved. Dr. Wallace forewarned me that the thighs would be the most difficult recovery process due to the general high functioning area where the incisions are located and due to the area also being generally humid and damp. I tried to find some resources on this recovery process online both before the surgery and during my recovery process but could not find anything to really prepare me for, or help me through my experience, so I wanted to make this to help others understand what theirs might be like. Some things I learned:
Surgery Date 5/27 (Pre-Op Left vs. 1 Day Post-Op Right)
6/5 (9 Days Post Op)
6/6 (10 Days Post Op)
At this point I have had 5 of 6 drains removed and am able to move around enough that I am showering myself and able to bend over enough to sort of inspect my thigh incisions on my own. I had noticed quite a bit of blood on my toilet seat after my bowel movements and wanted to make sure everything was ok with my incisions during my shower, so I took some pics. I was a little concerned at this point, because the incisions were not fully closed and to someone not in the medical field or familiar with wound care, they looked rough, especially compared to how tightly closed all my other incisions were. Dr. Wallace responded promptly to my text on Sunday night (even though he was on a camping retreat with his son) and assured me the incisions look normal and the separation was nothing to worry about.
6/9 (13 Days Post Op)
I went to shower today and when I was applying my antibiotic ointment to my thigh incisions, they felt much bigger than I remembered and decided to inspect them. As you can see in the pictures the open wound is much bigger than just 3 days prior (ignore the white cream that is the antibiotic ointment I applied). Again, being unfamiliar with this process I was a bit freaked out. I sent pics via text to Dr. Wallace, he again reassured me this was normal, but wanted to see me anyway to put something on the wounds to help the healing process. I was able to see him the next day where he removed my final drain and applied something to the wounds. It stung a little, but not bad at all.
6/12 (16 Days Post Op)
7/6 (40 Days Post Op)
At this point I was cleared to start working out my upper body at the gym since all my other incisions were in great shape. The thighs were slowly getting better, but I started to notice that my left thigh incision was opening back up where it previously seemed completely healed and fully closed. This was concerning because it seemed like an obvious step backwards in the healing process. Also, my right thigh, which had improved and was healing, seemed to stall and was still a pretty large wound. I messaged Dr. Wallace about this on 7/7, he assured me, again, this was normal but wanted me to see him on 7/9. What was really interesting was that from 7/6 to 7/9, somewhere in there the thigh incisions stopped bleeding, especially the right one and seemed to rapidly start healing. Then on 7/9 Dr. Wallace applied that same treatment to my wounds to promote healing and had me come back in 2 weeks on 7/27.
7/26 (60 Days Post Op)
I had an appointment scheduled for 7/27, but with my thigh incisions healing so well I messaged Dr. Wallace to see if pictures would suffice. Once Dr. Wallace saw the pictures and he was pleased with the progress and agreed that the appointment was unnecessary. At this point I stopped putting any sort of bandage or dressings on these wounds and they healed up perfectly. I am not sure at what exact date they were completely closed because from here until that point, I did not feel or notice any differences or any changes and was not inspecting them regularly. I would pay more attention to them when showering but can’t recall noticing that they were fully healed on a certain date.
9/5 (101 Days Post Op)
Here are some pictures of what they look like today, as I write this. I could have probably taken fully recovered “after” photos with the same result about a month ago on 8/5 which would have been exactly 10-week post op, but I was busy getting ready for my wedding and then was on a 2-week honeymoon, so this was not top of mind at the time.
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