The following post is personal, very personal. Not only am I sharing what it is like to go through tumescent liposuction for lipedema, but I’m sharing the pain, my body, and my experience as there is very little current experiences from women going through this out on the internet. I think it’s very important that if you’re considering surgery, you know what you’re in for.
Please feel free to share the link to my post, the only thing I ask is my blog to be given credit. Thank you, Petra.
My husband and I actually arrived in Rotterdam Tuesday night to stay at the CitizenM hotel a short 5 minutes walk away from the clinic, since the tumescent liposuction on my left thigh would take place early in the morning the next day (7:45am to be exact…yuck!).
I won’t talk about my hotel stay in this post, but you can check out Staying at a Hotel After Tumescent Liposuction here.
Wednesday April 13, 2016 in Rotterdam – The day for tumescent liposuction on my left thigh has arrived!
It was a rather beautiful morning for both Rotterdam and the Netherlands in general, so my husband and I decided to take a short walk from the hotel to the clinic. I didn’t realize when we drove into Rotterdam the night before, since it was dark and I had other things on my mind, that our hotel was actually right next to the famed Cube Houses.
In total, it took about 7 minutes to make the walk to the clinic. I’m sure it would have taken 5 if I was wearing my normal hiking boots, but I decided to wear the lighter weight slippers I’d be wearing after the tumescent liposuction surgery. When I got to the clinic, it was 7:45am and unlike last time, I was let in right away to go get changed in the locker room.
I’m not going to go into the description of this first part of getting ready for my tumescent liposuction surgery or the actual prep to get on the table since it pretty much went exactly like it went for my Calf Liposuction. <– Click on the link if you want a full description of the getting ready as it was exactly the same.
The only real differences was I had to wear a medical bracelet this time where there was none last time, the doctor actually drew his topographical map on my thigh, and they gave me all of the pain meds and drowsy pills at once since I was the first patient of the day. I also had nurses I’d never seen come in to see my calves since the result is better than everyone expected…
Oh, and the surgeon decided to help the nurses dowse me in the iodine solution. In between my toes with a cold, wet sponge to be exact.
Infiltration of the tumescent liposuction fluid into my left thigh…
Since the medication to make me drowsy hadn’t fully hit me yet, I was wide awake for the infiltration part of the liposuction surgery. The first puncture and jet of fluid under the skin burned. This time around they gave me squishy balls to murderize, I actually put my finger through one of them. Ooops.
Now, if I didn’t mention it in the description of liposuction on my calves, the device my surgeon uses to infiltrate vibrates as it squirts the tumescent liposuction liquid in. Since this surgery wasn’t only the left thigh, but the front and back of the left knee as well, this thing vibrated right on my knee. That was one of the weirdest sensations I’d felt. And of course this thing vibrating straight on my quad was also another really weird, almost painful sensation. However, as soon as the local anesthesia started taking over from the tumescent fluid, the burning went away.
Unlike last time where the doctor left me for about 40 or so minutes, they only left me for 20 minutes (apparently last time he had to deal with the other patient that had come in before me so it took a little longer).
Since the time was much shorter, my lower back didn’t become quite as miserable as last time. Plus, I was able to lay kind of turned on my hip so my full weight wasn’t on the arch of my lower back. So that kept things tolerable this time around.
Time to suck out the nasty lipedema fat…
In total, the surgeon spent about 2 hours sucking out the fat from just my left thigh and around my knee. One of the reasons it takes so long (and the results are good) is he uses a vibrating micro cannula vs. the traditional cannula that is much faster, but can leave the area uneven and lumpy.
Around this time the medication they gave me started to kick in and I was dozing while the fat was being sucked out over my quad and in the “saddle bag” on my inner thigh. He also started removing the fat on the front of my knee. After what felt like around 30 minutes, he asked me to roll on my side and he started working on the side of my thigh and the side of my knee.
A little while later he got me to roll over on my stomach so he could do the back of my thigh and knee.
In total, he had me roll over like I was on a rotisserie a few times while he sucked and sucked away that fat. When I was on my left side, I could actually watch the fat go through the tube and hit the canister. I know it’s probably gross, but it was really satisfying to watch lump after lump of fat get sucked through the vacuum tubing.
Unlike the calves, where the very front of the shins, very back of the calves, and around the ankles hurt like hell, the only place that it hurt bad enough that I cried out was around my knee and right behind the knee. There were a few spots on the upper thigh by the point where he was stopping the sucking that got a little painful, but it was maybe a 4 on the pain scale. The knee? That was an 8. If I could have punched something to get through the pain, I would have. As it was, I had lost both squishy balls by this time from the continual rotating he had me doing on the table.
How many liters do you think got sucked out?
So, based on these pictures, how many liters of fat do you think that they sucked out of my thigh? The starting measurements are as follows:
Above Knee: 23 inches (58.4cm), Middle thigh: 30.5 inches (77.5cm), Upper thigh: 34.5 inches (87.6cm)
Would you believe it if I said just over 7 liters (almost 2 gallons)?! When the nurse had me look in the corner behind the liposuction machine to see the 3.5 canisters of fat, I had trouble picking my jaw up off the ground. THAT was a lot of fat. I’m apparently not the biggest thigh he’s had to operate on, but I’m in there. I can’t wait to see the results from this procedure because as of right now, my knee is about the same as before the tumescent liposuction procedure, my mid thigh is about 28 inches, and my upper thigh is also around 28 or 29 inches.
Aftercare of the tumescent liposuction on my left thigh
Like with my calves, the nurses got my thigh all patched up with plasters and pulled on 2 thigh high compression stockings. Then they wrapped my leg in plastic and put the trash bag over it again since my husband would have to drive me the short distance from the clinic to the hotel (I wanted to walk it since it’s less than 7 minutes at a shuffling pace, but the nurse said absolutely not).
The nurses got me off the table, got my gown all presentable again (not that it left much to the imagination since my stomach makes it gap open), and got me to the bed so I could get some tea, broth, and something solid to eat while I waited for my husband who was MIA (he had to drive home to give the cat a pill…I was out at 12 and we thought it would be a little longer.
Since they couldn’t get through to my husband, they brought me my cell phone so I could text him. As you can see, at this point I wasn’t in too bad of shape…
Back at the Hotel Room after Tumescent Liposuction on the Left Thigh
One of the things that I felt could have gone better on my calves was getting all of the tumescent fluid out ASAP. Since we didn’t leave Rotterdam until about 6:30pm and I had a 2.5 hour car ride home, I wasn’t able to really get up and walk around the day of the surgery.
Since I was back in my hotel room by 1pm, I was determined to walk out as much of the fluid as I could. I didn’t take any pictures of this because aside from the compression garments, I was naked due to the mess I was creating.
I said before, and I will keep saying it, tumescent liposuction if done properly is MESSY. What goes in, has to come out again and I had several puncture wounds we just couldn’t keep bandages on that were above the compression garments. At a certain point we gave up and just let it leak. About 2 hours into the leaking everywhere, my husband had house cleaning come up and give the floor a good mop (poor girl) and finally house keeping gave him an old rag he could wet and use as a mop himself, rather than following me and mopping up as I walked.
After a good 15-20 minutes of walking, I’d go lie in the bed and doze (the drowsy meds were still in my system) and then as my muscles started getting stiff I’d feel the need to walk again. This went on pretty much the rest of the day and all night long.
A CSI Worthy Scene in the Bathroom…
One thing I didn’t anticipate was using the toilet. The surgeon sucked out fat up to the point where my thigh starts becoming my buttocks. So of course when I sit on the toilet, part of my thigh is on the seat. As the tumescent fluid was processed by my body and as I sucked down water like a woman lost for days in the desert (god this surgery made me thirsty, I don’t remember being that thirsty after my calves), I had to pee. A lot.
At first it wasn’t too big of a problem since the local anesthesia was still at work in my thigh. But as the day wore on and I kept having to pee my brains out, the local stopped working and the pain when I had to pee set in.
Aside from the pain, sitting on the toilet also created another interesting situation. It caused pressure, which in turn caused me to leak down the outside of the toilet bowl into one big red liquid puddle. Luckily the toilet was located in the same enclosure as the shower so it was easy for my poor enduring husband to deal with.
Something I wasn’t prepared for – actual blood
Around 8 or 9pm, something started to happen that neither my nurses or the surgeon had mentioned. Instead of the red tinged tumescent liquid, that was perfectly normal, I was dripping actual blood.
Apparently, this can happen in the butt, hips, thighs and stomach but nobody sent me the memo. I called my surgeon in a panic who said that it could happen and is relatively normal. Just find something about a meter or two high to put my leg up on to have the blood travel towards my heart and I’d be fine. The only thing I needed to watch out for is too much blood loss and I needed to watch out for wooziness and an increased heart rate for no reason.
Luckily, the trick of putting my leg up worked and the bleeding eventually stopped. In fact, really by about 3am most of the tumescent liposuction fluid had been pushed out of my body. When I walked, it was only a few little drips here and there.
The next morning…a fountain of red fluid
The next morning I took my compression garments off as instructed so I could take a shower and clean myself up. Most of the plasters over the puncture wounds came off with the stockings, but there were a few stubborn ones that insisted on staying properly glued to my limb. So I had to soak it up.
Now, one of the things they warn for is becoming light headed and woozy when you take the garments off the first time. This didn’t happen with my calves, but we came prepared with a shower seat just in case…
So at some point I pulled the plaster off of the puncture wound below my knee and for a good solid minute there was a graceful arch of red tinged fluid shooting out of my knee. I laughed and then yelled for the chair because all of a sudden the loss of blood pressure got to me.
Then the nausea started and I crawled over to the toilet and started dry heaving. Luckily the sushi I made my husband go and pick up for me at 3 in the morning had long digested and nothing but a little water came out. Then it was back into the shower so I could let the warm water soak into my skin and try to recover from that little incident.
Now I know what the nurses and surgeon was talking about with possibly becoming woozy the day after…
While my husband set about packing up our stuff and preparing to take me to my checkup, I laid in bed and tried to get the world to stop spinning.
The next most painful thing ever…fitting compression garments for liposuction of the thigh
Probably the first most painful thing in this particular ordeal was sitting on the toilet after all of the local anesthesia in the tumescent liposuction fluid drained away. The second most painful thing was getting fitted with my daytime, thigh high, compression stocking.
When the nurse started showing my husband some tips and tricks to get it on, it was all fun and giggles until she pulled that damned thing over my knee onto my thigh. If there was anyone in the waiting room of this part of the clinic (they also do other skin treatments for dermatological issues), I’m sure after they heard my scream they noped their way on out of the clinic. Or at least that’s what I like to picture.
After batting the nurse’s hands away and loads of deep breathing, she got me up on my feet so I could help pull the garment up my thigh all the way.
I swear that so far, putting this mother Fing stocking on (and the night time stocking) is more painful than the actual surgery. At least all of the fluid is out of my leg now and I’m not leaking through. So yay for small victories? It still mother Fing hurts…
Now recovery is started and eventually the memory of the pain will fade. Keyword eventually.
This hurts. I grossly under estimated the pain from having my thigh done since the calves really weren’t all that bad. Compared, the calves were a cake walk. It hurts to sit down (it’s ok once sitting), it hurts to adjust yourself when sitting, it hurts to get in the car, it hurts getting out of the car, it hurts like a mother Fing nightmare when I stand up and all the pressure rushes back into where the compression of my sitting was…
But, yesterday, the day after surgery I was already going out for rather long walks around the neighborhood.
Today I put in almost a full day of work, pacing back and forth as usual as I yelled at people via Skype. I also went to a Costco like store with my husband to pick up some stuff for a birthday party we’re going to tomorrow. Oh, and I spent a full 1o minutes on the cross trainer at the gym since all my other muscles demanded it from all of the work my muscles are doing to hoist and move myself around.
When I move my body around in bed, it’s basically bridges and hip thrusts, or even planks as I settle myself. Getting in and out of the car is upper body strength as I raise and lower myself in and out of the car by holding onto the railings on the roof.
Getting up is nothing but one legged squats, my poor right quad is officially screaming at me now.
So yea, I can say recovery has started. It hurts like the dickens, but eventually this pain will fade just in time to do the right thigh 6 weeks from now.
To Day 5 Post Op on Liposuction of the Left Thigh
PetraAnn
Latest posts by PetraAnn (see all)
- ABDOMINOPLASTY WEEK 6 POST-OP - January 29, 2020
- ABDOMINOPLASTY DAY 20 POST-OP - January 7, 2020
- ABDOMINOPLASTY DAY 18 POST-OP - January 6, 2020
2 thoughts on “Tumescent Liposuction on the Left Thigh: Surgery Day”