It is now a week or so after your surgery and you are starting to look and feel better. The pain is getting less, you can move around better, and you are starting to look more human (provided no one looks too close) Now what comes next?
The most important thing that I tell all patients, regardless of the cosmetic surgery procedure, is that its takes longer for recovery than you ever thought. I am not talking about the major part of a recovery, such as significant pain or swelling, but the fine parts of recovery which no patient really anticipates. I am referring to……the small amount of residual swelling that only the patient mainly sees (and which may take a month or so to completely resolve), the numbness of the skin over the surgery site (which can take months to feel completely normal), or the stiffness or tightness that is felt as one gets more active and stretches further. Whether it be eyelid surgery or liposuction, the finer points of recovering from the surgery are usually not over when it comes time to return to work or go back out into the public.
When you are at this point in your recovery, you are in what I call phase two. Most patients are usually ‘over’ the concept of recovering at this point and would really like to get back to complete normalcy. I urge patience at this point (besides what else can you do?) and reassurance that everything is going normally is the best news that you can hear.
As a general rule, facial cosmetic surgery has little pain but takes two to three weeks to look non-surgical. Body cosmetic surgery has more discomfort (usually much more) but is not socially distracting due to coverage by clothing. Two to three weeks to feeling good is usually too short for most body cosmetic procedures (with the exception of breast augmentation) and four to six for a complete recovery is more common. That is why strenuous exercise should not be done before then.
Dr Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana