Recovering from muscle plication surgery with tummy tuck
I had a muscle repair surgery with tummy tuck in September 2023. I read a lot beforehand, but I was still surprised. So here is my surgical recovery story. This is personal, and others will have different circumstances and experiences.
In hospital
I arrived on the Monday morning and welcomed by the staff at the private hospital. Pre-op tests and swabs had been done the week before. I had showered twice at home to ensure my skin was clean before I went in. I had stopped taking NSAID pain relief (nurofen and naproxen) for 3 weeks before hand. I was in a lot of pain with the diastasis, particularly in my pelvic joint (pubic symphysis). My husband dropped me off and my kids came to see me off at the hospital. I was shown up to my private, en suite room and given a few minutes to unpack and settle in. An array of nurses and the anaesthetist came to see me, filling in forms, checking on meds, doing obs and importantly ordering lunch and dinner from the menu. I changed into my hospital gown and my surgeon arrived to draw all over my tummy with purple pen. Everyone was very reassuring and I chatted to the doctor who took me down to the operating rooms. In a small room outside the operating theatre the anaesthetist did the final prep, adding monitors, wires and the IV tubes and very soon I was asleep.
I woke up a few hours later back in my room, wired up to everything. My arm had its IV, my legs were getting a very pleasant massage from a massage machine, to support my circulation. And I had drains coming out from my skin above my pubic bone and a urinary catheter. I checked my messages and connected with my husband over whatsapp. I snoozed on and off for most of the afternoon, spoke breifly to the kids, enjoyed my leg massage (which was a vast improvement over the injections I had after my C sections to avoid blood clots) and had a bit of food. By the time dinner rolled around I was very busy on whatsapp showing off about my delicious steak dinner and leg massage. It wasn’t all spa level care though. I was in some pain. The drains were uncomfortable and I couldn’t sit myself up without the aid of the bed lifting me. But I slept a lot and nurses came in regularly overnight to check my obs and my meds.
The next morning (day 2), they took the catheter out and now I had to get out of bed to go to the loo, which was maybe 2 meters from my bed. This required help. I needed to be unplugged from the leg massager, my IV needed to follow me and the drains needed to be carried with me. It was quite the expedition that first loo trip. But on my return I took the opportunity to sit in the chair rather than my bed. My surgeon was keen for me to mobilise. The physio came by and we walked together maybe 4 meters, just outside the door of my room. Pain levels were through the roof. Mostly because of the drains. Back to bed with some better pain meds and the pain eased fairly rapidly. I had visitors that afternoon. My parents popped by for an hour. Lovely but tiring. My three kids (5,3,3) and husband popped by for half an hour. Other than some objections that the TV in my room didn’t have CBeebies and that they were not allowed to climb on the bed with me, it was a delightful visit. But I was glad of the opportunity to snooze again when they left. And finally my brother in law and nephew popped by bearing sweets and books. I slept very well that night.
Week 1 at home
Day 3, I went home. The drainage had slowed down and the doc was happy for the drains to come out and for me to go home. They took the drains out and cannula out and I could shower before I went home. It was difficult to stand up straight, but nice to be clean again. The nurses needed to help me back into my compression garment and my compression socks. My feet were definitely out of reach. I was delighted to have the drains out, and a bit nervous of going home. But the kids were at school / nursery so it was just me, my husband and the dog at home. I had set up a garden lounger (a reclining ‘anti gravity’ style one) in my bedroom, with a kettle on the table immediately next to me. I had Netflix ready to go, and could make tea myself in my chair. I was already a much happier lady than I had been when I went into hospital. The kids were allowed in to visit me one by one and they sat on the bed next to me while we read stories and watched TV together. Getting up and down was still reasonably painful, but I could get to the toilet by myself, even if it was a slow journey.
Day 4 I started to settle into life at home. It was still pretty painful if I tried to sleep in my bed. Getting in and out and adjusting my pillows around me was very painful. The pain went all the way from my pubis to my ribs. Coughing was best avoided and sneezing felt like I was being stabbed with a lot of needles. But plenty of vitamin C and fresh air and generally applying standard covid precautions kept the germs at bay. I managed a shower at home, with my husband on stand by, and a stool in the shower to sit down on. I needed my husband to help me back into my compression garment and socks. But after this, day by day things started to get better.
Day 5, on a glorious September day, I chose to venture out into the sunny spot in the garden. A bit of fuss for my husband to set me up outside with chair, blankets, tea and snacks, but an utterly delightful afternoon watching the birds in the garden and feeling happy. I had not felt happy in a long time pre-op.
Day 6 onwards, We settled into a routine and this became the norm for a couple of weeks. I would sleep upstairs in my recliner and then move outside to enjoy the glorious Indian summer we were having. Visitors came by to chat. My kids managed to find ways to be near me without actually sitting on me. Either pulling up a chair next to me, or nesting between my feet on the floor. My husband and visitors kept me well supplied with food, tea and biscuits. I could move about to the loo happily and showering became easier each time. I still couldn’t stand up straight. At the weekend, we found support from mum friends who took our kids out for playdates and my brother in law who filled the kids up with pancakes. A surprising feature of my recovery at this stage was how very hungry I was. Apparently healing takes a lot of energy.
Week 2 and 3 (day 7 -21)
Day 7, I went back to see the surgeon for a follow up. Slow walking from waiting room to consult room, but not too painful. I was on paracetomol every 4 hours and this was leaving me quite comfortable. The bigger challenge as I moved around more was actually breathing. Having closed up the gap in my abs muscles, my diaphragm was now having to work against muscle to breathe rather than just inflating against lax tissue.
Day 9, a bit of a downturn this week as I developed a UTI, which was unpleasant. My GP sorted me out with antibiotics, but then my belly button started oozing, which wasn’t great. My surgeon responded rapidly to my concerns and gave me instructions for belly button care over the weekend, and booked me in for the Monday to take a look at the belly button. Fortunately, the antibiotics for the UTI were broad spectrum and so infections were kept at bay, but as it kept not quite healing, I went back to the surgeon who added a few more stitches in the problem area. My skin was still numb over the lower part of my belly including the belly button, so no pain at all from the additional stitches.
But I was moving about more and more in the house. I returned to sleeping in my bed, propped up on pillows with a neck pillow to support my head. I had hoped by week 3 to be able to walk the dog up the road, but I only made it three doors down the road before I decided to call it a day. As I became more active the kids noticed and their demands increased. I could wipe one kids bottom by this point, but doing all three was too much bending for me.
Week 4 and 5 (day 22 - 35)
A skin infection brought home by my son laid him low, and then spread to me and opened up a small section of the incision. Again, the GP was very prompt with antibiotics and my surgeon was keen to take another look and ensure this was all under control. But despite these minor set backs, my overriding feeling was that of joy. Happiness. The pain had reduced so much that I was forgetting to take my paracetamol. I spoke to my therapist who I had been seeing in the summer to help me navigate through severe depression, which had been getting worse despite the anti depressants. I re-did the depression scoring questionnaire and my score that had dropped to mild depression in week 2, was now ‘no depression’. I was sleeping better. I was not in chronic pain. I didn’t have headaches anymore. I could cope much better with the kids chaos and noise. Everything in my body felt like it was in the right place. When I did have issues, I could point to the exact place that the pain was, rather than the generalised, difficult to describe pain that I had been in before.
Every day I could do more. Every day I was in less pain. Every day I felt happier.
Bending at this stage was still tricky. I couldn’t manage bedtime for the kids yet because of the bending required. But the end of this difficulty was visible. Standing up straight was still tricky - walking to collect the kids from school was ok, but standing at the gate waiting was still pretty exhausting. But, I can engage my pelvic floor without thinking about it. Before the op it was a concerted mental effort to think through each muscle to engage my pelvic floor. And I could only do it if I also held my breath. But now, it just works. All muscles together, with barely a thought. And I can do it not only while I am breathing, but while I am walking and breathing!
Week 6 and 7
While I had been using my laptop on my chair, I returned to my desk and returned to work from my desk at home. It was a bit of a shock to the system, but taking it slow and resting back in the recliner when needed meant I could manage at least half a day at stretch at the beginning, and rapidly built up from there. I was able to walk the dog again, which brought more joy to my life. Slowly at first, but by the end of Week 7, I was walking down the hill to the common and back up the hill. Each day I was getting stronger and faster. And I went dancing! Ok, I only stayed for half the show. And ok, it was a school event very local in the school hall. But I danced! I had not danced in a whole year. When I did dance a year ago, which was my first outing dancing in two years after having the twins in lockdown, after just 20mins my back was screaming and my knees were shot. But I can dance again! And that is a joy.
