Tips for Top Surgery Recovery

Have everything ready BEFORE surgery. Make sure you have Tylenol, gauze, medical tape, aquaphor, baby wipes. Get a cup with a reusable straw and keep water accessible always! I picked up a bidet at Walmart for about $30(I know... It seems intimidating but it's a life saver!!!). Pillows pillows pillows! I just had surgery less than 3 weeks ago! If you have any more questions please message me!!!

Easy food, button up shirts, easy to remove pants/shorts, rearrange your most used space/items so everything can be easily reach at about chest-face level, dry/leave on/wipable hygiene products for the period of time you can't shower, enough pillows to prop yourself/your arms up, benadryl for when the bandages start itching, so much entertainment, and my all time bestfriend was the grabber claw. I was given drainage tubes and a pain ball, which was a local anesthetic in a pressurized ball with two small tubes connected to the center of my chest, because of this a realized much much to late that during my homecoming someone should have put up my jumpy dog until i was safely seated with tubes out of reach. If you get tubes and have a pet that risks pulling them do not be like me, it was very painful and I almost had to go back to the hospital to get it put back. Also if you have drainage tubes prepare yourself for it to be gross and painful and annoying, it does an important job but because of the location they can be easy to bump and mine didn't get the local anesthesia because they were to far from the injection site. They were definitely the worst and most painful part and on top of that having them removed feels very unsettling. There is also sometimes some leakage, this scared me into thinking my nipple was infected and between my panic and an urgent care doctor's neglect it was drained and that ruined the results a bit. Make sure to look for other signs of infection like swelling and redness not just the leakage before panicking. Follow your surgeons advice as closely as possible, a lot of the reasons surgeries end up botched/wrong come from bad post OP care so be careful. And the last warning I can think of right now is a little tmi, wiping after using the bathroom is going to be the one of the hardest tasks you can do. I never really found a solution but I wish I had been warned and had a chance to try and practice first. I had to learn all of these things the hard way during or after my recovery, despite that and it getting way more complicated than it typically is top surgery was genuinely the best decision I ever made and im still very pleased with the results.

Get some easily made food, as cooking sucks during recovery Also, I wasn't allowed to sleep lying down... which I didn't realize until the day of surgery. Be prepared for some sleepless nights :/ I experienced minimal pain, but the lack of sleep sucked.

Button up shirts will be your best friend! Make sure you don’t mind getting blood on them though. Moving my arms up was basically impossible for the first two or three weeks, so button ups were a lifesaver. Also I had two drains and I had to empty them every night and I spilt a little bit and it stained my shirt. Aside from that, just make sure you have a good support system that can help you out, whether that be by carrying heavy things or by being emotional support. If you want to talk about anything I’m always down!

Lucky! Hope it goes well! I wouldn't know the first thing to tell you but congrats!

Congratulations in advance!! Hydrating lotion! After it has healed. :)

firstly, congrats!! i'm so happy to hear that:) i haven't got top surgery yet, but i've done a lot of research. the biggest things are: take more time off work/school than you think you need! one week probably isn't enough. have a set of 6 or so ice packs or bags of frozen veggies so you can rotate the packs. have someone with you for the first few days to help you get around! good luck!

No tips sorry, but I'm very happy for you!

Stay home and rest a lot