Choosing to pursue plastic surgery can be a big decision, and once you have, you might want to jump right in with both feet. But wait! Plastic surgery procedures can have a wide range of recovery times and can impact your life for months after the surgery, even if you don’t have any unexpected experiences. Planning your surgery date carefully can help you to have less stress during your recovery period! Read on for four tips on how to plan the timing of your procedure.
Remember: Recovery Time Can Vary
A procedure like a Mommy Makeover is actually multiple procedures done at once—as you might imagine, that’s going to involve a longer recovery time than something less invasive like liposuction in a limited area of the body. However, even minimally invasive procedures will impact you: aesthetic procedures like DermaPlane or a peel may result in tender red skin for a few days while your body recovers.
In addition,recovery times can vary a lot even within one procedure. Different people heal at different rates. And even if you heal fast, something incidental like getting a bad cold during recovery might slow down your time to get back to 100%.
Make sure you talk to your doctor about expected recovery times, asking for a range that they consider to be normal. Also, be honest: if you know you tend to push yourself too hard, or you have a lot of duties around the house that will have your attention, make sure they know and can take that into account.
Consider Your Work Patterns and How Recovery Might Affect You
You probably wouldn’t want to get a facial treatment a couple days before a big meeting with your boss’ boss, right? Even if you have ample sick time, thinking about your busy times at work can help you decide on timing. If you plan two weeks off but then come back to the office in your busiest time, you’re likely to make yourself exhausted and slow down your internal recovery time!
Have Travel Plans or Another Event? Plan Ahead!
Some people plan their surgery around a big vacation, wedding, or other important life event. Again, here’s where the range of possible recovery times can be important. Don’t assume you will be at the short end of the recovery range because you’re young, or healthy, or you tend to bounce back quickly after a cold. The last thing you want is to end up spending your big holiday holed up in the hotel (or worse, at home). Even if you’re able to go out and about, no one wants to feel lousy on their honeymoon if it can be avoided. Make sure to give yourself lots of extra buffer time to help ensure that you feel your best.
Make Sure Your Support System Is Available
You will heal most quickly and fully if you have a strong support system of family, friends, or other caregivers who are able to help you not just straight out of the hospital, but in the weeks to follow. This can be especially true for parents—without a strong support system, you will be back running around after your kids sooner than you should, which can result in slowing down the overall healing process so that it takes you longer to get to 100%.
Having family and friends chipping in to help you with everyday tasks from childcare to mowing the lawn is amazing, and many of our patients say that their easiest healing came when they had a lot of people to help them in the weeks after their surgery (and in some cases, in the early recovery time following that period). As a result, it can be useful to think about what sorts of logistics might be affecting them. Are your parents coming out to help with childcare? Think about if they have social obligations or other family members that might have particular needs at certain times of the year. If you know that your best friend is going to be chipping in with dinners, consider their work schedule and when their busiest season is, as well as your own.
When it comes down to it, recovering from surgery takes time, and we have busy lives that means there’s never a perfect time for it. But by considering your needs and your specific circumstances, you can make plans to make your recovery go as smoothly as possible. Ready for the next step? Contact us to schedule a consultation!
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