Dr. Barrett breaks down what's normal after plastic surgery and what's not. Swelling, firmness, and numbness are expected. But spreading redness, fever, or pus mean infection and need immediate attention. Early asymmetry usually resolves as tissues settle.
Dr. Barrett, normal or not normal post-surgery? Temporary firmness after surgery?
I mean, all that depends. Eyeball surgery is probably not normal, but you know, for most of the surgery that I do is normal. You're going to get some swelling and tightness, especially areas of liposuction or things like body contouring.
Increased redness, warmth, or pain?
It's on a spectrum, right? You plug those terms into Google, it's like, oh my God, you have a rampant infection. But there's a certain amount of warmth that happens from just normal healing, and that's why it's always important to have a close relationship postoperatively with your doctor to determine whether warmth is normal, redness is normal. Obviously, if it's spreading red, blanching red, that's way more concerning combined the fever. So it's all those other things that come with it that could be potentially damaging, or like pus is coming out, obviously infection, big problem.
Asymmetry early in the healing process.
Normal. I see that a lot of times with breast augmentation, like, you know, one side drops faster than the other. You can see it with a tummy tuck, somebody sleeps on one side. We used to see it a lot more when people use these foam boards with liposuction and a compression. You know, I don't really recommend those foam boards. Yeah, all that stuff can be normal. Good follow-up with your doctor helps work that out.
Numbness.
Very common after surgery, especially breast augmentation surgery. Anytime you do liposuction, you're going to get numbness. Facelifts, things like that, is normal. Numbness in a site that was not really related to the surgery, like your arms and your hands, and you didn't have surgery in your arms and hands, that could be a problem, right? Because that could be a positional thing, like on the operating room table. So those need to be investigated.
