Jackson-Pratt drain and Blake drain management for body plastic surgery

Hi, this is Dr. Erica Anderson, and I'm the breast and body specialist at the Nadiri Center. And what I want to review with you today is basically management of your drain. So occasionally with surgery, I'll have to leave a drain behind that helps manage the fluid after some of our body procedures. Some examples would be a tummy tuck, sometimes with breast exchange of implants and breast reconstruction. Typically we're using a drain, so I wanted to make sure you knew what it looked like in advance. And then also if you needed to refer back to this so that if you had a question and couldn't reach us, this is a nice place to look for guidance. So this is a Blake drain. This is typically what I'd use. If I have to use a drain. It's a channel drain, and basically half of it will be left in the body. If you can imagine this part being left in the body, this black mark, which you might be able to see, is usually what's at the skin. And there's a suture holding this in place. So you might see this a little crimped, actually, when it's in your. If it's on you. I typically have this covered with a dressing, so you don't even have to worry about that. But the part that you'll worry about is the rest of it. And it's varying length. I trim it to fit you. And the key with a drain, any of these drains is that this should be depressed in order to make it work. So it has to be crimped in order to make it work. If it's not crimped, it's basically acting as a gravity drain only and not providing that suction that we need. So you basically have to squeeze it and then put this in to make that drain work. Okay. And then it will fill up with fluid. And then when you go to change it three or four times a day, depending on your drainage, basically you just take the cap out, you empty it, you record how much you're emptying. So you can see on here there's a graduated guiding measure. So you can just estimate how much is in there. You'll empty it, and then again, the key is to put it back on suction. The other thing to note is that this can be red, this can be yellow, there can be little fibrin particulates. Sounds gross, but it's totally normal. And everything that you'd expect. If you feel like your drains getting clogged, which this sometimes happens either in the middle of the night or on the weekend. And you can do what's called milking the drain. And that's where you or your loved one holds it stable close to your body. And then you pull on the drain to strip or milk that drain. And that just helps kind of move things through. So you can see you'll just be able to milk or strip. So let's say the drain is draining around the hole and not through the channel. Then typically, I'll say, why don't you try to strip that drain or milk that drain to just get any clot or any debris that might be out. So that that's a nice trick for that. Otherwise, you want to keep this pinned to something stable. If it's pulled on at the skin, it can be quite painful, and you can actually rip this out. So be careful with your drain. I try not to use them very often, but if the benefit outweighs the grossness of it, I will use it. And it would. Typically it's in just for a week, maybe a little bit longer, depending on your output. So hope this helps. This, again, is a Blake drain that's used for a lot of the body contouring surgery that we do. Just use this as a reference if you have any questions or problems about that drain. Thanks.