Recovery & Wellness

The weeks before an operation are the part of recovery patients have the most control over. There is a name for using them deliberately — prehabilitation — and the window that appears to matter is roughly four to eight weeks. Anything shorter than four weeks is generally too short to change much, and programs stretching beyond three months tend to be abandoned.

Some of what follows is worth starting as early as you can, because it takes time to matter.

• Medications and supplements. Several common ones — including over-the-counter painkillers and a number of vitamins and herbal supplements — affect bleeding and are stopped before surgery. The list is specific and it is longer than most people expect, so read the sheet rather than working from memory.
• Protein. Healing tissue is built out of what you eat. Dr. Haddock’s sheet asks you to take half your weight in pounds, add twenty, and treat that as your daily target in grams — so a 150-pound patient aims for about 95 grams a day. Start at least one to two weeks before surgery and keep going for at least two to four weeks afterward. That target sits at the low end of what is generally recommended around surgery, so if you are already getting more protein than that, that is fine. The protein sheet has the arithmetic and a list of foods with their protein counts.
• Nicotine. Nicotine in any form — cigarettes, vapes, patches, gum, pouches — narrows the small blood vessels that a reconstruction depends on. This matters more for flap surgery than for almost anything else in plastic surgery. Dr. Haddock asks patients to stop more than four weeks before surgery, and earlier is better. Talk to the team early; the timing is not the same for every operation.
• Help at home. Arrange it before you need it. Who is driving you, who is with you the first few nights, and who is looking after anyone who depends on you.

Recovery is not one timeline. A tissue expander, a DIEP flap and an abdominoplasty (tummy tuck) ask different things of you, and how long each stage takes is on the sheet for your operation and in what we tell you at your follow-up visits. What follows is the shape of it, not a schedule.

• Moving early, gently. Getting up and walking is part of the treatment rather than a sign you are ahead of schedule. It is also not the same thing as returning to exercise, which comes much later and is cleared operation by operation.
• Drains, if you have them. Many of these operations involve drains for a period afterwards. Looking after them is straightforward once we show you, and the drain care sheet is the reference to keep.
• Scars change for a long time. A scar keeps remodeling for many months after it has closed, so what it looks like early is not what it settles to. Keep a new one covered or under sunscreen while it is still changing. Usual scar guidance is to do this for the first twelve to eighteen months, because fresh scars darken with sun exposure and that change can last. The scar management sheet covers the rest; the products our patients use most are collected on Recovery Essentials.
• Sensation. Numbness in and around the operated area is usual afterwards and changes over time. How much of it returns depends on the operation, and it is a question worth asking about yours specifically.