Great results, the recovery was a little gruesome

Posted at May 10, 2008

Smart Lipo: Was worth it
Cost: $7,500
Pain: Uncomfortable
Satisfaction: Very good

Two kids, one c-section, and all of me got small again except all around my midsection, I just had so much extra. I work out or run probably 6 days a week, for the last 2 years. So I went in for Smartlipo on upper and lower stomach, love handles, and back. Which is a lot of area really, it took 7 hours and they removed 1700 mls of extra me.
The procedure went great, the only part that was disturbing was the weird black string bikini underwear I had to wear. The post-op was pretty gruesome the first couple days, though. I was really bloated with the tumescent anesthesia. It was disturbing to look at for probably 3 days, I looked like I’d been chewed. Then came two weeks of looking like maybe Sharon Stone had icepicked me all over. Then a month of looking like I was packed with subdermal jellybeans. Weird, but okay.
Now two months later I look pretty awesome with clothes on. I don’t hang over my jeans and I can buy dresses and tops perfectly, basically if it fits at all I look great. Without clothes I still look a little like a science project, I have 14 scars from all the small incisions, and though my skin is way tighter my belly skin still looks like someone who had 2 kids, but you know what? Our bodies tell our stories to some extent, and I’m cool with what mine tells, both that I birthed children, and that I had this procedure. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life being mad at my body for not springing back, and it feels like a relief to know that this is really it for me.

Original review from realself.com