Cosmetic Question: I really need a tummy tuck with muscle repair. What is the best way to deal with the pain after surgery?
Answer:
Tummy tuck pain is from muscle spasm, ‘ the world’s worst charley horse’. Every time you try to sit up, cough or breathe deeply, you have horrible pain. Today you can have a low-pain tummy tuck thanks to Exparel. This is a long- lasting local anesthetic, bupivacane, that has been packaged into lisosome packets that release slowly over several days. It can give you up to 3 days of pain relief after surgery.
With Exparel, a number of things change. First, you have much less pain so you can get up and walk, stretching the muscle, which helps the muscle get out of spasm. Being able to walk from the start lowers the risk of blood clots. You need less narcotics and sedatives so you breathe better. Exparel stops the body from getting into a pain cycle, in which severe pain becomes harder and harder to control.
Although Exparel adds to the cost, I strongly recommend it for tummy tucks, for comfort and to reduce your risk of blood clots. How effective is it? The plastic surgery nurses at my main hospital all had Exparel for their tummy tucks once it came out. They became immediate fans.
Exparel cannot be used in obstetric paracervical blocks, in people with liver disease or in people with allergies to amide local anesthetics. It is ideal for cosmetic patients having surgeries that cause days of severe muscle pain, such as tummy tucks, under-the-muscle breast implants and calf implants.
Exparel helps you get up and moving from the start. It makes a riskier, high-pain, miserable recovery into a lower risk, easier one. If I were having a tummy tuck, I would have Exparel and I recommend it to all my patients. However, because of the extra cost not everyone chooses to have it, but I consider it well worth it.