After various plastic or cosmetic procedures (liposuction, mammoplasty, augmentation or reconstruction), your surgeon will highly recommend that you wear a compression garment. This is a post-operative garment made mostly from nylon and elastin, and plays a crucial role in speeding up the recovery after surgery.
The main goal of these garments is to make your recovery as comfortable as possible and to aid easy and safe wound healing.
The use of compression garments has become a standard in medical practice after surgery. However, many patients have questions about them, if they are useful, how they should be used on so on. We’re here to answer these questions.
Why should you wear a compression garment?
A vital part of your post-operative care is the use of compression garments. They not only improve your post-op prognosis, but also improve the healing process. Furthermore, compression garments stabilize the changes made through the procedure and also reduce the swelling and pain caused by the surgery. The recovery process is much smoother, your blood circulation is improved and there is a lower risk of developing post-op complications like blood cloths.
When is a compression garment useful?
Dr. Kotoske recommends using compression garments usually after the following procedures:
- Liposuction
- Facelift or neck lift surgery
- Breast surgery, whether they are breast lift or breast reduction
- Arm lift surgery
- Tummy tuck surgery
- Abdominoplasty
What are the benefits?
There are several benefits of wearing a compression garment after surgery.
Compression garment help reduce bruising
After each surgery, you can expect to have some bruising on the surgical site. This is completely normal. The tissue on the site sustained trauma during the procedure. But with the use of compression garments, you are preventing blood cells to migrate towards the skin which helps prevent bruising.
Reduces swelling
It’s important to keep your skin tightly to the underlying tissue in order for your surgical site to heal as fast as possible. Compression garments do exactly this. They hold the skin tightly, reduce swelling and improve healing.
Better blood circulation
After each surgery, there is a possible risk of developing blood cloths since your mobility is reduced and the blood circulation is poor. Blood cloths can be really dangerous especially if they get dislodged and start circulating. Wearing compression garments can help improve the blood circulation and reduce the risk of forming blood cloths. Furthermore, better circulation also reduced the risk of developing infections.
They can lessen the pain
Since compression garments reduce swelling and increase blood circulation, the healing process is much faster which means that it will be less sore and for a shorter period time. Also, by applying pressure to the surgical area, the pain will be significantly reduced.
Compression garment help you maintain your cosmetic surgery results
The aim of any cosmetic surgery is to provide you with a new look and better defined contours. Through the procedure, your body will be changed and in order to preserve the new look, those changes have to maintained until your body heals. So they provide a vital role to the aesthetic results of your surgery.
