dianeseattle
Member
Okay, this is not a recipe for how to make bread. This is a message to help reduce pain in the many folds we find in our obese bodies.
Whether you are pre-surgical or post-operative, there's a better-than-average chance that you have folds of flesh on your body. For some people it gets even worse after surgery because as you lose the fat that is supporting your skin, it droops even more.
The fold that is under your belly button and above your pubis is called an "apron" by cosmetic surgeons. For many people this is the most painful of all the folds. As it droops, it creates a perfect environment for yeast cells to multiply and cause infections. If you have had surgery in the lower abdominal area, as I have for a hysterectomy and once for some bladder surgery, it gets even worse.
The surgical cure for the apron is called a panniculectomy. This is a surgery to remove the apron and also reduce the size of the pannis, which is the bulging skin that covers your pubis bone.
For some women, the pannis can become so fatty and large that it looks like you have a "package," as they say about the male anatomy. It also can increase in males and often causes the penis to be hidden in the fold.
After I lost all my weight, I began to develop very bad yeast infections under my apron, involving the scars. It could get so bad that I could not bear to touch it, even with soap in the shower. I just had to let water run over it and hope that it would feel better.
With a referral from my doctor, I consulted with a husband-wife team of cosmetic surgeons at Virginia Mason hospital, the same place my bariatric surgery was performed. I weighed about 140 lb about the time.
After I disrobed and the doctors looked at my post operative body, they were shocked. They said "If you hadn't told us you had weight loss surgery, we would never have guessed it." They said my apron was not drooping down enough to automatically qualify for this surgery. Still I applied to Virginia Mason for charitable care and it was granted to me so I could have the surgery.
My surgical team said that before they would do the surgery, they wanted me to get at least three opinions from doctors that my yeast infection was chronic and bad enough to qualify me for a panniculectomy.
The doctors also said the surgery was one of the most painful procedures to recover from because the incision was literally from pelvic bone to pelvic bone. Following the incision they also performed liposuction and a tummy tuck.
Even using those terms, this was not an elective cosmetic surgery. My job was to prove it was a necessary skin removal following RYGB surgery.
I was able to get the doctor referrals that were required to qualify me for a necessary surgery. But the doctors scared me so much about the pain and the recovery time that I did not take advantage of the grant that would have paid for my surgery 100%.
This is something Brenda knows about because she had her full body lift. After reading her details, I don't think I could do what she did. I am positive I could not deal with drains and also super positive I would not be able to give myself an injection of blood thinners everyday.
I don't know if injections and drains are part of the recovery from a panniculectomy, but it didn't really matter, because the initial recovery time frame required me to be in bed or sitting in a chair for a full 6 weeks before I would be allowed to walk again or drive a car or even stand up straight. I don't have a strong enough support system to help me get through that initial 6 weeks.
So I still have the apron and I still have yeast infections. I don't have them very often because I was able to tighten my stomach muscles a little bit with exercise and that was enough to allow my apron to be a little bit smaller and Tighter.
But during this time of self quarantine, without realizing it, I had a new growth of yeast cells under my apron. By the time I started noticing the itching, the scar tissue that was there was completely infected and red and I could not even touch it.
So this is what I did and also my tip to you if you have yeast in any of the folds on your body. Go to the pharmacy and buy Monistat in a tube or Tinactin in a tube. Both of these things are designed to kill yeast. One is to treat vaginal yeast infections, and the other to treat athletes foot, which is also yeast that presents as a fungus. Both of them work. And thank God you can buy generic versions of these, because the brand names are extremely expensive.
If you have a lot of folds and even buying the generics becomes too expensive for you, ask your doctor to write you a prescription and see if that works. Sometimes they won't write for something that is OTC. But if your yeast is presenting as a persistent disease or condition, they can write a prescription, and it is usually a double dose, like most medical prescriptions are, twice as much active ingredient as what they sell OTC.
As if it as if it weren't bad enough that we suffer so many comorbidities with obesity, we still have to deal with a silly little thing like yeast. But if you are able to use this topical treatment, you will feel a lot better.
Whether you are pre-surgical or post-operative, there's a better-than-average chance that you have folds of flesh on your body. For some people it gets even worse after surgery because as you lose the fat that is supporting your skin, it droops even more.
The fold that is under your belly button and above your pubis is called an "apron" by cosmetic surgeons. For many people this is the most painful of all the folds. As it droops, it creates a perfect environment for yeast cells to multiply and cause infections. If you have had surgery in the lower abdominal area, as I have for a hysterectomy and once for some bladder surgery, it gets even worse.
The surgical cure for the apron is called a panniculectomy. This is a surgery to remove the apron and also reduce the size of the pannis, which is the bulging skin that covers your pubis bone.
For some women, the pannis can become so fatty and large that it looks like you have a "package," as they say about the male anatomy. It also can increase in males and often causes the penis to be hidden in the fold.
After I lost all my weight, I began to develop very bad yeast infections under my apron, involving the scars. It could get so bad that I could not bear to touch it, even with soap in the shower. I just had to let water run over it and hope that it would feel better.
With a referral from my doctor, I consulted with a husband-wife team of cosmetic surgeons at Virginia Mason hospital, the same place my bariatric surgery was performed. I weighed about 140 lb about the time.
After I disrobed and the doctors looked at my post operative body, they were shocked. They said "If you hadn't told us you had weight loss surgery, we would never have guessed it." They said my apron was not drooping down enough to automatically qualify for this surgery. Still I applied to Virginia Mason for charitable care and it was granted to me so I could have the surgery.
My surgical team said that before they would do the surgery, they wanted me to get at least three opinions from doctors that my yeast infection was chronic and bad enough to qualify me for a panniculectomy.
The doctors also said the surgery was one of the most painful procedures to recover from because the incision was literally from pelvic bone to pelvic bone. Following the incision they also performed liposuction and a tummy tuck.
Even using those terms, this was not an elective cosmetic surgery. My job was to prove it was a necessary skin removal following RYGB surgery.
I was able to get the doctor referrals that were required to qualify me for a necessary surgery. But the doctors scared me so much about the pain and the recovery time that I did not take advantage of the grant that would have paid for my surgery 100%.
This is something Brenda knows about because she had her full body lift. After reading her details, I don't think I could do what she did. I am positive I could not deal with drains and also super positive I would not be able to give myself an injection of blood thinners everyday.
I don't know if injections and drains are part of the recovery from a panniculectomy, but it didn't really matter, because the initial recovery time frame required me to be in bed or sitting in a chair for a full 6 weeks before I would be allowed to walk again or drive a car or even stand up straight. I don't have a strong enough support system to help me get through that initial 6 weeks.
So I still have the apron and I still have yeast infections. I don't have them very often because I was able to tighten my stomach muscles a little bit with exercise and that was enough to allow my apron to be a little bit smaller and Tighter.
But during this time of self quarantine, without realizing it, I had a new growth of yeast cells under my apron. By the time I started noticing the itching, the scar tissue that was there was completely infected and red and I could not even touch it.
So this is what I did and also my tip to you if you have yeast in any of the folds on your body. Go to the pharmacy and buy Monistat in a tube or Tinactin in a tube. Both of these things are designed to kill yeast. One is to treat vaginal yeast infections, and the other to treat athletes foot, which is also yeast that presents as a fungus. Both of them work. And thank God you can buy generic versions of these, because the brand names are extremely expensive.
If you have a lot of folds and even buying the generics becomes too expensive for you, ask your doctor to write you a prescription and see if that works. Sometimes they won't write for something that is OTC. But if your yeast is presenting as a persistent disease or condition, they can write a prescription, and it is usually a double dose, like most medical prescriptions are, twice as much active ingredient as what they sell OTC.
As if it as if it weren't bad enough that we suffer so many comorbidities with obesity, we still have to deal with a silly little thing like yeast. But if you are able to use this topical treatment, you will feel a lot better.
