Lymphatic drainage after a tummy tuck, in Seville

We don't operate, so your recovery is the whole job

No tummy tucks are performed at this clinic, so we have no surgery to defend and no next one to sell you. Your surgeon decides when you start, how firm we go and which areas stay off limits; we carry out that plan and report back, if that is what you want.

That is why we ask for the operative report at your first session: which technique was used, whether liposuction was combined, whether you had drains, whether the muscle was tightened, what you were told about the compression garment. Without that we work blind, and on a freshly operated abdomen that isn't good enough.

A tummy tuck doesn't recover like liposuction

After liposuction the trauma is spread out under the skin. Here a large flap has been lifted, the wall has been tightened, and there is a long scar running hip to hip. Fluid that used to cross that line has lost its route: it has to be redirected towards the groin and armpits, through pathways that still work.

That is where the confusing part comes from: one side going down before the other, the roll of swelling just above the scar, the numb patch between the navel and the pubis, the garment digging a crease where it shouldn't. Most of that is time and handling. Some of it isn't, and that is next.

Phase by phase: what we work on and what we leave alone

Week one is not week six. This is the usual order, always within what your surgeon allows.

• At the start, without touching the operated area: we open up the neck, armpits and groin, and drain healthy tissue towards them. The scar, the dressing and the lifted flap are left alone.
• Then, moving closer: flanks, sides and the area above the scar, with minimal pressure and always outside the wound. We check how your compression garment sits, which matters as much as the session.
• Once the scar is closed and your surgeon agrees: work on the tissue, on the area with reduced sensation, and on trunk mobility, without forcing extension.
• Never: heavy pressure, work over an open or scabbed wound, work over an area that is red, hot or painful, or anything sold as breaking down fibrosis. If it hurts, it isn't drainage.

Seroma: what we watch for, and when we send you back

A seroma is a collection of fluid under the flap, and it is the complication that turns up most often after a tummy tuck. We don't treat it here: it is confirmed and managed at your surgeon's clinic. Our part is spotting it early.

An abdomen that was softening and goes tense again. An area that bulges from one day to the next. Fluid that moves under your hand. And what stops a session: redness, heat, pain that keeps increasing, discharge or fever. In those cases we send you to your surgeon the same day. We would rather send you ten times too often than once too late.

Moving normally again

The point of these weeks is not only to bring the swelling down. It is walking upright again, breathing deeply without fear, getting out of bed without levering yourself up with your arms. We start with short, frequent walks, breathing and posture, and straighten you out of the folded position at the pace your tissue allows.

How long that takes depends on how much was removed, on whether liposuction was combined, and on your own tissue. The date you go back to the gym is your surgeon's call; what we give you, session by session, is what we see and when you can start spacing sessions out.