Arm Lift Recovery

50-year-old female one-week arm lift recovery

Arm lift recovery can be seamless if appropriate precautions are taken preoperatively, intraoperatively, and postoperatively to avoid unnecessary side effects following surgery. The most commonly performed arm lift surgery to correct excess skin and adiposity is a Brachioplasty. Recovery times can be minimized following Brachioplasty by expediting the healing process and avoiding some common side effects.

Incision line compromise
Postoperative swelling
Inner arm pain

How to avoid incision line compromise during arm lift surgery

Incision line compromise may occur for several factors. The first cause of incision line compromise is if the incision line is too tight following repair. This side effect occurs if over-aggressive excision of the redundant skin is attempted. It can also occur if the patient possesses internal soft tissue contractures that may appear as an armband externally or become apparent only following soft tissue dissection during surgery. Only following the repair of the arm lifts incision line can the tightness of the actual line be gauged. When tightness is moderate, then Steri-Strips or external surgical tape can be positioned to relieve the tension. Another set of risk factors for incision line compromise is the patient’s health status. If your nutrition is compromised, you may have difficulty healing your incision lines because of low protein levels. Your protein levels can be assessed preoperatively by measuring your blood albumin level. If you have low protein levels, this can be corrected preoperatively by placing you on a supplement of 150 grams of protein intake daily.

Another risk factor for incision line compromise is the inability to metabolize sugars resulting from insulin resistance, prediabetes, or even diabetes. Patients affected with any of these sugar metabolism concerns can be assessed with a laboratory test called Hemoglobin A1C. When your hemoglobin A1C is elevated, your provider can work with you to improve this parameter before surgery. Another risk factor for incision line compromise is a history of active smoking. The nicotine in cigarettes is detrimental to blood flow through small vessels that must nourish your incision line during healing. When nicotine is present, blood flow and incision line healing will be compromised. As such, all patients are asked to stop smoking at least one month before surgery to ensure no circulating nicotine is in the bloodstream during surgery. Finally, physical activity should be avoided for approximately one month following surgery. Moreover, strenuous activity involving the arms should be restricted for at least six weeks following surgery.

How to avoid postoperative swelling during arm lift surgery

Postoperative swelling can harm your arm lift surgery recovery for several reasons. First, the swelling will induce pressure on your sensory nerves that trigger the sensation of pain. Avoiding discomfort following any surgery is a high priority in optimizing recovery. A second benefit of avoiding postoperative swelling is that it can cause unnecessary tension on your incision lines. Unnecessary tension on the incision lines may result in potential incision line compromise or undesirable arm scarring. By wearing compression garments around the clock, patients can minimize postoperative swelling. Another important consideration is optimizing your nutrition, so your albumin levels are normalized in your bloodstream. When albumin levels are appropriate, fluid leakage into the soft tissues from the blood vessels is avoided, thus preventing unnecessary swelling of tissues.

How to avoid inner arm pain following arm lift surgery

Inner arm pain is another side effect that occurs when irritation of a specific sensory nerve occurs during the excision of redundant upper arm skin. The nerve most often injured is called the antebrachial nerve, which travels on the inner aspect of the nerve. To protect this nerve as well as the superficial veins, liposuction can be implemented before the excision of the loose skin. Liposuction avoids inadvertent injury to these deeper tissues by hydro-dissecting the nerves and vessels away from the planned excised tissues. If this nerve is irritated, patients can have early postoperative pain, negatively affecting their outpatient procedure recovery. Avoiding discomfort following surgical procedures is important for multiple reasons. First, discomfort is a nuisance and will subjectively affect your recovery journey. More importantly, pain can induce a hyperinflammatory reaction that can result in unnecessary swelling and a detrimental effect on the healing of your incisions.

Tips for Faster Arm Lift Recovery

Avoiding any side effects during your arm lift recovery, especially the first few days after surgery is important. If your incision line becomes compromised, it can separate sporadically, thus resulting in prolonged arm lift recovery. This can delay returning to full physical activity, such as going to the gym or participating in outdoor activities. A healthy diet and unremarkable medical history are also helpful in avoiding any compromise in your incision line healing.

A concern of incision lines that are too tight compromises healing and creates an unsightly scar. Arm lift recovery is not officially complete until contour and incision line healing have been optimized. As such, postoperative swelling should be minimized throughout since it can result in excessive tension on the incision lines. It can also become observed if the inadvertent injury to superficial veins occurs during surgery or if appropriate compression garments are not applied immediately following surgery. Integral to performing upper arm lifts is liposuction to remove the fat.

As such, using liposuction will result in removing the fat from the arm and hydro-dissecting the vital structures, such as nerves and vessels, out of the way. In this manner, hydro dissection avoids prolonged swelling caused by injured superficial veins. Optimizing postoperative compression garment sizes is also critical for minimizing postoperative swelling. Proper sizing of compression garments positioned from the wrist to the shoulder is critical to avoiding the tourniquet effect caused by too tight of compression or the garment being limited to the proximal arm.