Having calf reduction surgery tomorrow | Say Hello & Introduce Yourself | Forum

Thanks!  I'm heading off for my consultation in 2 hours. I'm nervous but so excited!  I've hated my calves since I was 14. 

Ok, day 1 after surgery!  Last night was a loooong night. They have you stay overnight at the clinic to keep an eye on you. The pain was pretty bad, but once the really nice nurse adjusted my drip I was able to doze intermittently. Also, bring food with you to the clinic!  I didn't even think to do this. The nurse asked if I was hungry, and offered to go shopping for me. I gave her some money and she brought back some ridiculously yummy bread. 

The nurse has you up and walking (shuffling) to the bathroom around 8 hours after surgery. Then later on in the night, she has you start stretching. Painful, but super super necessary according to Dr. Park. You can't stretch too much. 

Today, they rewrapped my bandages and let me go back to the hotel. I was so happy because I was dying for a shower. I managed to pretty much soak the entire bathroom trying to wash my hair, but I didn't care. 

Things to to keep in mind - boredom is brutal - make certain to bring lots of books, iPod, iPad, whatever keeps you busy. I don't do well with downtime so this might not be so hard on other people.   Bruising and swelling is considerable - I have Fred flintstone feet right now - so make sure you bring loose slip on wedges. 

I'll update this as often as I can!  Feel free to ask me questions. 

Thank you for the support everyone!  I am trying to keep this up day to day because I couldn't find much written in English about the recovery period and I had so many questions!  

Day 2 after surgery - I always have to pee when I wake up in the morning, and I was afraid if I tried to stretch I would wet my pants, so I did a fun little scoot along the edge of the bed/old lady shuffle to the bathroom before trying to stretch. You are TIGHT and sore in the morning, wow!  But amazingly enough, I can already feel a difference from yesterday once I had stretched out in the tightness. The constant stretching definitely makes a difference. I just keep thinking of myself as the little mermaid (new legs) and how in the story it felt like every step she took it was like walking on pins and needles. When I was younger, I hated my legs so much I would have been willing to be in that kind of pain for beautiful legs. This is absolutely nothing pain wise compared to that, so I seriously can't complain. At this point, when I'm not moving them, it's pretty much just a dull ache. Definitely manageable. 

Day 5 after surgery. 

Today started out okay. Super tight in the morning, but I had expected that. I stretched, went down to the coffee shop and read for a bit. When I got back to the room I was hit with brutal cramps. I've read that sometimes people can have a problem with cramping on days 5 or 6, and wow is that an understatement. I'm so glad I saved a pain pill for today. Waiting for it to kick in, then planning on unwrapping and soaking my legs to a cool bath to help with the pain. Not certain what else to do except wait it out and take it easy. 

No fat, I didn't have any to begin with there. (That was the problem!) I'm not certain exactly how much muscle was removed, but the goal was to reduce me about 5 cm so I'm guessing a pretty decent amount. I've read in other forums that girls that get a lot of muscle removed can have what is referred to as the 'dreaded spasms' around Day 5 - 7. It seems to pass after a day or two, so hopefully it will be the same in my case. All I know is that the cramps came out of nowhere and my legs were just throbbing. Putting them up, putting them down, walking on them, trying to stretch them out - anything you would normally do to release a bad leg cramp I tried. Eventually the pain pill kicked in.  I don't want to scare anyone, but please save a pain pill (dr park only gave me 3) or bring emergency ones from home with you just in case this happens to you.  I've been okay since the pill kicked in - I've stretched, stretched, and stretched some more. I even went for a brief walk to work them a bit. I thought rest might be the best idea, but apparently the worst thing you can do in this case is curl up in bed, as the muscles will just get tighter. Fingers crossed so hard that tomorrow I won't wake up with them again. 

Day 8

No cramps today either!  Yay!!!  Mornings are still really tough and I am super tight, but once I stretch out I'm fine. I'm walking in flats now. My legs seemed to ache even more in the wedges, and the doctor said its fine to switch to flats now. I went to myeongdong and walked around for a bit. I'm getting pretty good at knowing my limits - when my legs got too tired, I grabbed a taxi home to put my legs up. I unwrapped my bandages today and was stunned at how slender my calves looked today!  I didn't want to get my hopes too high - my goal for this surgery was just to look average and not disproportionate. But my legs were actually PRETTY!  I almost cried. Yes, they are still swollen (especially the right one), and I still have a long way to go, but it's better than I could have ever hoped for. 

Day 10 after surgery

Great day - no problems. Was able to wall around quite a bit. Went to Insadong and wandered around for a couple of hours, even had a fish pedicure at Dr Fish - fun!  I tried not to let my legs go too far into the water, but my bandages still got wet. No big deal, I bought new bandages and changed them when I got back to the hotel.  My legs still got tight and tired, but stopping to stretch them frequently (especially bending over to touch my toes helps me) made all of the difference. 

3 weeks after surgery -

I've been home about 5 days now, and back to work for 3. The flight home was brutal - my feet swelled back to flintstone size again. I kept getting up every hour or so to stretch in the bathroom. 

The day before I left, Dr. Park aspirated me again, and said I would have to aspirate at home too. He tried to show me how, but it totally grossed me out and I couldn't watch. Luckily, my friend's mom taped her aspiration, and they sent the video to me. I just sent it on to my husband - I couldn't watch it. I'm really squeamish about blood and needles. Anyway, Dr park said I was doing incredibly good. He sent me home with a set of compression stockings, cotton bandages that I can wash and rewrap, and 5 needles. He wants me to aspirate once a week for a month. 

I Went back to work waitressing a couple of days ago. The first couple of days weren't super busy, and everyone just figured I was jet lagged and sore, and that's why I was constantly stretching in the back. Saturday was very busy, and by the end of the shift I was limping badly. My feet were killing me along with my legs - not certain if the feet were a side effect of the surgery or just coincidence. My feet are still numb in areas, especially on the outer tops of my feet. 

I was totally petrified about having my husband do the aspiration. I ended up asking some neighbors who are nurses to come over and do it/show my husband how to do it. Even though he had watched the video, he still had questions, and I had no interest in being a human pincushion while he figured it out. The nurses both said it's a really easy procedure, and my husband said he felt really comfortable doing it by himself next time. Now if only I was comfortable with it!!!! They pulled out 40ml in one leg, 35ml in the other. I thought that was an enormous amount, until I talked to my new friend - her mom pulled 80ml out of one of her legs the first time!  My legs felt really gross before the aspiration - I could poke them and they would wobble, kind of like a waterbed. You could tell there was a lot of fluid in there.  

I'll try to update every week or so with my progress. 

5 weeks after surgery - turning point!

Legs were so badly swollen that I started taking anti inflammatories. Huge huge help. They are starting to feel and look much more normal now. The numbness is fading from the outsides of my feet slowly.  The mornings are getting easier - I can almost walk normally to the bathroom first thing in the morning now without stretching. The exciting part is the aspiration. My husband tried to do it today, and it went disastrously. Ridiculously painful, he tried twice on one leg and once on the other leg and only got 5ml out. By the end I was sobbing and begging him to stop. (I know, this doesn't sound very promising thus far). So we called some nurses who had previously aspirated me to come over and help. They came over and it turns out that my husband was doing it correctly, there was just no more fluid left. It hurt so badly because he kept trying when there was nothing left to take out. So no more aspirations!!!! Yay!!! 

Hi michie!  Yes, after my experience I would recommend the Oz clinic. Dr Park has been really consistent in keeping in touch with me - he emails weekly Neda, this surgery to check on my progress. That along with everything else has made all of the difference. Dr Park recommended massaging my legs from ankle to knee (almost like I'm milking them) daily, and it is helping me with the remaining swelling. My measurements are staying around a pretty consistent 35cm, which is still 2 cm bigger than dr park originally thought I would end up. I don't know whether I'll continue to get smaller, but even if I don't I'm pretty happy. Right now I look normal and average, which is what I always wished I was growing up. I'm actually surprised at the measurements, because they look so very much smaller than they did before surgery. (Maybe I'm not measuring them correctly somehow?) Dr park said I'm going to continue to have swelling for up to a year.  A lot of it is due to my job, since I'm a waitress. I've gone back to working out, but carefully. I still elevate my legs after work and at night. Dr park said the longer I continue to do that, the better the results. Same with wrapping my legs. The calves have an odd indentation in the back where the muscle was taken out, but dr park said in the next couple of months things will even out. 

Husband caught me trying on skirts in front of a full length mirror and giggling like a little kid. I've never worn a knee length skirt before - they looked ludicrous on me. But now they are soooooo cute!  I'm not super sexy or anything (but if my calves go down 2 more cm they might be!) but I'm so happy just to look average!  

My biggest regret is that I didn't have the surgery years ago. 

Neda, this surgery cost me around $7000, but keep in mind you have to add in hotel and transportation costs, etc. I think it is cheaper in Thailand, but after doing a lot of research I'm very happy I went with Dr park. I wanted to go to someone who was an expert at this surgery, and I feel that this was the right choice for me. 

I'm having very little stiffness in the mornings now, and stretching is a piece of cake. :)

The calf surgery alone was around $7000. 

I'm sorry, I don't. I'm sure it varies widely depending on doctor and number of area treated. 

Okay, here are my before pictures.  I lost around 30 lbs before the surgery so I would be all muscle, no fat at all.

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Sorry everyone for the horrible delay in my response!  I got crazy busy at work and forgot all about the forum.  Anyway, my legs have been healing up beautifully.  My only complaint is that I still have a bit of unevenness from the side view, but the front and the back view are lovely.  And it changes from day to day depending on how tightly I wrap them, so it might have a lot to do with the bandaging also.  I'm going to have a quick layover in March in Seoul, so I'll be able to have a post op visit with Dr. Park to get his opinion in person.  Pain wise, there isn't any.  I'm still a bit tight in the mornings, but nothing that a quick stretch doesn't get rid of.  And it feels wonderful when my legs are massaged - I still feel like nightly massaging really helps with the healing process.  When I'm not wearing the bandages, I have compression socks (I ordered them from Groupon) that I wear to go walking, etc.  I had the bandages off for most of the day when I was in Hawaii for a week around Christmas, but found that my legs ached more when they weren't bandaged.  Soooo, here are my 7 month post op pics everyone!

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