After Smartlipo or liposuction, there will be swelling, bruising, and a generalized hardening of the skin. The extent of these changes will vary greatly from patient to patient, and site to site.
There are several important factors to keep this swelling and bruising to a minimum and encourage healing:
The factors that affect your degree of swelling are:
First, what is lymphatic drainage massage? It’s a technique that originated in Europe for treatment of lymphedema, an abnormal accumulation of fluid that can occur after lymph nodes are removed during cancer operation surgery.
Characteristics of lymphatic drainage massage is that it is gentle (this is not a deep tissue sports massage targeting muscles, rather a soft massage), and seeks to push the fluid towards the lymph nodes.
The timeframe to getting back to soft skin and getting rid of the swelling after surgery is compression related, time related, and daily massage related. The key thing to remember is that your swelling is going to get better. On the internet, and in my own patient populations, those patients that got lymphatic drainage massage attribute this improvement to that, but they of course do not see the patients that did not get professional massages. In my experience, there is no difference, and daily massages self administered are certainly superior to weekly professional massages.
Finally, a note on swelling. The areas that are most prone to swelling are:
