Hey guys my name is Shannon I’m one of the PA’s with Florida Plastic Surgery Group. Today I’m going to be going over discharge instructions on brachioplasty or an arm lift. So just the first thing to know the brachioplasty is a same day surgery which means you will go home the same day that you have the surgery. When you come out of the surgery your arms will be wrapped during the surgery, we’ll put stitches underneath the skin, over top of your incision you’ll either have glue or steri-strips over top of that we’ll put some pads. They’re just absorbable pads just in case there’s any fluid that drains out after the surgery. These pads will absorb that fluid and then we’ll put a straps around your arm the incision is usually starts around your elbow area goes down to your axilla sometimes four there depends on what you and your and you and your surgeon decide on before the surgery you can take a shower. 24 hours after your surgery you could take the compression garments off as well as the absorbable pads and you can get everything wet in the shower, just let water run right over everything. You don’t need to scrub your incisions with anything just use soap and water around them and let that run right over those incisions. When you get out of the shower make sure you do put those compression garments back on we usually do provide compression from your hands to your shoulder as your hands can swell after the surgery so it is important that when you are sleeping or just hanging around the house, you keep your arms elevated after the surgery so you want to make sure you do keep your wrists above the level of your elbows and your elbows above the levels of your shoulder. So if you can take some pillows prop them up and just keep them elevated it’s especially important for the first 48 hours that you do this to minimize the swelling in those areas, We will give you pain medicine for after this surgery we’ll give you a series of different pain medications to make sure that your pain is controlled after the surgery. Take them as prescribed if you do have questions you can always give us a call. You want to minimize the amount that you’re lifting up so we do put a ten pound limit on the amount that you can pick up, be careful not to pick up over that as the surgery is on your arms and we don’t anything to happen to those incisions. Be careful with anything straining I wouldn’t reach up high for anything strained to get anything but it is really important that you don’t pick up anything over ten pounds we do ask that you wear your compression garments for at least one week or until we see you back in the office. At that time, we’ll decide whether we want you to keep wearing them or if you could take them off. We will give you some scar cream right your pre-op appointment we don’t want you to start using that until your incisions are closed. So just like don’t put anything on your incisions until we do see you back in the office as far as driving goes you can drive whenever you feel comfortable remember you’re going to have to operate a steering wheel so just you don’t want to do anything to strain on those incisions make sure you are feeling comfortable before you do start driving don’t drive if you are taking any sort of pain medication like I said we’ll see you back in the office about seven to ten days after your surgery of course if you have a question before that appointment you kind of give us a call when you do get home things to look out for that you should give us a call immediately for would be a fever above 101 degrees any redness or swelling any redness or hot to touch on the incision if there is increased swelling if one arm doubles in the size as the other arm if you have any shortness of breath or leg pain please give us a call immediately for any of those symptoms also if you have any pain that’s not controlled with the medication that you give it that we do give you make sure you give us a call I think that concludes my video about brachioplasty for today thanks for tuning in we’ll see you next time!
Shannon Adams, PA-C Post-Op/Discharge instructions After Arm Lift
