TESTS AND INVESTIGATIONS

Prior to your operation, you may be required to have specific blood tests or imaging studies, or you may need to see a medical specialist to optimise your health. These will be organised from our rooms to ensure that it is done as conveniently for you as possible.

DIET

If you are looking to remove the excess skin that may develop after massive weight loss (through bariatric surgery or dieting) or you are considering surgery to add the finishing touches to your weight loss journey, then plastic surgery can help. However, the best results will only be achieved once you have reached your goal weight and remain stable at this weight for a minimum of 3 months. Therefore, our team will actively encourage you to reach this goal and maintain it prior to any surgical intervention.

Gaining weight after surgery can also have an affect on your overall result so we actively encourage a healthy lifestyle to maintain the gains and benefits you have achieved with your lifestyle changes and surgery to ensure you have the best results for as long as possible.

This applies to most surgical procedures but is particularly relevant to procedures on the abdomen and breast.

SMOKING

Cigarette smoking as we all know is severely detrimental to your health for a multiple number of well-publicised reasons. Your surgical experience, recovery and outcome can also be severely compromised if you smoke.

Cigarette smoking significantly affects your lung reserves and as a result you are at increased risk of respiratory complications under general anaesthesia. This is particularly compounded in larger surgical procedures such as a Tummy Tuck or a Mummy Makeover. Smoking also leads to delayed wound healing and an increase in wound breakdown after the surgery. This can be a devastating outcome particularly where large incisions are involved as in an abdominoplasty surgery.

There can be less blood supply to crucial areas leading to a higher risk of complications such as nipple/areola loss in breast reduction surgery and smoking has been shown to significantly increase the risk of capsular contracture in breast augmentation surgery.

In view of these and more potential risks with smoking, we insist on a strict no-smoking policy for 8 weeks prior to your surgery and 8 weeks after your surgery, for most cosmetic procedures. For your own safety, your surgery will be cancelled if you are unable to meet this requirement.

BLOOD THINNING PRODUCTS

When maintaining a healthy lifestyle, it is not unusual to take supplements and products containing natural herbs as an adjunct to your dietary needs. However, some of these can have negative effects for your surgery.

The biggest concern are those supplements that thin the blood. While this is not necessarily a bad thing for your lifestyle it can be catastrophic during or after surgery.

Therefore, for a period of 4 weeks leading up to your surgery and for 4 weeks after surgery, we need you to stop supplements that may contain the following ingredients:

• Fish Oil
• Ginkgo
• Ginseng
• Guarana
• Ginger
• Garlic
• Vitamin E

You may recommence them after this period for your own health benefits. You may also be required to cease or adjust the dose of prescribed blood thinning medications such as aspirin or warfarin.

THE DAY BEFORE YOUR SURGERY

The anticipation and nervous energy leading up to your operation can lead to fluctuating emotions before and after the procedure. This is not unusual in the slightest but we do recommend that you try and get a good night’s sleep before your surgery to help with this.
The anaesthetist will require you to not eat or drink anything, usually from midnight the night before the procedure, but this may vary depending on when you are scheduled for your operation.

You should have a shower before coming into the hospital but there is no need to use any specific antibacterial body wash or soap, your normal shampoo or soap will be fine.

SUPPORT PERSON

We actively encourage you to have a support person with you on the day of your surgery. Ideally this person can bring you to the hospital and stay with you for your recovery. It is a legal requirement via hospital regulations that you not drive, walk or catch public transport home after a general anaesthetic without support so it is very important that if you are having a day procedure then you will need someone to take you home.

For larger plastic surgical procedures in Sydney, you will stay in hospital from 1-4 days on average. Due to the nature of these operations, it is unlikely that you will be able to drive yourself home and as such it is ideal to have someone do this for you. For these larger operations, it is also ideal that you have support at home to not only look after you as needs be but also if you have little children then they will need to be cared for while you recuperate.