How long away from work after FFS?

[Rachel]

I have FFS scheduled on 9/16/2016. I get my stiches out on the 23rd and was planning to go back to work on the 26th. This would give me 10 days of recovery. Any opinion as to time after surgery till going back to work. I can work sedentary if I need to in my office.

I have forehead advance, eyelets raconteur, type 3 forehead, lip lift, mandible and chin, neck/face/lower eye lift. I may add back in fat graph to the temples and cheeks.

Thanks in advance.

[Dena]

One thought and that is what's your tolerance to pain. You may find it difficult to use your brain if you are thinking about how much it hurts or if you need a pain medication that clouds your judgement. I have worked through both pain and medication though the time I used medication I had a problem staying awake. Fortunately my arm was the problem and my boss like to type so I would "wake up" long enough to figure out were the bug was and decide how to correct it then I would return to hazy land while he edited, assembled, loaded and tested the software changes. It was almost like I was the boss.

[Rachel]

Hi Dena, thank you for your reply.

I have no reference for the level of pain at day 10 after FFS. I guess my pain management is average. From what I was reading from Dr. Spiegel's packet I am supposed to wean myself off of pain medication on day 5 and start to switch to Tylenol.

I was thinking of using a van service instead of driving to and from the airport. It is half the cost of long term parking at the airport and I could remain on pain medication if need be.

[Dena]

I have always used the shuttle service to and from the airport and I love it. You don't have to worry about someone damaging or stealing your car and if you should need to be away longer, there is no problem. I have picked up others at the airport with my car and it's always a maze unless you are a regular. When my mother travels, she always uses the shuttle rather than have me pick her up because it's so simple. Here you just get on the web site, enter your information in advance and they will tell you when they will pick you up. For the return trip, go to the waiting area and they will find you a van.

[oneoftwo]

Hi Dena, thank you for your reply.

I have no reference for the level of pain at day 10 after FFS. I guess my pain management is average. From what I was reading from Dr. Spiegel's packet I am supposed to wean myself off of pain medication on day 5 and start to switch to Tylenol.

I think surgical "pain"  depends a lot on the surgeon and then secondarily,  it depends on the individual patient's pain tolerance.  There is very little discussion about the subject (pain / pain management ) here or anywhere - - so here is a start.

From the various reports - -  it IS pretty clear that:

A) Most or nearly all FFS surgeon's patients predominately report that they have a lot of post-op pain and it is sufficiently intense to require narcotic (opioid) pain medication (such as hydrocodone) immediately after surgery and for days or a week or more.  Typically these patients also have substantial or even unusual swelling.

B) In the case of a at least some FFS surgeon's, their patients consistently report that they have minimal pain and rarely or never have any need at all for narcotic pain medication, and they report that they do just fine with OTC pain meds.  In at least one case, the surgeon typically tells the patients to anticipate that relatively benign post surgery course of events.  Also,  typically these patients tend to report minimal or modest swelling (compared to other surgeons' patients).

[ See for example: Samantha C's  report in another message string:  "The short of it is this 3 days after the surgery I was walking 5 miles a day.  I never needed any of the prescription pain meds given, and only needed OTC pain meds for 4 days, till the nose packing came out." ]


There are certainly consistent patterns in this regard and it appears to be rather surgeon specific.  You can see that in some of the immediate post surgery pictures occasionally posted here and on other message boards.

Sometimes everyone focuses on the before / long term after pictures from web sites - -  and forget that there are other very real differences in surgeons,  and their techniques in the operating room, and their system for administering pain meds and managing their patients' swelling and post surgery pain.    Those different surgical and pain management techniques do appear to result in very different pain and swelling profiles for their patients.
 

[deeiche]

One week after surgery I was going on very long walks around downtown Buenos Aires.  I felt okay, probably could have gone back to work 2.5 weeks after surgery, but I'd scheduled hair transplants almost 4 weeks after surgery, took long air trip back home a little over 4 weeks.

So from a pain perspective I felt pretty good after 3-4 days, the down side is I had a strep infection under my chin that abscessed.  I had it drained the day before I left Buenos Aires, then again when I arrived home.  It started draining on it's own the day after I arrived home.  Within 5 days my body had healed.  So while pain did not slow me down, the infection complication did.

[Debra]

I've heard 2 weeks minimum usually but YMMV. It of course also depends on how much work you get done since FFS has a lot of different possible pieces