Diastasis Recti Surgery Photos

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Photos from Before, During, and After Recovery from Diastasis Recti Surgery

This is a collection of photos from my recent diastasis recti surgery experience. I apologize for the poor photo quality, I was taking them with the camera on my phone and the lighting is not so great in some places. I didn’t even know I would be writing about all this at the time. I must warn you, the photos are VERY GRAPHIC. They’re gross. Please, only look if you really want to. You’ve been warned. 🙂

If you do happen to want a better look, you can click on the photos for a larger version.

The Night Before

This is my stomach the night before the surgery. Note the myriad stretch marks, the double hernia. The big gaping hole that is (was) my belly button. Sorry about the weird shadows from my arms.

diastasis recti surgery before and after

48 Hours After Surgery

This was before my first shower, which was allowed 48 hours after the surgery. This was when I was allowed to take off the bandages, although I had to keep on the Steri-strips for several more weeks.

And here I am without the bandages. There is a hole in me with a tube sticking out which drained blood and fluid. Gross. My abdomen was swollen for quite a while after the surgery.

Four Days After Surgery

Here is a little more of a close-up. The drain was actually stitched to my skin, and I thought that was weird. Let me stop and say something here. Yes, I realize that the incision is crooked. I want to remind you that this was not a plastic surgery; I was never very concerned about how the scar was going to look. I mean, ANYTHING would have been an improvement, don’t you agree? I also have to stick up for my surgeon here and tell you how difficult it must have been to take all that stretched out skin and cut it out and tighten me up without being able to hide the scar under a panty line. I was very pleased that she took the extra effort to try and tighten up the sagginess and make me look a bit more normal. Even though, it’s true, I have no more belly button.

One Week Post-Op

The doctor removed the drain at my one week appointment. Belly still very swollen.

Two Weeks Post-Op

Here you can see my stomach is looking a little cleaner. There is a little dimple there to this day from the drain. Interesting.

One month post-op – Infection Photos

I started taking photos less frequently because there was not really much change from day to day. Until this day. This is where I had just removed my Steri-strips and taken a good look at my inflamed, very PAINFUL belly. Looking back on this, I can’t believe I couldn’t tell this was infected. I must have been in serious denial. Although, in my defense, the Steri-strips were covering a good deal of the redness. I can still remember how much pain I was in and how sick I felt. 🙁

It’s worth noting that the bottom of the incision was healing up nicely.

Here I look like a stab wound victim. This is what I woke up to after my nap; I removed my binder to see blood everywhere. And it stunk, sooooo bad.

I had to put pressure on my stomach and a lot of stinky junk came out. Ugh, this is so gross.

A hole in my incision. 🙁 Total sadness.

As part of my treatment at home, in addition to serious antibiotics, I had to pour hydrogen peroxide into the now-widened hole in my incision.

The cavity caused by the hematoma was much larger underneath the skin. I had to stuff gauze into the cavity twice, and eventually three times a day so it would soak up the infection.

Disgusting. This was about seven weeks after the surgery and about three weeks after the explosion.

Here is my wound, two weeks later, after the cavity had healed and closed up a great deal. This is about what it looks like at the time of writing.

There is still a hole in the middle of the wound that leads to a cavity that I just cannot seem to stop draining junk.

Here is the wound, all closed in, six months(!) post-op. Infection gone! The scar is a dark pink because it’s actually a stretch mark!

My new incision stretched so much from the buildup that my scar turned dark-colored and shiny. Weird. I will take more pictures in several months to show how the scar is healing.