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Faster Wound Healing
Even though the incisions look small,
your operation affected lots of tissue beneath your
skin. Blood vessels that carried oxygen to fat cells;
lymph channels which brought fluid to spaces too small
for blood; connecting fibers that attached skin to deeper
structures -all of these were probably altered, severed
or removed during your plastic surgery.
Though hidden, the result is a large
wound your body needs to repair. It must rebuild the
capillaries (your smallest blood vessels) leading to
your skin; restore the fine transport network, which
carries clear, nurturing liquids to and from each cell,
and reconnect the links that hold your skin tightly,
but flexibly in place.
While this reconstruction is going on, these same, damaged
structures must work hard. Blood clots will be removed.
Building materials will travel to the repair zone. And,
if you had liposuction, skin that had been stretched
to accommodate now-discarded fat, will tighten to a
smaller, tighter shape.
Reduced Risk of Complications
The combined "traffic jam"
of extra blood and lymph trying to find its way to the
wound site, and fewer exits for the fluids already there,
shows up as swelling. This swelling - or "edema"
as your doctor calls it - can create problems which
may slow down your recovery healing process. The backward
force of accumulated fluids can prevent fresh supplies
of oxygen and nutrients from reaching the damage areas.
This can slow the mending process, or in rare but severe
cases, cause some cells to die.
If pockets of lymph (called "seromas")
or pools of blood ("hematomas") occur, the
immune system may not be able to clean these spaces.
Infections can result. Occasionally, these pooled fluids
form clots, which - in another rare, but serious complication
- could break away and block blood flow to other parts
of the body ("thromboses").
Even if no pockets of blood or lymph
arise, the total amount of fluid that can become trapped
in swollen tissues raises medical concerns. Your body
is made up largely of water. It devotes considerable
effort to balancing the amounts of liquid between your
cells, and in your blood. If too much fluid stays between
the cells, too little returns to the blood, causing
the heart to pump much harder.
While the above complications are
rare, one way these problems can usually be proactively
avoided is by applying external pressure to the skin
surface, in the form of a carefully designed compression
garment. Pushing down on the skin, the elastic surgical
compression garment squeezes body fluids back toward
deeper tissues, reducing edema (swelling) in the affected
areas.
An extra advantage from these surgical
compression garments is that loose skin, held firmly
against the body, is far more likely to heal without
sagging. And, using compression garments when chosen
carefully and sized properly, can do nothing but help
your recovery to be quicker, safer
and more comfortable!
Intimate wear is designed to be
worn from a few hours up to a third of the user's day;
sports apparel is usually worn only while actively engaged
in the activity; and, bathing suits are designed for
a day at the beach or pool. Postoperative surgical garments
are used 24 hours per day, 7 days per week for a prescribed
period that ranges from 6 weeks to 6 months. Not only
is the wearing period different, the amount of required
compression applied to the body by a medically-effective
garment is significantly higher than that of standard
intimate wear, sports apparel and bathing suit garments.
The postoperative garment must be much tighter than
the others. Considering these factors, using the same
textiles available to intimate wear, sports apparel
and bathing suit producers would make the postoperative
garment inherently more uncomfortable on a 24-hour-a-day
basis.
Each Marena garment style is designed
with specific features that make it more comfortable
than standard, store-bought garments. While they may
not seem important now, you will appreciate these features
once your surgery is completed and you are wearing your
garment all the time. Remember that your physician will
probably ask you to wear your garments every day for
many weeks; it will become like a "second-skin"!
Using a postoperative garment is
much different than wearing a normal stretch garment.
An uncomfortable intimate wear or sport garment can
be tolerated as we know wearing it is usually only a
few hours or part of a day maximum. However, the prescribed
usage for the normal postoperative garment is for all-hour
use, each day for weeks and weeks. This type of usage
can greatly increase the discomfort normally found in
stretch garments designed for shorter-term use.
This is such an important decision,
you should very carefully select your own postoperative
surgical garment among the many that may be available.
a. The flow of body fluids (arterial
and venous blood flow, lymph fluid) is improved by the
external pressure that surgical compression garments
create. This has been shown to improve wound healing.
b. Edema (swelling) and other complications
have been shown to be reduced by external compression
provided by surgical compression garments.
c. Body Temperature and skin wetness
have been shown to be reduced by fibers used in Marena
COMFORTWEAR surgical compression garments. Studies have
shown that lower body temperature and skin wetness can
improve wound healing, reduce the chance of infection
and improve body comfort.
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