Ah. The joys of being female. All those lovely “woman” things, sometimes can lead you to need a hysterectomy. Ug. But can there be a silver lining? If you have to have a hysterectomy, can you do this with a tummy tuck?
For those with no attention span, the quick answer: Yes.
But there are conditions….
1. Hysterectomy needs to be done for a benign condition. If you have cancer, you need to focus on the treatment and healing for that.
2. You need to be healthy. Hysterectomy is a big operation, which has blood loss, healing, yadda yadda. I had a patient who needed a hysterectomy due to intense heavy bleeding each month. She was a great candidate for a tummy tuck. I would have loved to do them at the same time. But she was anemic. NOT OKAY to do tummy tuck. A tummy tuck is a cosmetic surgery. It lengthens the time of surgery, causes more blood loss, and increases overall risk. If you are anemic, you won’t heal the long incision well- you have higher risk for infection, wound dehiscence (fancy way of saying your wound opens up), poor scarring, etc.
3. A lot of benign conditions which used to treated in the past by total hysterectomy such as heavy bleeding or fibroids, can now be done by less invasive means such as ablation. Can’t have a tummy tuck with a hysterectomy if you don’t need a hysterectomy.
Any combined surgery has higher risk of complication, wound infection, DVT/PE, and anesthesia reactions such as nausea, etc. In healthy women, this additional risk is low, and the benefits of one anesthetic, one surgery, and one recovery outweigh the risk. For busy moms and working women, doing the 2 for 1 is the only way they will get to have a tummy tuck. But we must keep in mind this is elective, cosmetic surgery.
For those who fit the criteria and are healthy, go for it! I love buy one, get one free. It’s the like tummy tuck was on sale. What girl doesn’t like that?