loose skin after gastric sleeve

[John40 0]

Hi , I am planning to get gastric sleeve and i am concerned about loose skin after weightloss.

i am a 250lbs , 6ft height male .

How did u all deal with loose skin?

[learn2cook 580]

Hi @John40! The skin issue is very varied. Elasticity can relate to age and weight and gender and general health and genetics. So, some of us have lots of leftover skin, and some barely any at all. As a post menopausal pasty face lady I have lots of extra skin that I find annoying but not a hindrance or life threatening. I’ve decided to treat it like a war scar to remind me of what I have overcome. I wear what I want and toning up my muscles has made me look firm and stand up tall and straight. Some here have gotten skin surgery, and they look great too. It’s very personal to you how much extra skin you have. It’s also very personal to each how the extra skin allows them to move or fit in their clothing. You might not know until you get there.

Most insurance does not cover skin removal. Document your sores and limited mobility from extra skin to try and get insurance coverage if you think this will be a real issue! I have friends where mobility and sores were still very impacted by the extra skin. Document it early and throughout with doctors, nurses, bills, pictures with everything dated. I don’t know where you’re at with your journey but best of luck!

[maintenanceman 285]

Whether or not you get loose skin and how much is such a crap shoot. I started with a low BMI and lost about 80 lbs... a relatively small amount for WLS patients... but I ended up with so much loose skin. I'm at my Ideal Body Weight with 18.2% body fat, and I still look like I have a tummy because it's all loose skin. Even after losing all the weight, I'm still not comfortable going without a shirt. I look terrific in clothes, but naked... oh my.

I might get surgery. I don't know. It's expensive, painful, and carries risk. And for me, the only reason would be cosmetic. The loose skin doesn't affect me in any other way.

Still... I will take loose skin over being fat all day every day!

[Arabesque 7,313]

How long you carried your weight, how much you lose, age, genetics, etc., also influence how much lose skin you’ll have. I don’t have a lot of loose skin & what I have is not restrictive or limiting in any way. I can even wear body conscious clothing without need of any support undergarments. Genetics in my favour I think because as a menopausal woman in her mid 50s I certainly was more likely to have a decent amount. Like @learn2cook I look at it as something I earned. It reminds me every day of how far I’ve come & a great motivator to stay there.

But for some it can be very limiting & then plastic surgery is the only solution. Your BMI is comparatively low so you won’t have as much weight to lose which may mean less loose skin. Wait until your weight has stabilised & allow for some resettling of your remaining fat in the months after.

Oh, and don’t believe any of those creams, supplements & such that say they help with sagging skin. They don’t. Our skin has been over stretched for too long like a well used old elastic band.

[Recidivist 1,141]

I'm a male who was 59 when I had gastric bypass--and yes, loose skin is an issue. I have it on most parts of my body to varying degrees, but it was most noticeable on my stomach and neck. I was obese for decades and skin just hasn't snapped back.

I look older than I did prior to surgery due to sagging skin on my face (jowls and neck), and the only plastic surgery I've considered is a lower face lift and neck lift because they are always visible. (I still might do it.). I can live with the loose skin everywhere else--but I'm now almost 64 and am way past caring about what other people think of my body. Yes, it's a bit embarrassing to appear on the beach in a swimsuit, but I've managed to find a high bathing suit that covers the worst bits.

In spite of all the above, I have zero regrets. I'll take a saggy body that is healthy and energetic over my old fat body any day!

[John40 0]

13 hours ago, learn2cook said:

Hi @John40! The skin issue is very varied. Elasticity can relate to age and weight and gender and general health and genetics. So, some of us have lots of leftover skin, and some barely any at all. As a post menopausal pasty face lady I have lots of extra skin that I find annoying but not a hindrance or life threatening. I’ve decided to treat it like a war scar to remind me of what I have overcome. I wear what I want and toning up my muscles has made me look firm and stand up tall and straight. Some here have gotten skin surgery, and they look great too. It’s very personal to you how much extra skin you have. It’s also very personal to each how the extra skin allows them to move or fit in their clothing. You might not know until you get there.

Most insurance does not cover skin removal. Document your sores and limited mobility from extra skin to try and get insurance coverage if you think this will be a real issue! I have friends where mobility and sores were still very impacted by the extra skin. Document it early and throughout with doctors, nurses, bills, pictures with everything dated. I don’t know where you’re at with your journey but best of luck!

Thank you for the reply. That helps

[John40 0]

8 hours ago, Arabesque said:

How long you carried your weight, how much you lose, age, genetics, etc., also influence how much lose skin you’ll have. I don’t have a lot of loose skin & what I have is not restrictive or limiting in any way. I can even wear body conscious clothing without need of any support undergarments. Genetics in my favour I think because as a menopausal woman in her mid 50s I certainly was more likely to have a decent amount. Like @learn2cook I look at it as something I earned. It reminds me every day of how far I’ve come & a great motivator to stay there.

But for some it can be very limiting & then plastic surgery is the only solution. Your BMI is comparatively low so you won’t have as much weight to lose which may mean less loose skin. Wait until your weight has stabilised & allow for some resettling of your remaining fat in the months after.

Oh, and don’t believe any of those creams, supplements & such that say they help with sagging skin. They don’t. Our skin has been over stretched for too long like a well used old elastic band.

Thank you for the reply. All these words helps me in my decision

[John40 0]

2 hours ago, Recidivist said:

I'm a male who was 59 when I had gastric bypass--and yes, loose skin is an issue. I have it on most parts of my body to varying degrees, but it was most noticeable on my stomach and neck. I was obese for decades and skin just hasn't snapped back.

I look older than I did prior to surgery due to sagging skin on my face (jowls and neck), and the only plastic surgery I've considered is a lower face lift and neck lift because they are always visible. (I still might do it.). I can live with the loose skin everywhere else--but I'm now almost 64 and am way past caring about what other people think of my body. Yes, it's a bit embarrassing to appear on the beach in a swimsuit, but I've managed to find a high bathing suit that covers the worst bits.

In spite of all the above, I have zero regrets. I'll take a saggy body that is healthy and energetic over my old fat body any day!

Thank you for the info

[catwoman7 11,214]

you may or may not have much - as others have said, it varies a lot.

I had a ton of it as an older woman who lost over 200 lbs, but it was really easy for me to hide it in clothes. No one knew it was there except for my doctor and my husband. I've since had it removed because it was driving me nuts (because *I* knew it was there - and I also got tired of my loose stomach skin slapping up against me while exercising), but it was invisible to the outside world.

[Spinoza 1,399]

Oh I have loads. Face and neck most noticeable. Stomach and thighs and butt really wrinkly but almost nobody sees those! I am SO not into my appearance so I don't give a hoot. I know others find it hard to see and sort it with surgery. It is really sortable with surgery if you want/need to do that so honestly I wouldn't give it a second thought. What matters (to me anyway) is my completely new and different life. Best of luck OP 😍

[BigSue 1,389]

If you are concerned about loose skin, don't get the surgery. If the possibility of loose skin outweighs the health problems you want to resolve or prevent by getting weight loss surgery, you are not ready to get surgery.

[pintsizedmallrat 473]

On 4/21/2023 at 8:17 PM, BigSue said:

If you are concerned about loose skin, don't get the surgery. If the possibility of loose skin outweighs the health problems you want to resolve or prevent by getting weight loss surgery, you are not ready to get surgery.

This is 100% true. The extra skin in most cases is purely aesthetic and harmless; the excess weight could absolutely abbreviate your lifespan considerably. Do this to save your life, and don't worry as much about how you're going to look.

[pintsizedmallrat 473]

I have...SOME excess skin. I've lost almost 150 pounds (which, in my case, is over 60% of my previous body weight...and would probably be comparable to an average-height man losing closer to 200). It's mostly in my neck, and lower abdomen. The neck is really the only part that bothers me; I'm 40 and really don't have much interest in wearing a revealing bikini (although it's minimal enough I could probably do one of the high-waisted ones) but I can't really walk around covering my neck all the time, nor would I want to.

All of it has tightened considerably since I've been attempting to maintain/losing more slowly. At one point I would have met the requirements for having insurance cover the panniculectomy but it's actually shrank back to a point where I no longer would.

Look at it this way, though...if moms with stretch marks can wear them with pride as battle scars of what their body is capable of, we can do that too with our loose skin. We've overcome something most people aren't able to.

[catwoman7 11,214]

along the same lines as others have said, even though I eventually had my loose skin removed, I would have taken that any day over being morbidly obese again. No brainer. ANY FRICKIN' DAY!

[BriarRose 432]

I am a 67 year old woman. I had surgery over a dozen years ago, and quite frankly... I have a lot of sagging, baggy, skin. And I am dammed proud of it.

I have had to have enough surgeries in my lifetime that I am not going to put myself through any plastic surgery. I am lucky enough that my belly doesn't really hang, and I am not physically challenged from any hanging skin. Do I look like "saggy baggy the elephant" naked ? Yep. Do i still wear sleeveless shirts that show my hanging skin on my upper arms ? Yes I do. I wear shorts that cover the drooping skin on my thighs. But once, a long time ago, I was visiting a National Park and saw an older woman in hiking shorts, and a tank top. She was tanned and looked so healthy... and I realized that she had saggy skin, and had lost a LOT of weight. I was very obese. I looked at that woman and knew what I wanted to be when I was old (well.... at 30 something, 60 something looked really old !) and you know what ? I AM that woman. Whoever she was/is. She was a silent inspiration to my eventual weight loss. Now, when I am walking a trail in that same National Park, I recall her influence and thank her.