For the first two to three weeks after your liposuction at Athenix Body, you should inspect your incisions on a daily basis. If you can’t do it yet on your own, you should ask a family member or friend to do so. You should also take your temperature at the same time each day since a fever is an indication of an infection.
Daily inspections of your incision and temperature monitoring are essential for detecting an infection at its early stage. The earlier your surgeon can recommend proper measures to combat the infection, the better your chances will be for an early recovery, too.
Here then are the signs and symptoms to look for in post-operation infections.
Malaise
Of course, malaise is common among patients who have undergone invasive surgery – it’s the body’s way of getting complete rest and, thus, recover from the physical trauma. With malaise, you may sleep more hours than usual, or feel lethargic you can’t return to your normal activities, or feel weak even when you’ve done nothing all day. You don’t have to worry about these symptoms because these are normal.
But if instead of feeling better with each passing day after your operation, you feel more lethargic or more tired, then you may have a systemic infection. You should tell your surgeon about it so that tests can be done.
Fever
If you have a fever accompanied by chills, you likely have an infection. You may also have a decreased appetite resulting in dehydration and its symptoms like headaches due to the fever.
In the days after your surgery, you may have a low-grade fever (100°F or less) but it’s fairly common. But if you have a fever of 101°F or more, you should call your doctor since it may be a systemic infection.
Infection on the Incision
Even when you don’t experience malaise or fever, you may still have the beginnings of an infection through your incision. Look for these signs and tell your doctor about them as soon as possible.
- The incision feels hot to the touch.
- There’s swelling and/or hardening of the incision due to the inflammation of the tissues underneath.
- The incision becomes red or has red streaks around it. While redness around the incision site is normal, it should decrease over time. If it becomes redder or the surrounding areas become red, then there may be an infection.
- There’s a foul-smelling discharge like pus coming from the incision. The drainage may be green, white, yellow or red as well as thick or chunky.
Also, the pain from the incision sites should decrease over time. If it intensifies despite proper care including medications, then your doctor should be notified.
