I know it’s been a while since I last posted – to be honest not much is happening at the moment regarding appointments and surgery dates. I thought I’d do q post on what I’m doing to prepare my arm (and to a greater extent my body) for surgery .
WEIGHT
I’ve put on a bit of weight since starting HRT; about 26kg all up – and most of that probably isn’t muscle! It’s been very difficult to lose the weight, and I’ve only lost 5kg so far – but knowing that I potentially have this surgery coming up in the not too distant future has really pushed me to get serious about dropping the weight.
To get into the ideal BMI range I need to lose about 18kg, but to be honest I don’t know how likely that is – given the amount of muscle I have. It works well as a starting point though – and hopefully I’ll be able to get rid of a decent amount of weight before surgery through eating less rubbish foods and working out more.
Body
Along with the weight-loss I’m starting to increase my protein intake – to help facilitate healing, and I’ve started taking a multi-vitamin and some vitamin C tablets.
When it gets a bit closer to the time, I’ll start using a moisturiser on my donor arm, graft site and pubic area to help make the skin a bit more supple. I haven’t heard anyone else say they do this, or whether it’ll even make any difference – but I did it before and after my chest surgery, so I figured there’d be no harm in doing it before this one!
Donor Arm
Along with the laser hair removal, I’ve been more conscious about putting on sun cream daily. On top of that, I’ve started wearing a UV protective sleeve when I go out in public / when I work out outside. This is partially because I want to keep the area as protected as possible, but also so people at work get used to seeing the sleeve. I know it’s a bit silly – but I guess a part of me thinks there’ll be less questions.
Anyway, that’s all I think. If anyone has any ideas of other things they think might help / they’ve done – please feel free to let me know!
My Transition FtM 