Numbness - Temporary or Permanent?

 

It can be both.  It's normal to have varying sensations in the abdominal area.  I've touched on this topic very briefly in a previous blog but decided to give the topic a little bit more discussion.

For me, now at 7 weeks post-op, I still have an area that has no feeling at all, none whatsoever.  It's the area between my scar to slightly above my navel. When I touch it with my hand or fingers, it's as if I'm touching someone else's skin. No feeling, nada.  If I apply pressure to the same area, I can feel it internally because it's being applied or pushed but not because I'm feeling any external sensations. It spans about a 6 inch area horizontally and probably about 3.5 - 4 inches vertically. I can hold my pointer and middle fingers together, drag them lightly from my navel out and there's no feeling initially but improves from slight feeling to complete feeling as my fingers continue probably about 5 inches out toward each side.  

Immediately following surgery my entire abdomen was numb but within the first 2-3 weeks, I noticed the feeling was coming back on the sides where it once was numb and was gaining more sensation towards the center as the days went by.  What's really odd, for example, is if I'm leaning against the kitchen counter at the sink and I can't feel the counter touching my abdomen, that sort of weirds me out a bit.  I can feel the pressure of the leaning but no immediate sensation on the outside.

As you regain feeling back in your abdominal area, you may have times where it feels like pin needles poking you, or a tingling sensation or it can feel as if someone were pinching you with several pairs of pointed tweezers at the same time in a certain area.  This is due to your nerves attempting to reconnect, or regenerating. 

Remember you just had a major surgery, the skin has been separated from the muscles and relocated further down so it's gone through a rather extensive change.

Numbness can be temporary but keep in mind it can also be permanent.  Prior to my tummy tuck, I had four C-sections and eventually a hysterectomy and had lost some feeling around my scar area as a result.  Even after many years the feeling never returned in some areas.  The same is true with a tummy tuck surgery.  It can take up to a year or more for the feeling to return or as I stated before, the numbness can be permanent.