I am recovering from a big unexpected surgery that left my Santa-class belly looking like a football, with 7" of midline incision vertically centered at belt level. I hope the staples come out tomorrow and have maybe another month at home recuperating. There is still some question as to whether I have a belly button anymore.
What am I supposed to do about pants? I can’t imagine my current jeans wardrobe working. I’m already two weeks postop now, with a thick bandage at all times, and still can’t even handle sweatpants.
Are there special kinds of pants that don’t stress the midline? Is there a way of wearing suspenders that does not put them outside of everything else? Special discrete means of holding pants up? Do I have to contemplate overalls or coveralls?
Zoot suits?
I realize if we get into specific fashions or comfort preferences that this is going to go off into Opinions, but really, I’m looking for the factual basics to get started. I’ve never liked clothes shopping and never paid attention to style, and suddenly I think I need clever shopping skills - or a referral or something. Even if there were just a name, a phrase, meaning pants or other coverings for the post laparotomy impaired, that would help.
Only because you’re the one who said it. I don’t see why you couldn’t get a pair of jeans with the waistline and inch or two bigger then you normally wear it and then get suspenders and wear them under not-tucked-in t-shirt.
Actually, in the interest of not spending $50 on new jeans, you could try this with the suspenders and just using your regular jeans and not snapping them. I’d think that should keep some of the pressure off the wound. You might not even need the suspenders then. I was going to suggest not snapping or zipping them, but if your t-shirt came up (like if you raised your arms) and someone saw unzipped/unsnapped jeans with suspenders holding them up…you might get some odd looks.
If it’s just a question of the jeans being too tight, there’s always the option of a button extender to give you a little more room. That might save you from having to go up a size or two.
How far down does the incision go? You can always wear sweatpants with the band below your belly and hopefully below the incision.
Is it the pressure that hurts when you wear pants, or the friction? If you pad up your belly well enough then the pants shouldn’t rub the incision.
They made me a faux bellybutton and having lived with it, I would rather they had just cut it out and left it. First, it is off center, second, based on all the scars I never show off bare skin anyway, third, it sometimes becomes infected.
Interesting! I am a man, but not an especially easy one to embarrass. What kind of choices are there? Do they make them for women who are mechanics or technicians or something similarly non frilly?
I have had midline incisions from groin to sternum a couple of times (4, so far as an adult and several as a child) and always wear sweat pants, although round the house I prefer robe with no pants for the first two weeks at home. I always remove the bandages and let the wound breathe once I could stomach looking at it, which is usually about 2 weeks post-op. The only dressings I keep on are on catheters and drains, simply because it feels more comfortable that way as they don’t tug so much against gravity.
As others have said, sweat pants, and as an aside make sure you support your abdomen when you cough or sneeze.
sewing supply stores used to sell the stretchy panels that could be sewn into the pants you already owned. I don’t know if they still do but you could check there.
I had an incision from my pubis to a couple inches above my belly button. (They wrapped mine around my navel, so the scar looks like a question mark.) I spent the first week or so in a robe, but after that I was able to tolerate men’s jersey pants, which are usually sold in the pajama section. The elastic or drawstring tends to be much less emphatic than it is on sweats, if you know what I mean. I also had some scrub pants that were very comfortable and cool.
If nothing else, you can always leave the drawstrings on whatever pants you choose untied and use suspenders or pin them to a T-shirt.
When I had my surgery, it was sweats or lightweight cotton drawstring pants. Could you wear scrubs? And, like Sudden Kestrel, they just swerved around my navel so the incision takes a semicircle curve near the end.
If the elastic band around sweatpants (or any other pants) bothers you, you can always convert them to drawstring pants. When I had abdominal surgery, I took all of my pajama bottoms and lounge pants (fancier sweatpants), removed the elastic and added a drawstring. I found it so much more comfortable that I now convert all my pajama bottoms to drawstring only. It’s a fairly minor sewing job, or you can probably find an alterations place that will do it inexpensively. I love the ability to adjust them as needed for your comfort level.
Well, there are jeans and there are khakis, and black dress pants too. Maternity bottoms tend to be non-frilly so they can mix and match with tops so that you don’t need to buy many of them (because by the end of the pregnancy you’re ready to burn it all).
Old Navy and Gap both have large online maternity lines. Motherhood Maternity is an affordable alternative if you cruise the sales the right way. Old Navy has a big sale online right now, though, and they’re the cheapest and the only brand I wore.
The sew-in maternity panels another poster mentioned are something I never tried, so I don’t know how they fit. The maternity pants with over-the-belly bands have a stretchy jersey band all the way around, sewn to a regular pair of pants cut very, very low around the hips.
