What to Expect After BBL Surgery: A Guide to Recovery Post-BBL Procedure

There’s nothing better than feeling 100% comfortable with your body, which may be difficult if you’re unhappy with the size or shape of your buttocks.  Thanks to a Brazilian Butt Lift, or BBL for short, you don’t have to settle.

A BBL makes it possible for a surgeon to increase, accentuate and contour your buttocks naturally. Could life get any better than that? We don’t think so.

The popularity of Brazilian butt lifts has risen tremendously in recent years. It doesn’t come as a surprise though, it’s a natural way for women to get the booty they want and with the right care, BBL recovery is a breeze.

If you are getting ready to have a Brazilian Butt Lift, let us help you prepare for what comes after leaving the OR: recovering, healing, and going back to your routine with an enviable derriére.

Read our Brazilian Butt Lift Recovery Guide to understand the procedure, your post-op care both at the hospital and at home, and some BBL recovery tips from our VIDA plastic surgeons to help you feel comfortable during this process.

What happens during a Brazilian butt lift procedure?

A Brazilian Butt Lift procedure begins with liposuction to remove fat from the regions around the buttocks, such as your ‘love handles’, thighs, lower back, or hips.

By removing fat from this area, the surgeon will achieve two things:

1. Create a slimmer contour around your booty
2. Obtain donor fat that will be transferred to your buttocks. The fat from the donor site is purified and injected into the areas you want to be enhanced.

VIDA surgeons perform the fat grafting step with a masterpiece in mind: giving you a booty with the shape, size, and perkiness you’ve always dreamed of.

Brazilian butt lift is an outpatient surgery performed under general anesthesia. (For our out-of-town patients looking for a Brazilian butt lift in Mexico, VIDA Wellness and Beauty offers a tranquil recovery boutique where they can recuperate from plastic surgery in comfort.)

What to expect after Brazilian Butt Lift Surgery

The final result from a BBL procedure is a beautiful, naturally gorgeous derriére.

There is a recovery period, which requires some care and attention at home, certain modifications to your routine, and using some new devices to help you heal, such as a compression garment and a special pillow for sitting.

Since this is a natural procedure, the BBL recovery process is generally quicker than with other cosmetic surgeries.

Brazilian Butt Lift Recovery Timeline

Sitting after Brazilian Butt Lift surgery. Before diving into a detailed BBL recovery schedule, we want to address a question our surgeons hear all the time: can I sit after BBL surgery?

This is one of the most strict instructions for BBL post-op care: avoid sitting directly on the buttocks for the first 3 to 4 weeks following the procedure to help establish the injected fat.

Do you really need to sit? Use a special Brazilian butt lift pillow. During your initial recovery, our surgeons recommend an inflatable or memory foam pillow that distributes the pressure in your buttocks.

A big plus of not sitting directly on the buttocks right after a Brazilian buttock lift is prolonging the results from fat transfer! Here is why: maximum fat survival.

When fat cells are transferred to a different area of your body (looking at you, booty!), they need to re-establish their own blood supply to survive.

We completely understand why this question comes up, sitting is as natural as breathing. But on this one, VIDA doctors agree: avoid sitting as much as you can to avoid unnecessary pain and maximize the outcome of your natural buttocks augmentation procedure.

Immediately after Brazilian Butt Lift surgery. Since this procedure involves liposuction and fat transfer, this outpatient surgery is performed under general anesthesia.

Right after the surgery, you should wait for the anesthesia to wear off. You might need to stay overnight at our clinic, particularly if you’re visiting us from out of state.

Is there BBL recovery pain during the healing process? If you’re worried about being in pain, don’t!

Yes, the BBL procedure is a surgery and as with any surgical procedure, you can expect some swelling, soreness, bruising, and a feeling of numbness. However, all of these are temporary and if you’re feeling anything more than a little discomfort, pain medication will be prescribed to keep you comfy!

As soon as you head home and unless instructed otherwise, you must focus on two things: resting and taking short walks. Walking is a simple activity that helps manage and reduce swelling and bruising by increasing your blood circulation.

BBL Recovery Week-by-Week

The first 7 to 10 days after Brazilian Butt Lift surgery: Your first 7 to 10 days of BBL recovery time is when most of the healing process happens, meaning you’ll see major changes during the first week!

Your surgeon will ask you to wear a special elastic compression garment. Compression garments are invaluable aid that helps minimize swelling and fluid retention while enhancing the tightness of the areas where you had liposuction.

Remember: in addition to wearing your compression garment, sit only when necessary and use your special pillow!

Weeks 2 to 6 after Brazilian Butt Lift Surgery: For most Brazilian butt lift patients, most of the pain, swelling, and tenderness disappear during the first six weeks.

Remember that from weeks 2 to 3 of the BBL recovery process, you might not feel any discomfort but you should still be avoiding sitting as much as possible.

Most patients can resume driving as soon as the surgeon authorizes them to sit without restrictions, between weeks 3 and 4.

While heavy lifting, exercising, and doing strenuous activities should still be avoided, you can start taking more vigorous walks and resume all your household chores as usual.

Week 6 and more after Brazilian Butt Lift Surgery: Our doctors say that most of their patients have recovered enough to go back to exercising their lower body without restrictions.

For most BBL surgery patients, 80% or more of any pain, swelling, numbness, and soreness are completely gone, if not 100%. This is usually the time when patients can appreciate the final results of their BBL procedure.

Not all of the fat cells transferred survive, and after BBL recovery week 6, you can appreciate the BBL results that will last.

Now that BBL recovery time is over, it’s time to show off that booty without any concern!

BBL Recovery Tips

We hope we have eased your doubts regarding Brazilian Butt Lift recovery.

However, here are some extra BBL recovery tips you can follow to help establish the injected fat and support your body during its post-op healing process:

• Take extra time off work. Most people’s jobs require them to sit for extended periods of time. You might feel great, you might have your booty pillow ready to go but if you can take extra time off work, you’ll be able to help the transferred fat cells survive.
• Eat a healthy diet. Follow your surgeon’s dietary guidelines, such as eating balanced meals, low in sugar and fat. Watch out for foods with high salt content, as this promotes liquid retention. After any surgery, you want to help your body reduce swelling. Eating whole foods with low sodium content is a natural way to achieve this.
• Say goodbye to alcohol and tobacco. To decrease the chance of circulation problems during and after the surgery, refrain from drinking and smoking a couple of weeks before and after the surgery. This will go a long way!

Get yourself an enviable derriere with one of our licensed, board-certified plastic surgeons. Call us now at (619)738-2144 to resolve all of your questions regarding Brazilian Butt Lift recovery!