I just realised that the loose skin that was dangling from my lower arms has disappeared. Last year I was lying in bed and noticed that there were "flaps" that jiggled when I held my arms out and moved them around.
I assumed it was another humiliating, age related change, because when I worked in a geriatric hospital a lot of the old ladies had similar arms with loose dangly bits. I'm 66 now, and if my loose skin has been reabsorbed that's good news for all you younger women with a lot of weight to loose, if my skin can adapt I'm sure yours will too, without needing any painful surgery (with risk of infections and scarring). You just have to give it a year or two.
The "bingo wings" (why are there so many horrid names for parts of female bodies?) that were so prominent last year have shrunk to the point where they aren't immediately obvious (unless I hold my arms at just the right angle and give the right kind of jiggle). Now I'm wondering if those old ladies with the flappy, dangly arms had recently lost a lot of weight and if their arms would also have gone back to normal over the next few years once the hospital was making sure they ate properly?
It's not all good news though, in the past few weeks my face has started to deflate, leaving baggy lower eye lids, a furrow where the cheek used to be a lot plumper, and bulldog jowls at the sides of my mouth. I'd care more if I hadn't already noticed that the fat seems to be a bit random about where it decides to leave. The dangly skin (turkey wattles, those bloody names again!) where my multiple chins used to be has also shrunk by about 80%. So with a bit of luck (and serums) this too will pass.
It was the loose skin under my chin that I first noticed, (even before I realised that I'd inadvertently lost 12kg). I accepted it as a part of getting old, and invested in some retinol and hyaluronic serums.
It's only recently since noticing that most of the skin had vanished and my arms were looking a lot less deflated that it dawned on me that the loose skin was due to weight loss and not just galloping old age.
I'm chuffed today because I am wearing the size 22 dress that I bought at the end of August, hoping to be able to wear it this winter. When I tried it on in August it fit like a sausage skin, and now it is just right.
I wore size 36 in February 2022. It was a wrench to send my lovely clothes off to charity shops (who will probably just laugh at them because they are so big) but the skirts fell off when I walked and the dresses and tops slid down off the shoulder and drowned me.
I tentatively bought a couple of things in size 28, and then three dresses in size 24 for the summer. Then, (despite having vowed long ago never again to buy anything that was too small with the intention of dieting to fit into it) I couldn't resist buying a few size 22 things in the end of summer sale. I was a bit worried that by breaking the rule of never buying things that were too small I'd have "jinxed" my weight loss and it would grind to a halt, which makes being able to wear them comfortably by the end of October a relief.
I still haven't bought a new coat though. Nice coats are expensive and I don't want to spend a lot of money on something that might be too big by next year. So on the rare occasions when I leave the house I'm still wearing my size 36 rain jacket with the sleeves rolled up four times, in strong winds it billows like a sail. Though since I'm only getting in and out of taxis it doesn't matter as much as if I was able to walk.
The physiotherapist was a massive disappointment. I saw her 5 times and she didn't remember who I was from one time to the other. Each time I had to explain that no, I don't have osteoarthritis in my hip and knee, I had a rheumatoid arthritis flare up that lasted a year, it had subsided by Christmas 2021, and since walking in a peculiar fashion to avoid the worst of the pain during the rheumatic bout the muscles and tendons in my leg were out of whack, my right foot stuck out towards the side, and I needed two sticks to hold my balance as I limped and hobbled along. So I wanted her to diagnose which muscles and tendons were effected, and exactly which exercises and stretches I needed to do to correct the situation. Instead of giving me a diagnosis and exercises she would then proceed to wire me up to the EMS machine for the rest of the session.
After the 4rd session I reminded her that I was still waiting for exercises tailored to my needs. She said she'd e-mail them to me. Out of the 5 exercises she sent only one was possible for me to do. The others either involved getting down on the floor (which I had repeatedly told her I can't do, and wouldn't be able to get up again if I did) or (and this was the final straw) to sit in a chair with my arms stretched out in front of me and my hands holding each other, then rise up without using my arms before returning to the sitting position, once again without using my arms. She'd seen me avoid the visitor's chair without arms, I'd even told her that I wouldn't be able to get out of it. She'd watched me slowly and painfully lower myself into a chair by leaning heavily on the arms, and heave myself up again equally painfully and putting as much weight as possible onto my arms. That was the final proof that she was totally uninterested, didn't remember who I was, didn't care, hadn't been updating her notes when I gave her information, or reading her notes before my sessions, and was just giving very general suggestions for arthritic hips and knees rather than anything tailored towards solving my actual problem. When I went back for the 5th session I told her that I was so disappointed that she hadn't bothered to find exercises that I could actually do, and that were designed for my specific needs, also that she hadn't taken the trouble to go through them with me first to ensure that I could do them safely, and that there was no point in my returning. She then said something about my having osteoarthritis and I explained, for (at least) the 5th time that I do not have osteoarthritis, I had a rheumatoid arthritic flare up that lasted 10 months and left my gait damaged. To which she snippily replied "if it had been rheumatoid arthritis it would have effected all your joints, not just your knee and your hip", so I got to remind her again, that IT DID effect all my joints, that I remembered telling her that every joint in my body throbbed and ached, and that I distinctly remembered telling her that it felt as if sand had got in the joints of my collar bones, making me suddenly aware of their existence when they'd just been quietly doing their job for decades without drawing attention to themselves.
The only good thing that came out of it was that she introduced me to EMS, electrical muscle stimulation, and it was so helpful that I went home and ordered my own machine. That has really helped with the atrophied muscles in my lower leg, and has got rid of 80% of the pain in my thigh. If I concentrate I can now walk without a limp and with my right foot pointing forwards instead of out to the side. I still need a stick on the opposite side to my dodgy leg, and can't keep it up for more than a few steps but it is real progress and has made me feel quite hopeful.
If anyone else has pains and atrophied muscles this is the machine I'm using.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beurer-Stimulation-electrodes-programmes-Intensity/dp/B0872DQW46
I've only used the massage and muscle strengthening programmes, not the TENs setting because I haven't got any painful joints now (thank heavens).