Day 6 and still walking bent over like I'm searching for dropped keys. When did you straighten up?

Full tummy tuck with muscle repair on March 6th, so day 6 today. I knew about the bent walking, everyone mentions it, but nobody mentioned my LOWER BACK, which honestly hurts more than the actual incision at this point. I shuffle round the house like I'm searching the carpet for dropped keys.

Drain situation: one came out at day 4 which was a weird feeling but fine, second one is still in and the output isn't dropping as fast as the little chart on my discharge sheet suggests it should. Nurse on the phone said walk little and often, which I'm doing, kitchen laps every hour like a very slow zoo animal.

Main question though, I'm scared to try standing straighter in case I undo the muscle repair, like I'll feel a ping and ruin everything. Is that even a thing? How long were you all bent for? Need some timelines to hold onto here.

Day 6 me would have hugged you, carefully, from a bent position. Mine was 2022, full TT with repair, and I was bent for 11 days. The back ache was genuinely the worst part of my whole recovery, worse than the tummy, worse than the drains, and nobody had warned me either.

What got me through: flat shoes with actual support even indoors, a pillow under my knees every time I sat or lay down so my back wasn't holding the tension, and heat on my lower back (my surgeon's nurse okayed that for me, ask yours). And crucially, NOT trying to force upright. I tested each morning by relaxing taller rather than pushing taller, and somewhere between day 10 and 14 it just happened, almost overnight, like my body decided the lease was up.

Second drain stayed 9 days for me and that turned out to be completely fine in my case. The chart on the sheet is a rough sketch, your team's opinion is the real chart.

Day 8 for me. One morning I just stood up in the shower and realised I was straight. You can't rush it and you won't be bent forever, promise.

Day 6 was almost exactly my low point too, and the dropped-keys walk is precisely how I described it in my diary. I was bent the best part of two weeks, and the back ache faded the same week I straightened, because they're really one problem: the posture protects the repair while everything that was tightened settles, and your back is doing unpaid overtime in the meantime. The fear of feeling a ping and undoing it all, I had that too, and staying a bit bent is exactly how you're protecting it. Straightening happens gradually as things relax, not as a leap of faith.

I wrote up that whole stretch, hour by grim hour, here: week one of tummy tuck recovery, and there's a separate page on drains covering what the output measures and why the numbers wander.

On the drain that's slower than your sheet: that one's a phone call, not a forum question. Ring the team and tell them the actual numbers, they will not think you're being dramatic. Mine were rung about far smaller things and were lovely about all of it. That's what the number on the discharge sheet is for.

Gym person here, straightened day 9 or 10. Hardest part for me wasn't the bent walk, it was accepting that doing NOTHING extra was the training plan. Kitchen laps little and often is genuinely the whole program right now, you're doing it right. The back thing fades the same week you stand up, hang in there.