Lower tummy completely NUMB at 4 months post op, when does the feeling come back? Or is it permanent?

Full tummy tuck with muscle repair in mid February, so I'm just past 4 months now. Shape wise I'm honestly thrilled, but there's one thing nobody warned me about and it's starting to get in my head. The whole lower half of my tummy, from roughly the belly button down to the scar, is NUMB. Not tingly, not sore, just nothing. I can prod it, pinch it, run a nail across it, and it's like it belongs to someone else.

I lift (hence the name) and I'm used to feeling my core when I brace, and now there's this dead zone in the middle of it that doesn't report back at all. Weirdly, right above the numb bit there's a strip that's the OPPOSITE, so sensitive that my waistband and even a clothes label sets it off.

And then there's the zaps. Random little electric zings deep in the numb area, mostly in the evenings, that make me jump. I read one thing that said numbness after this op is temporary and another that said the surgeon cuts the nerves and it's permanent, so now I don't know what to believe. Did they damage a nerve? Is 4 months too soon to panic? When did feeling actually come back for you lot, if it did at all? Trying not to spiral here.

Same here and it freaked me out too. Mine's numb from the navel down and has been since day one, I'm about 5 months. The zaps started for me around month 3. Following this because I want the timeline as well.

That sensitive strip above the numb bit is such a strange combination, isn't it. Mine was exactly the same, dead below and jumpy above, and the jumpy part settled a lot by around month 6. The label thing drove me properly mad for a while, I cut the labels out of everything and lived in soft waistbands.

The numb patch shrank inwards really slowly for me, like the feeling crept back from the edges first and left a smaller island in the middle. Still not 100 percent at a year, but I genuinely forget about it most days now.

paulalifts said:

Did they damage a nerve?

Mine (2022, full TT with repair) was numb from the belly button down to the scar for the best part of a year, and there's still a patch just below my navel that's a bit muffled to this day. It didn't stop it being worth it, I promise. The feeling came back the way Jess describes, from the outside in, and those electric zaps were the bit that scared me most until a nurse told me that's the nerves waking up, not a warning sign.

The site's numbness page laid it all out plainly and calmed me right down when I was where you are. Give it time, 4 months really is early days for this part.

Direct answer first: numbness across the lower abdomen after an abdominoplasty is expected, not a sign that something has gone wrong, and in most people a good deal of it returns. Here is why it happens and roughly on what timescale.

To tighten the abdomen the surgeon lifts the skin and fat off the muscle as a flap, and in doing so divides many of the small sensory nerve branches that supply that skin (the anterior branches of the lower intercostal nerves, including the ones around the navel that sit in the T10 area). The skin stays alive, its blood supply comes from elsewhere, but for a while it cannot report touch. That is the dead zone you are describing, and it sits exactly where you would expect it, between the umbilicus and the incision.

Nerves do regrow, slowly, on the order of a millimetre a day, which is why sensation tends to creep back from the edges inward over roughly 6 to 18 months, occasionally up to two years. The electric zaps and pins and needles (paraesthesia, or formication, if you want the words for it) are usually the regeneration itself and tend to be a reassuring sign rather than a worrying one. The hypersensitive strip above the scar is the flip side of the same process and commonly settles over months. It is also honestly stated in most consent discussions that a small patch below the navel can stay permanently altered in a minority of people.

A few things genuinely worth flagging to your own surgical team rather than to a forum, because they are a different conversation: numbness or burning that spreads down the outer thigh (that can be irritation of the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve, sometimes from positioning or a garment worn too tight), sensation that is clearly going backwards rather than forwards, or numbness paired with new redness, heat or swelling. Your surgeon knows what was done to your particular flap and can examine you, which no timeline from a stranger can replace.

Update for anyone who finds this later. I'm just past 5 months now and something has genuinely shifted: the numb island is smaller, the feeling has crept in a couple of centimetres round the edges, and the zaps have calmed right down. Reading Rebecca's week by week diary and this thread stopped me catastrophising.

I also flagged the outer thigh thing Mr Okafor mentioned at my last check, just to be safe, and it was all fine (the garment had been a bit tight). Still a way to go, but for the first time I actually believe the feeling is coming back. Thanks all.