Castle Personal Training
Castle Personal Training is a Corstorphine, Edinburgh based company who specialise in weightloss/toning and Pre and Post Natal exercise.
Does my Diastasis Recti need surgery?
Hi guys,
Simple answer first; Unless it looks like this then no.
I’ve come across the above question a fair bit lately. I’ve had several ladies reffered to me by medical professionals who came to see their doctors about Diastasis Recti problems and who originally wanted surgery to get it resolved. When asked by their GP if they had ever tried exercise to resolve it the answer was either “No” or, and even worse, “Well, I had a Personal Trainer for a long time to get rid of my baby-fat but that didn’t work”.
The reason I class that second answer as worse than “No” is because it should actually be “No, I focussed on the wrong thing and my weightloss-PT had no idea that I should be focussing on healing my body first. It didn’t get rid of my post-partum belly and now I believe exercise is pointless and I will always look this way unless I take drastic action.”
If I have a medical issue, which Diastasis Recti is, I try to see a specialist. If I have an ear infection I don’t go see a podiatrist. So these people went to see the wrong kind of Personal Trainer, the issue didn’t get resolved, and then think they that their case is particularly bad. Obviously this is not their fault. As I’ve said many, many, many a time; Post-natal care in the UK is terrible when it comes to things like mum’s physical health and fitness.
In 9 out of 10 cases, and I’m being generous to the other side here, you do not need surgery to fix something like Diastasis Recti and flatten your tummy. What you need is the right exercise regime, some time, dedication and effort. Almost all good plastic surgeons say this as well; they don’t want to perform a completely unnecessary operation. They also prefer the operation to be as straightforward as possible and, as several have told me, it’s a lot easier to perform the surgery if people have already done most of the hard work themselves.
Some ladies, the 1 out of 10 who have really bad DR, find they can get their separation down a lot but find they just struggle with that last bit, or they want rid of the excess skin, and that’s when they phone the surgeon. DR surgery is messy, painful and has a long recovery time so should always be the last resolve. It’s also about £6k which makes it significantly more expensive than working with a Personal Trainer tends to be.
So I get these people coming to me and, quite often, I find that their Diastasis isn’t particularly bad. They have no hernias nor indeed a massive gap, they just have a particularly weak core and their posture is often pretty bad. The “my case is much worse than anybody else’s” really just tends to be a body-confidence thing much more than an actual medical problem.
It really is possible.
It is incredible to me how women don’t seem to talk to each other about messy post-natal things and how often I have to tell women things like “Peeing yourself is not uncommon at all, but it’s not right and we can fix that” and “Yeah that round belly is annoying but nowhere near the worst I’ve seen and we can get that fixed relatively quickly”. Guys are always told you discuss EVERYTHING with eachother and this stuff never comes up?
So you have a round tummy, flat bum and neck and back pain? This is all fixable with exercise. In fact, abdominoplasty does nothing for your posture at all so you still have to exercise if you want to really look good, fix your back and neck pain and get a nice bum with your new-found flat belly.
So why not give exercise with a professional a shot first, it’s what a good plastic surgeon tells you to do anyways. If you then find that having surgery is best for you to close that last gap, and after all no amount of exercise can get rid of excess skin, then, as always, deal with the best and I’m sure you’ll look amazing.
Here is a link to my online site where you can get yours fixed at a very affordable rate.
You’d be a fool to have Diastasis and not click this link.
Take care,
Peter
Castle Personal Training 