About reconstructive plastic surgery
Quick facts
- Reconstructive plastic surgery procedures are an important option to improve your well-being and confidence.
- Whether focused on appearance, function or both, these procedures can have a major impact on your physical and psychological health.
- Some patients undergo this surgery together with targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR) and osseointegration (OI) procedures. Others decide that they only want a reconstructive procedure.
With decades of experience in plastic surgery between them, the Relimb™ team have extensive expertise in a wide range of reconstructive surgical options.
At Relimb, you are the priority. Our goal is to listen to your needs and to tailor any reconstruction to you. We always aim to provide you with a complete and honest opinion about the options available. Read Jennifer’s story to learn more about our patient-led approach.
My experience
Jennifer's* story
As a result of a work-related accident, Jennifer lost her right thumb at the knuckle. She also lost all of the hair-bearing parts of her scalp and both ears. Immediately after the accident, Jennifer’s doctors placed a skin graft over the stump of the thumb and covered her scalp and ear injuries with another skin graft. Unfortunately, Jennifer’s scalp and ear grafts remained unstable and unsightly, so she wanted to explore the surgical options to improve her quality of life.
Jennifer’s case manager recommended that she visit Relimb after learning about our range of holistic services and our extensive knowledge of reconstructive plastic surgery techniques.
Jennifer met with the team and we carefully assessed her needs. We listened to Jennifer when she said she did not want an osseointegrated bone-anchor or a toe-to-hand transfer to reconstruct her missing thumb. In fact, her goals were to have a longer thumb, a stable scalp and replacements for her ears. She told us that these improvements would help her feel more confident about returning to her daily routines.
We provided Jennifer with a surgical plan to make her goals a reality:
We used a technique called distraction-lengthening of bone to create a new thumb. To allow her soft tissues to adapt to the lengthening bone, we also used tissue-expansion techniques.
We recreated the web space between Jennifer’s thumb and forefinger using a skin flap taken from her forearm.
For Jennifer’s ears, we inserted osseointegrated bone-anchors into the bone around her ear holes. These allowed high quality silicone ears (provided by our rehabilitation partners) to be attached securely.
Finally, we resurfaced her scalp with soft tissues taken from her abdomen. This removed the unstable areas of skin and allowed us to reposition her eyebrows.*Name changed to respect our patient’s privacy