I had a DIEP reconstruction 1 month ago. ( one side, not bilateral) I was in the hospital for 5 days and , yes, it was pretty painful at first. The hardest part was not being able to cough or take a deep breath without it hurting. The first week at home I pretty much stayed in bed and took Percocet every 4 hours. After that, I started moving around more, eating more, and just taking ibuprofen for pain. Now after 4 weeks, I am feeling great and I love how I look too! I'm not supposed to work out for another 4 weeks, but I feel ready now! In the weeks before the surgery, I was feeling very doubtful about it too, but I think you'll be really happy you did it.

My Diep procedure was on 11-20-14 and my recovery has gone well. The first 3 days on bed rest were the hardest but pain meds are there to get you through it! I switched over to Ibuprofen for pain by post op day 8. It's still early but I'm happy with my flat tummy and soft, perky breasts :)

I had the Diep flap on the left breast and the tram flap on the right breast. The tram flap was done on the right breast because during surgery they could not get the blood vessel to release from the muscle. I told myself that if anyone ever asked I would tell them not to do it. I did a lot of research before I decided to go with the Diep flap option. It was the worst decision I have ever made. Yes it was very painful, I was in surgery for 11 1/2 hours. I stayed in ICU for 4 days and was in the hospital for a total of six days. I have had 7 more surgeries since the main one. Most of them was trying to get the breast even and to match each other, needless to say one is bigger than the other still. Also had to have surgery because I developed a hernia because they had to do the tram flap. I wish so much I would have just got implants. Oh I even ended up with a small implant in my left breast to try to get them the same size. I'm not trying to scare you at all. I just had such a bad experience, but everyone is not the same and you might not have the issues I did. Good luck on whatever you decide to do.

LisaScott I too will be having the Diep procedure hopefully in January as well. I see my plastic Surgeon December 09 and he will let me know if it's a go. I had my BMX June of this year with tissue expanders and just finished up with radiation October 7th.
And like you I am very nervous about this procedure more so then the mastectomy. I however have been fortunate to see a recent diep done on someone and Wow it looked amazing and that is what I hold onto right now.

My diep is in 2016 I choice this over incert. Since those need replaced. And I want to use as much of my own tissue as possible my nplastic surgeon said less likely to reject and is suppose to grow or shrink in size as you do. And I wasn't looking forward to having to replace the insert every 10 years I'm not 50 yet and hope to live longer than 10 years. The expander is a pain and had I known how much I was going to be going thru I may have just done the mastectomy with no reconstruct. It hasn't helped that the expander has moved out of place and is very uncomfortable. Just 5 more. Months to put up with it.