Surgery booked with Karidis - scared/nervous/excited!

[frozen]

Check page 3 for my surgery experiences!
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Well I'm typing this on my Blackberry while in the bath in my Mercure hotel room! I saw Karidis today for a consult and decided to make a weekend of it and stay in London for a few days.

The consultation was what I expected it to be. Karidis outlined all the details that I already knew from reseach but it was reassuring nonetheless. He seems very confident that I'll get a very flat chest after the surgery.

I was offered surgery on the 23rd July which is very, very soon and a welcomed surprise really as it potentially means I can get this all over and sorted 3 days before my birthday!! I honestly can't even begin to imagine how amazing it would be to have a flat chest - I want it so badly. But at the same time I'm deeply scared: £4000 is the entirity of my savings (and not to mention a lot of money). Also my mum seems a bit dissapointed with my choice to go for surgery, even if she says otherwise. I guess she just loves me regardless and obviously just thinks I'm fine the way I am, she also thinks 4k is a lot for a final year student at 19 to be spending!

Nonetheless I told Karidis' secretary that I wanted to go ahead with surgery on the 23rd and gave her all my payment details. I think this is it... I think I'm going to do this.. Finally get rid of my horrible chest and move on once and for all.

Wish me luck guys. I'll be posting again soon to let you know how things progress and how I feel along the road.

[merlot]

Feels good to get it done doesn't it. I'm about 3 weeks ahead, and go in next week. I PMd a guy on here who went 3 weeks before me and got a lot of useful info out of him. If you think it would be useful for you to do the same by all means PM me and I'll share answers/advice/etc to any questions you think, as I'm sure I'll have been there. Good luck

[thetodd]

If you didnt have a blood test there, make sure you get one ASAP its imperative you have it done or you wont be able to have the surgery). You wont regret it! i had to visit StJohns today ... flash cockney wankers

Your going to be a bit rough on your birthday though mate, make sure you dont drink anything! You dont need much karidis's team will give you what you need really but

For swelling
PINEAPPLE, major healer for swelling get a load of chunks and pineapple juice it will do you a lot of good

Brusing
Arnica, they give you some arnica tablets through the post it isnt enough though get a tube extra from boots

Scarring
get yourself some Bio oil, it will help heal external/internal scarring and is nice to massage with. You could also get some arnica cream

they give you some waterproof bandages for your wounds, i was alergic to them you might need to get some from boots if thats the case. If you want to do yourself a favour bic you chest now 3 weeks pre op cause i was in fucking agony ripping the bandages off my wig piece after sugery

GL

[frozen]

Feels good to get it done doesn't it. I'm about 3 weeks ahead, and go in next week. I PMd a guy on here who went 3 weeks before me and got a lot of useful info out of him. If you think it would be useful for you to do the same by all means PM me and I'll share answers/advice/etc to any questions you think, as I'm sure I'll have been there. Good luck

While it does feel good to have the ball rolling on this it makes me HELLA nervous! I'm constantly worrying about how much money I'm spending, what my parents are gonna think, etc. I'm also worrying that as I have a bit of a belly; if I spent time trying to get into shape I wouldn't just lose the boobs naturally. But I think I'm just having last minute doubts as it were, as I've lost weight in the past and it's made bugger all difference to the moobs!

Thanks for the offer, I'll probably be taking you up on that soon!

[frozen]

If you didnt have a blood test there, make sure you get one ASAP its imperative you have it done or you wont be able to have the surgery). You wont regret it! i had to visit StJohns today ... flash cockney wankers

Your going to ... *SNIP*

Yeah this is a problem that I need to sort out ASAP! I didn't get the blood test with Karidis as at the time I was really money-conscious and kinda got the feeling the clinic was trying to take every last penny I had!! So I wanted to hold onto my £130 

I'm going to register tomorrow at my local GP and see if I can get him to do this *blood test*, but I have no idea what to ask for as I'm not sure exactly what Karidis needs!

I had a blood test about 2 weeks ago at hospital when I had a bladder infection, I wonder if I could ask the hospital to forward me a copy of that (if they still have it)?

Cheers for all the advice about aftercare and what to take, I'm gonna head to Holland and Barrett tomorrow I think and get some extra arnica and bio oil!

As for my chest, even at 19 it's still not all that hairy so it should all be cool 

[thetodd]

These are the tests you need


Full Blood Count
Coag (Blood clotting test)
Urea and Electrolytes

Your GP should do it, but maybe try and get a mobile blood plebeotomist out it cost me £20 saves all the hassle. Mate you wouldnt have got rid of man boobs through excercise so dont worry about it. Once your recovered go down the gym and loose your belly! Your parents will just want your operation to go well and for you to be happy so dont have any concerns about that

good luck mate, make sure to take some before and after pictures

[frozen]

Don't worry, I'll take lots of pictures! Thanks again dude 

[merlot]

For swelling
PINEAPPLE, major healer for swelling get a load of chunks and pineapple juice it will do you a lot of good

Brusing
Arnica, they give you some arnica tablets through the post it isnt enough though get a tube extra from boots

Scarring
get yourself some Bio oil, it will help heal external/internal scarring and is nice to massage with. You could also get some arnica cream

they give you some waterproof bandages for your wounds, i was alergic to them you might need to get some from boots if thats the case. If you want to do yourself a favour bic you chest now 3 weeks pre op cause i was in fucking agony ripping the bandages off my wig piece after sugery

GL

Great advice, I'm a few days post-op myself and can definitely recommend all of this.  Particularly the chest hair bit. Trying to get plasters off it was like Mel Gibson waxing his legs in What Women Want...!! (Though unfortunately I didn't end up with the side effect he got). Best to shave the whole thing off as it also gets caught in the closures of the compression garment too.

I'd also add to this to get some bran flakes down you, drink loads of water and get anything from high cupboards down low so you don't need to reach up over shoulder height.

The pineapple is great, but it's a whole lot easier in tins rather than trying to hack off the bulletproof skin of a real one.

[frozen]

Awesome! Thanks for the extra advice How's your surgery going by the way? Good results so far?

Be careful with canned pineapple though - the tinned stuff gets "heat treated" which apparently destroys the enzyme (Bromelain) that reduces swelling & promotes healing.

As an update to people interested in how things are going down the Karidis route:

• Surgery still booked for 23rd
• Hotel is sorted out (spending 3 nights after the op in the Crowne Plaza @ London Docklands )Blood test booked for tomorrow
• Paid £1000 deposit, need to pay remaining balance (not sure if the ball is in my court here, or if Karidis' team will phone me and ask for it)

[thetodd]

Make sure you pay it mate, Youl get a pack through the post saying that they need the full amount and blood test results X days before the operation

when i was paying for my surgery, they fucked up the visa transactions and took the amount out twice. And both payments were not being accepted on their side (not my banks fault). So the payments were stuck in limbo and i was -£300. I had to get StJohns to fax the failed transactions recipts and it took a week for the payments to get cancelled. Then i had to borrow a credit card off a relative .... it was a nightmare

And if they dont get your blood test results, they will have absolutley no problem not peforming the surgery and taking your money! Get it sorted asap

[frozen]

Thanks thetodd, gonna work out what's due to Karidis tonight and then give his team a call tomorrow - money has been in place for a while now.

As a follow up to everyone; I went to my GP today and told her about going for surgery. She seemed fine with it and sent me to the in-house nurse 5 minutes later who drew some blood from me and has sent it off to get analyzed.

For anyone who's interested, they're doing a FBC(full-blood-count), COAG(clotting test) which is required by Karidis' team as well as a hormone test and a LFT(liver function test) which my GP thought would be useful.

Thinking about it, it would have been a good idea to get the hormone test done PRIOR to booking the surgery, but what the hell ..  I'm tired of my chest, they're not going anywhere, weight loss doesn't help, and I'm too psyched up for the surgery now to drop out! 

[merlot]

Awesome! Thanks for the extra advice How's your surgery going by the way? Good results so far?

Be careful with canned pineapple though - the tinned stuff gets "heat treated" which apparently destroys the enzyme (Bromelain) that reduces swelling & promotes healing.

As an update to people interested in how things are going down the Karidis route:

• Surgery still booked for 23rd
• Hotel is sorted out (spending 3 nights after the op in the Crowne Plaza @ London Docklands )Blood test booked for tomorrow
• Paid £1000 deposit, need to pay remaining balance (not sure if the ball is in my court here, or if Karidis' team will phone me and ask for it)

Yes it's all going good so far. Not much pain, only had 2 paracetamol the evening of surgery, and none since. Bruising isn't too bad at all, the Arnica helps with that. There is another homeopathic remedy you can take pre-op, will have to check, the name escapes me at the mo. The comp garment is a pain in the arse, and a relief to spend showertime out of it!!

I'd get some Aquafit plasters too from Boots in advance. The ones they give you are great, but they stick like superglue and I had a small blister caught under my arm one where it rubbed on the comp garment. Forch, I caught it in time and peeled it off to swap with a Boots one.

Payment-wise, both the hosp and K phoned me about a week or so in advance for the balancing payments, which all went through ok.

If ur staying in the hotel, get some Ariel handwash liquid too, so you can wash the garment ur not wearing in the bath.

Interesting about the tinned pineapple, I'll go back to hacking the real thing with a machete then!!

[frozen]

Haha thanks again for the info mate

Just had one of Karidis' secretaries on the phone beleive it or not! So I've sorted the remaining balance out just now. Just need to pay the hospital fees now and I'm all done.

Got another problem now though: As I mentioned in my previous post I got certain blood tests carried out yesterday at my GP's, but I totally forgot to mention to her that I needed "Urea and Electrolytes" (UE) too!!!!!!!!

She DID put me down for certain other tests like LFT/Hormone and perhaps another one, I can't remember... God this is a nightmare, it looks like I'll probably have to go back into the doctors and get another test done again! Hope they'll let me.

I'll keep you all updated.

[frozen]

update:

Got my Urea & Electrolytes (UE) test booked for next Monday 13th @ 9:20am.

Hoping to GOD that the results get back quickly as Karis needs them 1 week prior to surgery (16th), meaning I've got a 3 day period to retrieve my results and post them off to Karidis.

What a nightmare! I might give the team a call and see if they can cut me some slack if I send them the FBC/COAG results now and the UE results slightly after (and closer) to the op date.

Wish me luck as I seriously think I need it!

EDIT:

http://www.gynecomastia.org/smf/index.php?topic=17975.msg124664#msg124664

Cellar_Door is another member who had a lot of problems getting his blood tests sorted before his op with Karidis. In the end he managed to get the results to Karidis on the day of the surgery and they were fine with that. So I'm thinking that 5 days (or so) before the op should be perfectly fine!

[thetodd]

cellar door was cutting it extremley short lol, he had to go back and have them done again

dont post your results, its not realiable enough. Get them faxed and get them to confirm that theyve recived them. Its a nightmare getting it all sorted mate, the joys of private surgery!