Just don't know what to do with myself.

[ignatz]

I am 16 years old, and I believe I have gynecomastia.  It is severely affecting my life and self-esteem.  I noticed it about a year ago, and have worried about it since.  For the past two months, I have been running for 30 minutes on an elliptical cross-trainer 6 days a week, clocking in about 4-4.5 miles (according to the machine).  In addition, I have been lifting weights 5 days a week; only doing bench presses on an incline.  I haven't noticed much change, other than my upper chest bulging a bit, giving it a slightly more even look.  I believe I have a very low body fat; I have a six-pack and I am very vascular (though I do have love handles.  I'm far less concerned about those, but if you have any advice I'm all ears).  Regardless, my problem is still very noticeable, and I am loathe to take off my shirt in public, or even go a day without a jacket or thick sweater.  It becomes far less noticeable in cold temperature, and I look very normal under this circumstance.

I am very concerned about this, I often feel depressed and hate the way I look.  There are times when I think I'm in good shape, and attractive, but then I grab one of my breasts, and feel it just... jiggle under my touch.  It's terrible.

At my age, I believe surgery is out of the question (they don't let you go through with it unless you're 18, correct?), and I don't know what else to do.  I feel like I've tried everything.  I'd love to hear your advice.

[ignatz]

Is surgery the only option, then?  I'll try to find a camera to get pictures, if that would help.

And if I do get surgery, how can I hide it from my friends?

[hiufung88319]

surgery is not the only option.But it is the best option.

[jones357]

Keep working out.  I have not seen you, but I don't know anyone who has gotten it to sweat away.  I would just keep in shape and wait for now.  16 is a bit young for surgery in my book.  You never know what will happen when you get older, just don't do anything to make it worse.

[Worrier]

Nope I don't know anyone who has sweated the gland part of gyno away either.

But you still have love handles. That shows you still have a bit of fat too lose. And the body is strange as it picks off the areas where it goes first. When I ,lost weight it went off my face legs and stomach first. Chest and love handles are the hardest areas in my view.

Two months isn't much time either I would give it a bit longer. It took me six months before my chest looked better at all. You seem to be doing quite enough it terms of what you are doing now. Your sixteen, plenty of time to get surgery if the whole gym thing doesn't work out.  

A tip , you may not want to do this but when I thought my chest looked   better all the fat was off just a bit of loose skin around the nipple, I went swimming. Say for an hour a couple of times a week, My chest and abs are much tighter and I had a slight 'love handle problem ' but since I have been swimming it has gone. Running for miles and the gym did not have this effect.

Another tip that helped me was pressups and lots of them . People say don't work the lower chest but with pressups you won't put on much muscle due to using your body weight unlike the flat or decline bench press and that seems to have helped my chest as well. I discovered this by mistake when I was getting fit for my recruits course for the army and was worried they would make the gyno worse but the opposite occured.  

Again these are things that helped me, everyone is different and you may still need surgery at some point if you are finding it  diffcult to deal with. My gyno never completely went but I can go swimming and wear a t-shirt without the embarrasment I had before.  

[Paa_Paw]

The condition was noticed about a year ago and you have worried about it since. you are already considering surgery at the age of 16.

If you are truly worried about it, I might ask what your doctor said when you last saw the doctor.

As the first step, Start with your family Doctor. You may need a referral from this Doctor for the others.

Follow the sequence below:

Family Doctor
Endocrinologist
Psychologist
Surgeon

It would seem that a significant number of men who had surgery without going through the other steps have a much higher incidence of dis-satisfaction with the surgical outcome. To assure yourself of the best possible outcome, do not omit any of the above steps prior to surgery.