2 months and 8 days after surgery, STILL not healed yet!

[nomoregyno88]

Hello all. Well, I finally srugery done back on June 11th, 2008, lipo and excision. Went well. But, I am a little disappointed in how long it is taking me to recover. I am 20, dont smoke or drink, physically active, very healthy diet, so I thought I would recover faster than I have been. I am now 2 months and 8 days post op. Before the procedure, I was told that I could resume training martial arts 1 month after the operation. While I can lift weights heavy again, I cannot return to full contact martial arts training because my chest around the nipple area is still extremely sensitive and puffy. If someone slaps my chest in that area, it really hurts. You know how you can slap your thigh, or arm, or back, pretty damn hard and maybe it stings for a split second but does no real damage and causes no pain? I am wondering how long it will take me to be able to do that to my nipple area. Only when I can do that will I be able to resume sparring martial arts (I can slap the top and middle part of my chest no prob, if I tried this on the nipple area, I would cry). Also, I am wondering how long it will take for my puffy nipples to flatten out. Immediately after the surgery, they were pretty flat, but since then they have swollen up, almost to their original pre op size. I know it can take a while, but I mean c'mon, it's been 2.5 months practically...

How long did it take for you guys who had surgery to get to the point where you could slap your chest, pretty hard forace, right around the nipple area and it wouldn't hurt (equivalent to slapping your thigh, back, etc.) and how long before the nipple completely flattened out? I am getting depressed here it's taking forever!! Oh, and while we're at it, how long before scars fade?

Here are some pics:

[DrBermant]

Hello all. Well, I finally srugery done back on June 11th, 2008, lipo and excision. Went well. But, I am a little disappointed in how long it is taking me to recover. I am 20, dont smoke or drink, physically active, very healthy diet, so I thought I would recover faster than I have been. I am now 2 months and 8 days post op. Before the procedure, I was told that I could resume training martial arts 1 month after the operation. While I can lift weights heavy again, I cannot return to full contact martial arts training because my chest around the nipple area is still extremely sensitive and puffy. If someone slaps my chest in that area, it really hurts. You know how you can slap your thigh, or arm, or back, pretty damn hard and maybe it stings for a split second but does no real damage and causes no pain? I am wondering how long it will take me to be able to do that to my nipple area. Only when I can do that will I be able to resume sparring martial arts (I can slap the top and middle part of my chest no prob, if I tried this on the nipple area, I would cry). Also, I am wondering how long it will take for my puffy nipples to flatten out. Immediately after the surgery, they were pretty flat, but since then they have swollen up, almost to their original pre op size. I know it can take a while, but I mean c'mon, it's been 2.5 months practically...

How long did it take for you guys who had surgery to get to the point where you could slap your chest, pretty hard forace, right around the nipple area and it wouldn't hurt (equivalent to slapping your thigh, back, etc.) and how long before the nipple completely flattened out? I am getting depressed here it's taking forever!! Oh, and while we're at it, how long before scars fade?

How Tissues Evolve After Gynecomastia Surgery depend on the problem to be treated, surgical techniques, skill of the surgeon, how a patient heals, after surgery care, scar care, and other factors. 

In bodybuilding, no pain - no gain.  In healing, ignore the pain and you can screw the healing.

For some techniques, swelling after surgery can hide residual gland deformity.  As that swelling goes down, remaining gland can still be an issue.  Standard After Gynecomastia Surgery Pictures can show such issues.  However, the in office evaluation is a much more powerful tool when I can feel and examine the tissues.

Hope this helps,

Michael Bermant, MD
Learn More About Revision Gynecomastia and Chest Surgery

[ellington7]

it looks to me like the doc left too much gland in....or maybe it's just scar tissue?

[nomoregyno88]

I certainly hope he didn't leave too much in there. He asked me AS he was doing the surgery how much to take out, I specifically said I wanted to be flat as possible. In my 2 days post op pics, the nipple was pretty flat. I'm more or less satisfied with how my chest looks in those photos, minus the horrible bruising. But now, almost 2.5 months later, my nipples are poking out almost as much as they did before I had the surgery. I hope they go back to being flat like in the 2 day post op pics or I'm going to be very upset with my surgeon. The area is still very sensitive and my nipples are still a little numb. Hopefully by the time the pain and numbness goes away, they will go down again, but I'm pretty upset with how long it's all taking. I was told one month and I would be back to normal. Now it's looking more like at least 4 months. Grrrrr...

[sergeantpepper]

just give it some time. if you can still feel some numbness that probly means somethings going on there. and since you were flat right after surgery, thats also good. have you felt them at all? does it feel like there could be something hard like scar tissue?