I'm well on the way to finally getting something sorted out about my gynecomastia, having booked for surgery with Alex Karidis on the the 27th November. I've wanted to start a bit of a blog since reading all the other diaries on here as they have given me inspiration to take the plunge but have held off until now as a lot of the things I've experienced have been the same as have been posted before.
Well, the need to put down some of the random things going round in my head has become too much. So here I am. In the process, I hope that some others will see my posts and either get the confidence they need to start their own journey towards treatment or at least allay some of the fears that we all get.
To start with, I am a guy from London - 30 years old now, 6'2" and my weight has fluctuated between 13st and 15.5st (182 - 217lb) over the years. At the moment I am at the slightly chunky end of that scale but even when very lean I have had moobs for as long as I can remember. There are pictures of me as a child where I am as flat as a board, so I guess it started at puberty, but I can only remember life with a large chest. Funny how they become all consuming and you end up with no recollection of being like the others as you grow up. All through school I was teased mercilessly by the other kids about my "t1ts" as they were so kindly referred to.
One thing I need to be thankful for, whilst I have felt very sad and sorry for myself at times, and always extremely self-conscious, I developed a kind of "sod 'em" attitude. There has not been a single day go past where I didn't desperately long to be like the others with their, in my mind, perfect pecs. But I managed to brush it aside and joke about the way I looked as a kind of defense mechanism, I guess. To read the posts on here about how much this has affected some others is heartbreaking. I imagine the shame and sadness I feel but multiplied infinitely until some guys run their whole lives around their chest. For me, the hardest part in day to day life was walking into the wind and having the contours of my physique magnified and on show for the world. Showers after the gym or going swimming caused me trouble too - I never knew whether it best to stick my chest out and hope the tighter skin would flatten them slightly or walk hunched up and hope no one noticed me.
I always knew that there was cosmetic surgery out there for whatever we don't like about our bodies, but didn't even begin to think that there was a specialism to treat gynecomastia, as I learned it was called. I also had no idea so many men are affected by it until I stumbled across this board on one of my Google searches. For some reason, after all these years, there was some switch inside my head that tripped a couple of months ago and I made my mind up to go find out what could be done and to go do it. I had visions of having to go to a general plastic surgeon and hope that he/she knew what to do to treat my enlarged chest. I was so surprised, then, to find lists of names reeling off this board like a who's who of manboobs!
After reading this forum constantly for a couple of weeks, I made up my mind that it was Alex Karidis that I was going to see for my first consultation. And if I felt comfortable with him and confident in his ability then my search would end in his consulting room and I would take the plunge. I'm aware that we sometimes only read what we want to, but I have not found any post to give me any doubt in his ability and judgement when performing the op. Sure, there are posts where people's results look great then change and they're still waiting for the initial great result to return but this is part of the normal healing process. If any of you are still with me a few months down the line then I'm sure I'll need reminding of my own words when I'm concerned that I'm swelling or bumpy or uneven!
I called his office at the end of September and scheduled the consultation. The waiting time was around ten days. I think a lot of that is because
Dr. Karidis only consults on a certain day every week as he's so busy operating on the other days. The lady I spoke to gave me an initial idea of the cost of the procedure, explained that the consult itself would be £75 that goes to the hospital charity and confirmed that I'd get a letter in the post with more details. This came a couple of days later and, finally, I had something to look at and focus on other than my boobs pushing out the front of my T-shirt.
I went to the consultation actually quite worried. Not about me or my gynecomastia but worried that I wouldn't like
Dr. Karidis when I finally met him or that I would have doubts about him after seeing him in person, seeing his results and talking to him. However my fears were quickly allayed when he came out to collect me and introduced himself. He is very personable and puts you at ease immediately. We had a brief chat about my feelings about the condition and what I was looking for before he asked to see my chest. Not only did he look for himself, he took time to explain to me what was happening to give me the breasts and how he would go about correcting it and the kind of results I could expect. I asked questions that I had thought of after reading this board such as the composition of my gynecomastia with gland:fat ratio etc. and then put my shirt back on.
Dr. Karidis then went back to his PC and started to show me before and after pictures of other patients. He identified a couple that were most like me and explained in detail their procedure and how that would work for me. After me remembering a couple more questions after seeing a pic that reminded me he told me that if I had anything else I wanted to ask after I left then I could always call his office. But by that time my mind was made up. I felt that the consultation was comprehensive, driven by my pace and gave me everything I needed to know to go ahead. There was no pressure at all to make a decision but I said I would like to discuss scheduling and get something booked so he passed me over to his secretary, Donna, who takes care of everything on that side.
Again, Donna was great. She explained some of the practicalities about my visit into the hospital for the day of the surgery and what I would need to do with regard to getting blood tests, paying hospital fees separately etc. I managed to get a date seven weeks after the consultation which seems consistent with others' experience and works perfectly for my schedule with taking time off work for recovery. I left the £1,000 deposit to secure the date by card and I was done.
So now I'm just over five weeks to go before surgery and starting to get itchy feet because it can't come soon enough. It feels as if there's nothing left to do but wait. I can't prepare or do any more research - so that's why I've written War & Peace here on the board!
Thanks for reading this far if you're still with me. I'm sure now I've got the initial blurb out of my system I'll be a lot more concise when I post here. And in five and a bit weeks I'll hopefully have something worth writing about.
One thing I'm trying to do in advance is to buy some Nike Pro compression vests so I'm prepared after I can take the hospital one off but can't seem to find in the UK. Does anyone know a shop or online where I can pick some up? I've tried the Nike website but no joy there.
Many thanks, Wheeeee!
Topic: My random thoughts (Three weeks on) (Read 10412 times)
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