Questions for Doctors, I had my consultation...

[MTL]

Early this week I had my consultation with a popular doctor. He was very professional and did not say anything I wanted to hear. He was also honest about his answers but I still have some major concerns.

When I asked about the "crater deformity", he did mention that this surgery will be like "deflating a balloon", so there is a possibility of some caving in and some sagging lose skin. Those are two of my worst fears with this surgery.

When I asked whether my chest would look better. His response was when the final result is achieved it would be up to me to decide if my chest looked any better but it would certainly look flatter.

I did appreciate the fact that he was honest and did not want to make promises I wanted to hear.

he is a popular doctor and performs a lot of this kind of surgery, very reasonable with happy customers in this forum.

But, is it possible for a Plastic surgeon to promise and guarantee that there will not be any Crater, caving in, or sagging lose skin after the surgery?
My Gynecomastia is not that large and I am not a very large guy but they are big enough to make people stare when I am at the gym with a t-shirt....

I'd appreciate any input!

[George Pope, M.D.]

But, is it possible for a Plastic surgeon to promise and guarantee that there will not be any Crater, caving in, or sagging lose skin after the surgery?
 

I would say No, it's not possible.  It is impossible to guarantee a perfect result, and a plastic surgeon, or any surgeon for that matter, would be remiss in guaranteeing or promising no crater or sagging, loose skin after surgery.

Your surgeon was being cautious and realistic.

Dr. Pope, M.D.

[MTL]

[quote author=Dr. Pope link=topic=18125.msg125467#msg125467 date=1245463415]
I would say No, it's not possible.  It is impossible to guarantee a perfect result, and a plastic surgeon, or any surgeon for that matter, would be remiss in guaranteeing or promising no crater or sagging, loose skin after surgery.

Your surgeon was being cautious and realistic.

Dr. Pope, M.D.
[/quote]

Thanks Dr. Pope for your response. I should have asked my question differently. I should know better that there are no guarantees in anything or with any procedure. There are surgeons on this forum that have mentioned they have never had any cases of inverted nipples and loose skin. The whole purpose for me (or perhaps for everyone else) is to have my chest look as close as possible to the way it was before this problem started. To me, loose saggy skin and inverted nipples are just as bad and somehow worse than having gynecomastia. I just want to feel better about going through this surgery. I wish I could find more post op pictures of the patients of the surgeon that I saw this week.

[Dr. Elliot Jacobs]

To be blunt, no surgeon can guarantee a perfect or successful outcome to any surgery.  The only "guarantee" I offer my patients is that I will summon all my best professional efforts, based on a huge experience in gyne surgery, to achieve the best outcome possible for any individual patient.

There are situations, such as loose skin due to any of a number of factors, which are beyond the ability of any surgeon to control or to correct (unless he does a specific skin tightening procedure as well).

The most important thing for a doctor to do is to inform a patient, ahead of surgery, of possible risks of surgery and possible outcomes.  In essence, we try to make the patient understand, realistically, what the expectation for surgery would be.

Dr Jacobs