Gyne and psych

[CodySockeye]

I find many things hard to do because of my gyne. It just affects my psych so badly. I don't do beaches, water parks, pools, etc. I'll avoid social situations sometimes just because of depression and fear due to the gynecomastia. I live in Florida and my sister is a surfer girl and we're really close, and I want more than anything to just be able to go surfing with her and go fishing with my friends and the like. And yeah, I'm not going to sugar coat it. I want to have a girl or 3 or 5 (haha) and i want to get intimate as well. I know I shouldn't let it run my life, and I've tried to defeat it. But I just can't. I cannot accept my gynecomastia and I hate it to no end. I'm planning to get surgery in the winter. Does getting the surgery fix the psychological aspect of having gynecomastia too, in addition to the physical? I just am worried that if I have the surgery I still will be in this self loathing state of mind even if there's nothing wrong with me. Please share your experience with the psychological effects of having your gynecomastia removed. Thanks

[myth77]

trust me the only thing you will be thinking on the beach is how good your chest will look .

[PBC]

Surgery does not resolve the mental issues that accompany gyne. Only time can do that! I can assure you though, things do get better as time progresses. You will not wake up the day after surgery and feel like a new person. ( At least I did not) For quite a while after surgery, I still "mentally" has gyne. Still hunched the shoulers and tugged at my shirts, those kinds of things. Eventually the trauma of having gyne fades and you begin to realize $5000 is not such a bad investment if the trade off is being free of that cursed condition!

[Dr. Elliot Jacobs]

I always tell my gyne patients that I operate on two parts of the body -- the chest and the brain (specifically your own body image).  What happens to the chest is my responsibility.  But what happens to your own self image is quite variable and subject to variables which are not directly controllable by the patient.

I have had many patients who rapidly adopted and accepted their new chest contours.  And others who took many months until their mental self image adjusted to the new physical image.  And there are a few patients who, for whatever reason, never seem to accept the substantial differences and improvements in their chest, despite before and after photos which can be quite dramatic.  In some of these patients, there may be underlying psychological reasons for this, which may best be explored with a mental health professional.

Unfortunately, there is no way to predict, pre-operatively, how a patient will react after the operation.

Dr Jacobs