For those who had the surgery: When do you start to feel normal and conifident?

[myboobsgone0407]

Hi All,

Thanks for all who shared their experiences here. I had my surgery on 7th April. It is just 2 days that I freed from the drain pipes. I experience some pain around my chest, during hand movements / doing some normal work and little swelling . I feel it is swelling more. Also can anyone please let me know, from when can I have my first smoke/booze  , its been more than a month  I quit these because of this surgery. 

[greatlakes]

Unless you've had surgery, you just wont understand what the recovery process is like. Its a mixture of emotions.

The day after surgery is the most flat your going to see your chest, depending how the surgery has been performed when you take off the bandages youl be left with a smooth chest. This is down to a few things but it comes out un-naturally flat and its a huge change. Its sort of euphoric and you go to bed thinking "well thats sorted then".

A few days pass, you look in the mirror and see some swelling. This is where i first had my doubts

"have i wasted my money?"
"Is it reoccuring?"

Few weeks pass, you're losing sleep due to the vest and the swelling goes and now you can feel scar tissue when you are massaging. That initial euphoria has long gone and your feeling worse than before the surgery. All i can say is there is just a point where your emotions balance out and you accept your chest, and then all of a sudden you notice your chest is now "Normal" and you can carry on living your life. I mean if you look at my thread surgery threads youl see my have doubts and then just realise that im actually gyne free.

Its not a case of personal loss, or how hard your life is. When a part of your body changes overnight your brain just doesnt adjust to it that quickly. Ive seen lads who have been whipping there tops off in three months some take a yaer or so. But you will get there

That was helpful, thank you. I am 3 weeks post op and understand this all to well. I don't know what I would be feeling if it were not for posts like this from guys who went through similar healing and emotional issue after surgery.

[thetodd]

No worries greatlakes

Lads stop arguing, lets keep this to the subject matter i think this is a very overlooked part of the surgery experience.

[Caligrown]

TheTodd reallly summed it up well, thats pretty much how I felt. Super excited the first week cuz my chest was completely fixed. Then for the next 3 weeks freaking out cuz I though my nipple was gonna die and fall off, and when it didnt, huge relief. But the whole point of the surgery for me was to help fix my mind not really the gyno. Im almost 8 months post op, I can tell you i feel pretty much like a new person compared to the super self conscious kid I was before the surgery. Im not sure where the "switch" occured (it was kind of gradual) but it definitely helped like a month ago I went to the beach with all my friends and I didnt have to invent some bs excuse to not go.... Other things too like when I coach swim team I didnt havr kids asking me why my left side looked so big. Try explaining that to a bunch of middle school kids. Anyway if I wasnt feeling so much better already, my first summer without gyno since 7th grade would do the trick.

[hawt123]

Unless you've had surgery, you just wont understand what the recovery process is like. Its a mixture of emotions.

The day after surgery is the most flat your going to see your chest, depending how the surgery has been performed when you take off the bandages youl be left with a smooth chest. This is down to a few things but it comes out un-naturally flat and its a huge change. Its sort of euphoric and you go to bed thinking "well thats sorted then".

A few days pass, you look in the mirror and see some swelling. This is where i first had my doubts

"have i wasted my money?"
"Is it reoccuring?"

Few weeks pass, you're losing sleep due to the vest and the swelling goes and now you can feel scar tissue when you are massaging. That initial euphoria has long gone and your feeling worse than before the surgery. All i can say is there is just a point where your emotions balance out and you accept your chest, and then all of a sudden you notice your chest is now "Normal" and you can carry on living your life. I mean if you look at my thread surgery threads youl see my have doubts and then just realise that im actually gyne free.

Its not a case of personal loss, or how hard your life is. When a part of your body changes overnight your brain just doesnt adjust to it that quickly. Ive seen lads who have been whipping there tops off in three months some take a yaer or so. But you will get there

Holy crap, it almost feels like i could of had typen all the same to the part where the swelling gets on and i am thinking exactly did i waste my money etc? but i am starting to feel much better since everyone have told that some day everything gets normal etc. thanks for that great post !

[nomore-jiggles]

wow I just posted a similar question an hour ago. I should have read this post first. Now I'll understand when no one replies to it. 

Yah, you know my swelling didn't occur til about month 2. I noticed it when I was in the shower.  I'm 4 months post-op and the swelling is still there. It's not to the point as it was pre-op which I'm hoping is good. 

I will say this though.  I talked to my ps' nurse and she told me that massaging really doesn't do anything in the recovery process. It will go away on it's own were her exact words.  My ps never suggested massaging so I never tried it.  Anyways, I'm hoping that at 6 months or sooner, I'll see more improvement.
 
I think the key is to keep that vest on at all times for the whole 6 weeks.

[greatlakes]

I had some really hard areas (likely fluid) and massage seems to have softened them up nicely. Massage works for me I guess.

I am now at 5 weeks, and my swelling and results are still leaving me unhappy. It is a little better than preop, but I am holding faith till at least 12 weeks or more. My surgery was more complicated than most, I am older, and a lot of crap was removed.

Again - posts of guys just finding at some point, after many weeks, or many months, of not being happy with early results - "hey, wait a second, I think I finally healed up and am fine now"..... is so helpful to me as I wait for things to settle down on my chest.

[nogojoe]

How long did you guys wear your compression vest/wrap post-op?

[hawt123]

How long did you guys wear your compression vest/wrap post-op?

Umm my doctor told me after my first week, that wear for another week. Maybe because i had only a small gyno etc, but now its week 3 and i am still wearing it because im not sure but if i remember correctly, it will help the swelling get away faster, and my swelling has gone almost completetly now , right side still has some.

[greatlakes]

How long did you guys wear your compression vest/wrap post-op?

I wore the vest for weeks 1-4. I am wearing heavy compression shirts for weeks 5 - 8. Longer perhaps if I feel I can benefit.

[Liandoolb]

Unless you've had surgery, you just wont understand what the recovery process is like. Its a mixture of emotions.

The day after surgery is the most flat your going to see your chest, depending how the surgery has been performed when you take off the bandages youl be left with a smooth chest. This is down to a few things but it comes out un-naturally flat and its a huge change. Its sort of euphoric and you go to bed thinking "well thats sorted then".

A few days pass, you look in the mirror and see some swelling. This is where i first had my doubts

"have i wasted my money?"
"Is it reoccuring?"

Few weeks pass, you're losing sleep due to the vest and the swelling goes and now you can feel scar tissue when you are massaging. That initial euphoria has long gone and your feeling worse than before the surgery. All i can say is there is just a point where your emotions balance out and you accept your chest, and then all of a sudden you notice your chest is now "Normal" and you can carry on living your life. I mean if you look at my thread surgery threads youl see my have doubts and then just realise that im actually gyne free.

Its not a case of personal loss, or how hard your life is. When a part of your body changes overnight your brain just doesnt adjust to it that quickly. Ive seen lads who have been whipping there tops off in three months some take a yaer or so. But you will get there

Thanks for this. You've made me feel a lot better.

I had my surgery this Monday and it's been a whirlwind of emotions since then. I still have heavy dressings under my vest, so it's nearly five days post-op and I haven't been able to look at my chest. For all I know, nothing has even changed under there. I didn't even experience the "unnatural flatness" the day after, because I simply couldn't see.

But I do agree that the emotional/mental aspects after surgery are largely overlooked here. So many people disappear after their surgery, return once a few months later to report that they're now happy, and slide off the forums for good.

After over five years of contemplation, research and saving for surgery, I'd worked myself up for such an instantaneous transformation that it came as a shock when I walked out of the hospital feeling exactly the same. Of course, rationally I always KNEW that it would take months to heal, but emotionally I expected to feel an epiphany, like the weight had been lifted from my shoulders immediately. This was not the case.

My PS has been helpful in this way. From the beginning he's been very big on managing expectations, thinking things through, adjusting to big things slowly.

I agree that there are worse things in the world than gyne. I understand that some people's experiences with this condition may not have left as much emotional scarring. In fact, I may be young, but I've already experienced much harder and much worse things than having "boobs". But this also doesn't mean my chest isn't still on my mind every waking hour of the day, or that as a young slim guy I don't feel self-conscious walking around with people double-taking when they see my inconsistently prominent chest.

When you're teased, poked, jabbed and laughed at from the age of 9, and still have people glaring at your chest at work 11 years later, it can take a huge emotional toll on you. I feel that years, and many great experiences, have been lost due to this condition. Because of this condition I spent all of my teenage years inside making up excuses, wearing stinking hoodies in hot summer, pretending I didn't know how to swim. I have had eating disorders because of this condition. I have had school trips made miserable because of this condition, because instead of having fun at the beach, I was being laughed at as the skinny boy who had bigger boobs than the fat boys, and even some of the girls. In fact, I copped MORE flack than the fat kids. People understand "fat", and it's common.

What many people don't expect (I certainly didn't!) was that the process of emotional healing can take as long as, or even longer than, the physical healing.  I think for many people, suffering with this condition for almost as long as they can remember can be a huge thing to move on from, even after the "problem" has gone away. I think it's time we all start talking about it a little more.