"gynecomastia a psychological threat to normal self-esteem and sexual identity"

[dan716]

What do you think of the following quote from a medical journal -"Idiopathic adolescent gynecomastia is a psychological threat to normal self-esteem and sexual identity. Occurring during a critical period in the formation of self-image and gender identity, this gender-incongruent process may disrupt normal psychological development"?

To me, having had gyne age 13, then successful surgery age 21, the above is stating the god-damn obvious.

I just wish doctors were trained to read the above because the one who diagnosed me knew f-all and told me it would "go away". As a teen, I didn't have the knowledge or intellect to label his "consultation" a crock of #### which of course it was, considering I had 40g glandular lumps which needed excising and lipo.

I didn't have the intellect or the info to deal with this condition until I was age 19, and by then I was an utter wreck - the burden trashed my performance at school, with women, and in the workplace age 19/20 - it made me a social misfit and generally made me feel a complete loser.

What I did learn is that some GPs/adults are unreasoning and ignorant and sometimes have absolutely no idea what they are talking about - something I wish I'd known age 15.

Anyone else been at the end of similar treatment from doctors when it comes to gyne?  

[Alchemist]

What do you think of the following quote from a medical journal -"Idiopathic adolescent gynecomastia is a psychological threat to normal self-esteem and sexual identity. Occurring during a critical period in the formation of self-image and gender identity, this gender-incongruent process may disrupt normal psychological development"?

To me, having had gyne age 13, then successful surgery age 21, the above is stating the god-damn obvious.

I just wish doctors were trained to read the above because the one who diagnosed me knew f-all and told me it would "go away". As a teen, I didn't have the knowledge or intellect to label his "consultation" a crock of #### which of course it was, considering I had 40g glandular lumps which needed excising and lipo.

I didn't have the intellect or the info to deal with this condition until I was age 19, and by then I was an utter wreck - the burden trashed my performance at school, with women, and in the workplace age 19/20 - it made me a social misfit and generally made me feel a complete loser.

What I did learn is that some GPs/adults are unreasoning and ignorant and sometimes have absolutely no idea what they are talking about - something I wish I'd known age 15.

Anyone else been at the end of similar treatment from doctors when it comes to gyne?  

Hi Dan,

Yup.  "Do pushups, it will go away by itself" so they said in 1960.  It didn't.  I had bigger breasts in junior high than most of the girls and was harassed endlessly by boys.  The girls were my friends.  By high school I had D cup breasts.  Shortly after they went to DD and stayed there until I lost enough weight and got back down to D-cup but the stuck out further than ever with my stomach now so much smaller.

That hell started to dissipate in college when I started dating the girl who had founded the school's nudist club.  I then switched hells when a guy t-boned my car running a red light and I was broken in half sideways, with 3 fractures in my back and damaged disks and nerve roots.  After that health problems have dominated the rest of my life (65 now).  I spend a lot of time at the nudist club I belong to.  There it is totally obvious that at least half the men have gyne, making it the very definition of normal.

It's good to be normal.  Nobody cares or notices.  I have just another unique ordinary body.  If most men with gyne didn't hide, you would have been part of the majority.  This plague of body-shame hurts us all. I got rid of it, all of it.  There was no point in getting rid of just some of the body shame and keeping just the same of breasts that was imposed on me by the world.  If somebody doesn't like them, that is there problem.  I go were I want, nude when appropriate.  I go to public beaches and pools.  Some of my experiences were written up in my intro postings. I have never had a problem with girls or ladies over these  breasts.  Some like them, some didn't care. I get a good share of nude hugs from the ladies.  Some made an offer I wasn't going to refuse; "You can feel mine if I can feel yours".  I was married for more than 3 decades and have had a partner since a while after my divorce.  I have children and grandchildren.

I have also lost 145 pounds from peak weight, 85 pounds of water after figuring out my nutritional problems.  My skin is several sizes too big.  I would need huge amounts of surgery to get it all looking like an all scarred up re-tailored skin.  Having a double mastectomy is the last thing on my mind.  I am not going to put myself through that much surgery to look like a patchwork quilt with non-tanning scars all over my body at the nudist club not to mention more damaged nerves than I already have. 

I have never been a good looker.  $100,000 worth of surgery won't do any good because I would still look like a chopped up ordinary old guy and my health is barely manageable without getting such a chop job.  Good luck.  The docs are blind to so many problems.  This gyne is a societal problem.  We have a culture of body shame instead of acceptance.  It comes don heavy on some of us. 

I have never actually seen another guy with D or DD breasts like mine or some of the other guys here.  That is major surgery to have them removed, not just a little lipo.  I know and have seen women that have had single or double mastectomies.  They had lots of misery from it.  They can't imagine anybody suffering that misery for cosmetic purposes.  Have fun.

 

[Dr. Elliot Jacobs]

I have maintained for a long time that gyne surgery (if the gyne is stable for 2 or more years) is safe and effective treatment, even for younger teen boys.  It minimizes all the psychological and social problems that can occur. And, I have never seen a case of recurrence in an adolescent after surgery.

Unfortunately, mainstream medicine often follows unproven rhetoric which is simply handed down from one generation of doctors to the next.  The first myth is that if one waits til the magical age of 18, all gyne will disappear. Thus, many pediatricians will pat the young man on the shoulder and reassure him that it will get better on its own.  Rubbish.

The second is that surgery on a younger boy can sometimes result in recurrence down the road.  Again rubbish.

I have tried to publicize these two points, but unfortunately even the media (eg Dr Oz Show and others) are not interested.

Too bad.

Dr Jacobs

[dan716]

I'd agree with all that you said Dr Jacobs.

When doctors/pediatricians advise that gynecomastia will "go away", it demonstrates an inability on their part to grasp two concepts -
1) that formed breast tissue will not recede, and
2) that growth due to adolescent gynecomastia will come to a stop.

I see now that phrases like "go away" amount to mumbo jumbo. Age 15 I should have seen my doctor for the spastic that he was.






 

[ahoychrispineda]

Are there any writings on dysphoria and gynecomastia?

[Paa_Paw]

Gender Dysphoria and Gynecomastia are totally unrelated. Oddly, in the past we sometimes got enquiries from Transgendered persons who wanted to knowhow we grew our breasts. Ignorance of the truth is rampant.

I came of age long before surgery was a good alternative. Actually I was nearing 50 before it was really good. By that point in my life, I had different priorities and I sometimes joke that if I had the cash for surgery I'd use it for a down payment on a sailboat.

Since it was not something we could simply get rid of, we learned to live with it. I held out the hope that the information age would remove all stigma and any concern would simply go away. What I did not count on was the fact that bad information is usually more sinsational than good information and it gets repeated even more often. The result is that the stigma attached to the condition is probably worse now than in the 1940's-50's when I developed the condition.

The truth is that the condition is so common that unless there is actually some kind of pathology involved it is simply one end of a long curve called "Normal". The condition is commonly represented in ancient art and the term itself comes to us from the Greek Physician Galen.

The common trend is to try and blame the condition on someone or something. Is it something in the food, water or atmosphere? That is possible, of course; but most likely it is Idiopathic. That is a Medical term that seems to mean: "Your guess is as good as mine."

[dan716]

In reply to you Paa_Paw, you could be right in saying its a trend to blame gynecomastia on something, and that most likely its a case of "your guess is as good as mine".
 
To put the record straight, Gynecomastia can be caused by excessive estrogen and is often the result of an increased ratio of estrogen to androgen.

Anyone who knows why this happens in adolescence, let us know.

[Dr. Elliot Jacobs]

Gynecomastia in adolescence develops slowly and most young men keep quiet about it -- they are ashamed, embarrassed and reluctant to speak about their body to their parents.  Very few parents are aware and a once a year checkup with a pediatrician usually prompts a pat on the shoulder and reassurance that "it will disappear in a few years."  Very few, if any, pediatricians will actually do hormonal blood testing.  Therefore, most of the stories about hormonal imbalance are conjecture -- there are no medical case studies to prove it one way or another.  It just seems logical to blame gyne solely on hormones.

I had one case, however, that may shed some light on this.  I had a patient -- a 14 year old boy whose father (fortunately) was a pediatric endocrinologist.  The father had noticed gyne in his young son very early in development -- and followed him with serial blood tests for hormone evaluation.  Result?  No hormonal abnormalities were ever noted.

Now one anecdotal case doesn't prove anything -- but it does make one wonder if there are other factors involved, in particular, genetic predisposition to the problem.

Dr Jacobs

[Alchemist]

Gynecomastia in adolescence develops slowly and most young men keep quiet about it -- they are ashamed, embarrassed and reluctant to speak about their body to their parents.  Very few parents are aware and a once a year checkup with a pediatrician usually prompts a pat on the shoulder and reassurance that "it will disappear in a few years."  Very few, if any, pediatricians will actually do hormonal blood testing.  Therefore, most of the stories about hormonal imbalance are conjecture -- there are no medical case studies to prove it one way or another.  It just seems logical to blame gyne solely on hormones.

I had one case, however, that may shed some light on this.  I had a patient -- a 14 year old boy whose father (fortunately) was a pediatric endocrinologist.  The father had noticed gyne in his young son very early in development -- and followed him with serial blood tests for hormone evaluation.  Result?  No hormonal abnormalities were ever noted.

Now one anecdotal case doesn't prove anything -- but it does make one wonder if there are other factors involved, in particular, genetic predisposition to the problem.

Dr Jacobs

Dr Jacobs,

My mother, all 3 half sisters, both daughters, my son and I all had large, early breasts, noticeably starting in 5th grade.  Others have made the same kinds of comments elsewhere on this forum.  The next generation is at least 8 years away from knowing about.