10 MONTH UPDATE:Hey all
Some people might remember me, others prolly won't, am a 21 year old (just) lad who went for surgery with Dr. Levick in August 2006. It's now May 2007, I'm in Tokyo just about to finish my study year abroad (which has been awesome), and I figured I should update this with my progress. The battle's still ongoing, I guess, but ... well, have a read:
I hope to be going back for a revision surgery once I get back to the UK in 2 months time. Have been keeping in contact with Dr. Levick about a couple of minor concerns, which he says aren't a problem for me to get fixed. Honestly, I can say that I don't have gyne any more, which is liberating, but for really individual reasons I can't really say I'm "thrilled" with my chest.
I have 3 specific problems, that on their own would be
completely negligible ... but grouped together I feel like I need fixed.
- My left nipple is "sagging", as opposed to puffing, since the surgery. This is possibly due to the fact I seem to have a large lump of something (scar tissue, "safety gland" to prevent concavity) sitting directly behind it, and the sagging starts from beyond the border of the areola, hence I know it's definitely not puffing. It's not noticeable at all until I do something like bend forward, whereupon it 'depends' slightly off my chest. When standing up straight my chest is flat, if a tiny bit triangular at that nipple ... though I would stress that such "angularness" looks COMPLETELY within the normal, human non-gyne spectrum. Again, it's more of a movement/pose issue.
- My right hand side seems a little concave, under the side of the pectoral muscle. This has been so since the beginning when I took off the bandages, and has eased over time, but it still present to the extent it looks slightly funky. Interestingly, Dr. Levick pointed to the areas around where this was to note the presence of swelling at 3-weeks post op ... so it may be that he's either taken a little bit too much fat out of that side, or that left a little too much fat around it, or some subtle combination of both. Again, this looks completely normal when I don't tense my pectoral muscles, and truth be told I'm wondering if this was a "best possible outcome with the first surgery" thing, as Dr. Levick mentioned that my gland extended quite a way round both sides of my chest.
- Both of the above would be deal-with-able ... were it not for this one:
Since the operation, both of my nipples (as in the actual structures, not the areolae) seem to have swelled up to the size of the erasers you get on the ends of pencils ...
I'm not sure whether this was always the case, and had been masked by me having gyne, or whether again it's a combination of swelling and natural size, but this is unfortunately giving me a similar problem to what I had in the first place, with regards to wearing t-shirts. A lot of the time when I'm not in shirts, I still wear my compression vests, because the protruding nipples structure through clothes makes it look like I have gyne even though I now don't (and Tokyo's getting bloody hot, lemme tell you). I have spoken with Dr. Levick about this, as it's been this way since early in the recovery period, and he's said it won't be a problem to sort out (cut the buggers right off for all I care, might even ask him to do so )
It was mentioned just after surgery, and I've known for a while, that I'm a very slow healer, naturally. Because of this,
at 10 months I am still definitely seeing and feeling changes in the state of my chest. Figured I should bold that to reasure people who are worried at 3 or even 6 months, lol. I have just got back into running properly again (at least 7 miles every other day), and after about the 5th mile I stop and massage. The scar tissue is still dissolving to the extent that it sometimes hurts ... first time I ran properly again, boy did that sting when I rubbed it.
To a certain extent I wish I
wasn't seeing these changes, as it makes it really difficult to actually work out how I want the revision surgery to go if thinks keep changing and improving even now, haha. Please do be reassured that Dr. Levick means a year when he says a year, am regrettably and frustratingly the living proof.
The subtle denting of the liposuction scars/tunnels are completely gone, and I'm starting to get my pec definition back. Compounding my probs a bit is the fact I have actually managed to gain about a stone since surgery
... Japanese junk food will do that to you, haha. Am in the process of losing it now, and should with all well be slimmer than I was before my surgery by the time I get back home to see the good Dr.
Might add a bit to this later, but I guess the general gist is that I'm hopefully going to be going for revision. Not because anything major is wrong, but because several irritatingly tiny things are wrong all at the same time. Dr. Levick did say he had a difficult job because of the amount of gland present on me V.S. they amount of fat i had over my chest (i.e. very little), so I sort of expected this from the start. Which is the key to staying motivated and positive.
Well, that and Dr. Levick's free-redo policy.