Swelling and pain

[kipling88]

I had my gyno surgery almost 6 weeks ago, and it definitely has looked flatter up until last week. As per doctor's orders I did not exercise at all for the first 4 weeks after surgery. I went to the gym last week to do cardio only and my chest was pretty sore for some time afterwards. Now when I look in the mirror I notice the chest is not flat but looks swollen and it sticks out. I assume that this is just swelling from the cardio exercise and that it will subside if I dont exercise anymore? I'm very scared that I hurt myself

[Pk2802]

I had surgery almost 4 months ago and still experience swelling after cardio. Am still wearing compression vest. Took off at night about a month ago, but swelled up and felt slight pain. Guess everyone heals at a different rate. 

[hypo123]

It would be touch to say whether it was due to cardio or if you just happened to start building up scar tissue around the same time you went to the gym.

At 6 weeks out you are WAY too worry about what your chest looks like. 

I was dealing with scar tissue build up and puffiness even 6 months post op.  If your chest looked flat after surgery you can feel confident that it will eventually return to that state.  You may have to get kenalog injections to melt away the scar tissue (which your doc probably won't consider doing until 6 month post-op).

Scar tissue will absolutely make your nipples puff back up.  Mine puffed out almost to as big as they were pre-op. 

At 8 months out and 1 kenalog injection down, I can say that I am very happy with my results.

Give it some time.

And to the guy above me who is 4 months post-op:  I think it's WAY overkill at this point to still be wearing a compression vest.  My surgeon who does hundreds of these per year did not even require me to have a compression vest after the initial compression dressing was removed 5 days post-op.  He said he found that after 5 days it didn't make any difference. 

It's up to you though.