My before and after surgery pics - My surgery experience with Dr. Lista

[balalayka]

hi skipper,

I am an Ontario resident and a graduate student also so I thought I'd tell you what I know. As far as Lista goes, he performs surgery in his private clinic, insurance does not cover it and you're looking at >$5k. As for Fielding, he does surgery in a hospital and OHIP covers the cost of the excision so you're left with the doctor's lipo fee which is about $2k. Both do great work from what I've seen on this site. As you are now on UHIP, I'm not sure if the same rules apply (concerning insurance covering excision). Good luck. 

[dondante]

balayaka,

has Dr. Lista dropped his prices? you're the second mention I've found now quoting him at $5k. I paid $6k in January (plus GST).

[balalayka]

well, since his fee is likely to go up with time I just put an estimate. I don't know the current situation, but I did say >$5k (greater than $5k) which includes $6k. Silly I know, forgive me

[dondante]

no need to apologize, buddy. The only reason I ask is because it wouldn't surprise me if he dropped his prices to increase his volume. I've noticed he's started an aggressive advertising campaign in the past few months - I've heard his ads for gyne surgery on a number of Toronto radio stations so he's clearly making a push to expand his clientèle.

[Gynoblows]

Hey any update photos? How are the scars looking, have they faded to white at this point?

[dondante]

The scars are looking pretty good, wouldn't say they've faded to white, but they've faded enough that they don't bother me. I will try to get some updated pics up in the next few weeks.

[gy1]

hey dondante,

First of all, thanks allot for your posts and pics!  It is helping me through this a great deal.
I had a consultation with Dr. Lista last week and was very impressed.  I'm thinking i will set up an appt. for the end of this month.  I admit i'm a little worried only because the end result is unknown until it is done and although i understand Dr. Lista's vagueness on the issue, i don't KNOW what his idea of 80% is and if it is the same as my expectation.  My chest looks it's worst when i have my arms forward and back slouched or bent forward (common i'm assuming).
If it's possible, could you post a picture with your arms down and maybe one of you with your chest parallel to the ground?  I'd really like to see how the results look from all positions.  the few times i have taken my shirt off, i am so insanely conscious of the position i'm in so my chest doesn't look more feminin.  i hope you understand where i'm coming from.

thanks man

[dondante]

sorry for the delay in getting back to you - I haven't been hitting this board as often as I used to, and should. I don't know about how I can go about taking a shot of my chest parallel to the ground but I'll see if I can get my wife to take a few standing pictures so you can see my results with my arms perfectly down.

my best advice, however, is communicate your expectations as best as you can with Dr. Lista and ask how confident he is that he will be able to meet those expectations. keep in mind, though, there is no way you will be able to absolutely eliminate all risk from this procedure.

[dondante]

I haven't been on these boards for quite awhile, and I thought it would be nice to pop in and say hello with a quick update to this thread. What made me think of checking in here was that earlier today I went to a store and bought a shirt that I would never have even considered buying before my surgery. In fact, I bought it and almost forgot I would never have considered buying it before my surgery. I'm over a year removed from my surgery and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't look at myself in the mirror and feel gratitude that I treated myself to my life-changing gyne surgery.

If any of you out there, who REALLY have gyne, and are on the fence about doing it - I say DO IT. There's an acquaintance of mine that I work out with at the gym who has a pretty strong case of gyne, and one day I decided to open to him and tell him about my surgery, and he responded by pouring his soul out to me about how negatively his gyne has affected his life, and how miserable he is because of it... But he just won't bite the bullet and do something about it, even though it's making him miserable, and honestly I feel sad for him.

Is gyne surgery cheap? Absolutely not! Financially I'm STILL paying for my surgery with payments to a certain Mr. VISA. But I look at the benefits I have reaped in terms of my personal freedom to engage in activities that gyne always held me back from, clothes that gyne always held me back from and CONFIDENCE that gyne held me back from and with the benefit of hindsight, I'd gladly pay at least double what I paid.

[WolfParade]

Have you reached a point where ALL the swelling and everything has gone down? When did you reach that point? I'm asking because I'm 2 weeks post-op with a bit more swelling than you had at that time, and I fear it's gonna take "forever" for me to have a normal chest..

[dondante]

I know it's hard to take, and believe me, I speak from experience - I became borderline obsessive compulsive about my post-op recovery - but it took me a good 8 months to reach the point where I felt like all my residual swelling and scar tissue were gone and that this is what I'd look like with no more changes.

I can't say it enough, be patient - find something else to distract you. If you look at my posting history, you'll see I was literally freaking out at the 1 week post-op stage - but other post-ops gave me the best insight: the recovery is probably the toughest part, especially if you took a looked at yourself immediately post-op and saw how insanely flat your chest was. My chest never looked as insanely flat as it did the first day post-op ever again. But it doesn't matter, because I have a NORMAL looking chest. Normal chests aren't  flatboards, they're going to have some contour... that's just something that takes a longtime gyne sufferer a while to get used to. But I did, and I'm sure so will you.

[WolfParade]

But my left side ARE pretty much flat, which I'm hoping my right side eventually will be too. And I think they should, because I'm a very skinny guy, and so other skinny guys like me that I see on the beach or whatever - they are usually flat around those areas. But off course, I don't want to be so flat that it looks "perfect" but also "unnormal". Like you, I just want to look normal