Fantastic Karidis! My story - 8 days post-op inc photos

[postiey]

hey GK1309 a quick question to u, how are u in regaurds to happiness about the surgery? i have nearly saved up enough for the surgery and am findin it hard to make a decision.

as it stands now i only have a small case but it is noticeable in shirts and tshirts i think it is mostly gland underneathe the nipple, did u also only have a small case? looking at ur pics.

after readin some not so happy stories on here it kinda puts my head in a spin. i went for a consult with karidis and he definetley seems like the surgeon i would like to go with.

[freefromG]

If it is really mild and your not a competing bodybuilder i would honestly consider what else you could blow the money on. Its such a mind fck of a thing gyne, and there is nothing worse than spending a lot of money and ending up feeling butchered because the results are not what you anticipated.
Really hate to sound like the pessimest on the surgery but it really is a gamble unless you have decent breasts to begin with. I have this crater now that is either goin to cost more to fix or im goin to be hiding another problem.

[postiey]

thanks for the reply! i have read some bad stories on here recently wich has been spinning my head a bit, but its important that people speak the truth about surgery.

who did u have ur surgery with? i understand that the results arent going to be perfet but at the moment. i take it u wish u didnt have the surgery? is it noticeable in a t shirt?

i have scars and other deformities all are characteristic to me! but gyne is something i dont think i can live with.

thanks postiey

[decimal]

Postiey, my only advice to you at this stage would be that do not underestimate the psychological impact of scars/imperfections after a gyno surgery. I know, at this moment, you could be thinking as to what could be worse than this highly annoying nd embarrassing gyno. A small scar or depression here or there, is a small price to pay to get rid of these feminine glands, right? Wrong. There is nothing worse than the feeling of having been butchered. I used to think a lot like you till a month ago, but trust me, you cant imagine how emotionally crippling it is to be left with a deformed chest after a surgery.

There are many gyno sufferers out here who only aim for a flat chest so that they can wear tight t-shirts. But the truth is that later on you DO want to go to the beaches nd swimming pools etc and take ur shirt off. Forget public places, even when you look in the mirror right before and after showering, you DO want to see a good- ]looking you. And if at tht time you are left with a distorted operated-upon chest, there is NOTHING worse or more depressing. What you had earlier was due to a natural turn of events (something you couldnt have helped), but what you have now is a voluntary disfigurement that you paid thru your nose and spent agonizing months of recovery for.

Dont take me wrong. I do not want to dissuade you from surgery in anyway. In fact, despite my sad case, I still feel that people who are bothered by their gyno should go for their surgery. My only advice after this is that plz do not underestimate ur expectations. This is one place where I actually think - "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars." Shoot for the eiffel tower, and you might just end up in a ditch on earth. Tell your Doc that you want a "good looking" chest that is typical of a physically fit human male, not just a "flat" chest.

Lastly, if you have 100% faith in the skills of your surgeon, and have had enuf positive feedback from his past patients, then go for it.
Unfortunately, in my case, I didnt have the opportunity for the latter.

[decimal]

Hi GK,

Thanks for the response. At times, this forum does act like a huge emotional band-aid.

As for my surgeon, he did aim for close to 100% removal of the gland. In places where gland and fat where diffused together, he probably took out everything to not leave the gland behind. Thats what I think.

About the crease, I highly doubt that its a a scar tissue issue. The problem is that under my right pectoral, the skin is sitting too tight and close to my body. If I press it, I can feel each and every bone/muscle under it. While on the left hand side, I can feel the natural fleshy sponginess under the skin at the corresponding spot. This might be hard to explain through writing. But think of it as the difference in feeling that you get when you press the skin directly over your knuckles and that when you press the skin on your upper forearm. In that analogy, the bony knuckle would be the creased right pectoral, while the fleshy forearm would be my relatively better left pectoral.

I hope I dint start sounding too confusing.

[postiey]

hey decimal thanks for the reply i am sorry u are unhappy with ur surgery urs was one of the cases i have read recently on here. i understand it must be depressing not to be happy with ur results.

i have checked ur before and after i think i even commentated and thought u had good results! but recently u have posted pics with a depression on one side. u are absoloutely right in the way i am thinking that gyne gives a feminine appearance to it.

as i said earlier the closer im gettin to surgery time the more my head is in a spin, i dont feel i can shift it with diet and exercise and defientely seems to be some sort of puffy nipples.

did u have a good surgeon then? do u feel the depression will fill in time? would of u done anything differently then?

once again thanks for the replies and good luck to u

[decimal]

Things that I could have done different...hmm...

1)To be honest, I had this slight apprehension about my choice of surgeon. Although he was the best in state, him casually brushing off the question of possible craters during the consultation , and telling me there is no way it would happen ironically made me uncomfortable.

2)Another alarm bell was his emphasis on "flatness", which makes me want to restate again: I think I speak for the most of us when I say that as gyne sufferers who want to get rid of their gynecomastia, a "flat" chest is not what we want. We want an aesthetically pleasing masculine chest. A good-looking male chest is NOT FLAT. It is curvy and fleshy as well. It is just that the contours are different compared to a female chest. But the curviness persay is still supposed to be there. Without it you will look like a freak. I should have probably taken pictures(people who had never had gyne) of what I wanted my chest to look like postsurgery, and asked the doctor to frankly comment on whether it was a reasonable expectation, or more importantly, could he provide me with the basic raw materials/ framework to develop a chest similar to the pics.

3) Post surgery, I have been wearing my compression vest 24/7, and its made me realize that the use of contour-improving vests as an emotional bandaid is not overrated at all. If I could go back in time, i would have bought one of these and worn them under T-shirts for a month or two when I went out in public. I would use this time to work out my chest hammer and tongs in the gym. Having big pectorals pre-op can be a big help in getting a better result from your surgery, coz the leaner and more muscular you are, more does the gland stand out against ur skin, and the doc can see exactly what part of the gland is lending to the contour problem. Instead of blindly removing the entire gland, I would ask my doc to only remove the small part that is spoiling the contours of my chest.

[postiey]

thanks for the info decimal! as u say u went to a top doc in the states u cant really do anymore than that. u are not a surgeon they are meant to know what is aesthetically pleasing. i once read by a top dr on this forum who said if u have to tell the surgeon what to do u are askin for trouble!

i didnt  know what to make of this at the time, but i do think ur right where as he may have a different idea to what results u want, so think i may tell him exactly what i want. i believe i have a gland problem wich stands out i could loose more weight tho just incase i decide to go through it.

as reguards to everyone say i want flat flat falt this is a big worry of mine as i reguard a good natural chest to curve round.

i have heard of some injections that can fill out craters etc maybe worth a try in time good luck with ur healing tho decimal thanks for the repliest and good luck to u

[decimal]

I meant I went to the top doctor in my state, as in province, not the united states! lol

Although I study in the US, I got my surgery done closer to home in New Delhi.

[decimal]

In retrospect, I feel like I should have gotten it done with Dr Bermant in the US although it would have cost me 4 times compared to what I had to pay in India. What I find very reassuring about him is that he seems to notice and bring up issues that are lending to the contour problem that I never noticed myself. That is the kind of surgeon I would feel 100% comfortable with.


Regarding telling the doc what-to-do thing, my point is that despite seeing ur well-defined chest, if he tells you that he intends to remove the entire gland (no matter how far reaching it is into the surrounding chest wall), then that could serve as a heads-up that maybe this is not the right surgeon for you. This approach staves off any undesirable surgeons.

[decimal]

Regarding the "surgeon should know what is aesthitically pleasing" point, the problem is that when it comes to gynecomatica, even some top plastic surgeons think of it in terms of gland or no gland problem. They feel that as long as the gland is not there, the patient should be happy.

[postiey]

decimal that is funny! i did think u meant the states as in usa lol. yes i think dr bermant does seem the best out there in america.

im planning on goin with karidis as i am in the uk,he has had some great results on here. also one thing that made me think that he was the right surgeon as he pointed out the problem straight away the same as i where i thought the problem was and was confident he could get good results.

i do understand that this surgery can go wrong but i just want to be done with it. i feel like i have to try atleast, thats why everyone on here who has had surgerey wether good or bad results they deserve alot of respect just having the surgery done.

thanks again for the tips on asking the surgeon im learning more and more about this every day

u still have time on ur side hopefully things will better good luck to you

[freefromG]

Postiey - i had my done in Aus, im sure (hoping) that it will improve some more in time, there is still puffyness although not as bad as it was and i just feel the same points as decimal. The doc that i went with said it can be a common problem with some depressions, during consult there is a small possibility. Funny how at the time and even seeing a pic of it (on a patient who was very young skinny but almost had an A cup) and thought yep can deal with that if it happens...i think. If i can mentally get over this and the money i blew in a few more months or come up with an excuse if anyone notices (esp future GFs) i will be happy and move on from the whole thing.

Honestly though if i had not have gone through with this i know for a fact i would have regretted it a lot more.

would love to know more about dermal fillers etc.

[decimal]

freefromG,

its quite amusing that I thought the EXACT same way as you pre-surgery. I tenaciously held on to the opinion that anything would be better than these lobes on my chest, and felt that people who were complaining of dents were being overly fussy. Just 10 days out of surgery, and my attitude has taken an complete about turn. The dent on my chest bothers me more than my gyne had ever.

What kind of issues are you having with your chest? Do you have any pics to show?

[GK1309]

Hi guys,

Sorry it's been ages since I've posted, been very busy the last few days!

Here's a couple of photos taken today - I was seven weeks post-op on Thursday. To be honest I'm absolutely ecstatic with my results so far, I realise from other people that I've been extremely lucky in my result and also in the way I've been recovering so far.

You can't really see it in the photos but there's still a tiny bit of swelling/scar tissue on one side, and I can feel quite a bit of bumpiness on both sides when I'm massaging with the bio-oil. I've been using the bio-oil pretty much every day for 3-4 weeks now and it really does seem to work. I'm coming out in quite a few spots around the area which I'm massaging, but it does seems to be making a difference.

I've been really interested to read the debate about the pros and cons of surgery. I think it depends on a lot of factors really. I'm delighted I made the decision to do it, it was one of the best decisions I've ever made, but then I suppose I would say that given that I've had a good result. I can really sympathise with guys who haven't had quite such a good result, it must be really difficult to psych yourself up for the op and then to have a let down after it.

For people who are still considering it, I think the crucial factor is to make sure you go with the right surgeon. I would have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Karidis, the whole process from start to finish was fantastic and he seems to be the best in the business where this is concerned. I don't think I'd have gone to anyone other than him to be honest. Pretty much all of my research before surgery was done on this forum, and Karidis gets almost universally positive reviews. I was also reassured by the consultation, and in a strange sort of way, the fact he is so high profile was also a good thing - surgeons in the media spotlight who do work for celebs etc a) must be darn good and b) will definitely not want to make a mistake!

I'm sure this sort of surgery is an art form, some are better than others, and when it's your body and such an important thing, I think you should pay the extra money to be sure. Also, the fact that it's an art form means you shouldn't expect perfection. My case was fairly minor I suppose, but I had an idea of what I'd be happy with post-op and I wasn't expecting anything miraculous, so I've been very happy with my outcome.

One thing I would emphasise is that recovery from surgery is quite a long-term process - some say you need to wait as much as a year to see the definitive final result - and depression is quite common in the weeks and months post-op. At the end of the day, there will always be a leap of faith involved with something like this, but my own personal point of view is that Karidis would be the guy to go and see.

And as you guys have said, it's also important not to expect completely flat! A male chest naturally has muscle, contour, skin etc to it. There's no such thing as a completely flat chest - if there was, your breast bone sticking out might look a bit odd to say the least!!

Hope this helps!