KayVee's Surgery Diary: 10 MONTHS ish post-op, updated

[kayvee]

Just got the Nike Pro compression top in the post, small size ... hard to get on but not much extra compression offered, so I suppose that means the bandages are tight enough. Hooray.

2 days to go til I can remove them, looking forward to friday.

[irish_dude]

And there we go!

The Priory was good ... my experience wasn't that smooth (passing out while having blood taken because of the heat, and having fasted since 6am, as well as being generally nervous ... and it HURT when the drains were removed), but it's over.

Dr. Levick was fantastic, really put me at ease, as did the anaesthetists. Fabulous people.

I'd say your passing-out was probably due to low blood-sugar levels combined with total 'brickage'.

Having the LHS drain pulled out was the most painful part of the procedure.

But again, they're all A1 at the Priory, especially Dr. Wood, the anaesthetist, he's an unsung hero.

I remember a couple of hours after the op, I had worked out how to strap the drainage bottles to the belt-loops of my chinos, I was pacing around the room, waiting for dinner to arrive when Dr.Ward came in, took one look at me standing up and went "You're not supposed to be doing that!"

[kayvee]

The right hand side drain was the most excruciating for me. The nurse said that I'd taken it better than most patients tho, apparently some people scream and grab her hand half way, which makes it worse.

Me? A SHARP intake of breath ...

[kayvee]

1 week update:

Well! The bandages came off today.

I had been a bit worried that the nipple wouldn't have healed properly, given the slooshy fluid feelings I'd been having, but in fact the 'reverse' seems to be true. My nipples are perfectly flat, VERY flat. Creepily flat. :p Happy with that bit, obviously. I now have NO 'pec' at all, so after I've recovered I'll need to hit the gym for some serious working out.

Feeling about a bit (ow), there's NO gland mass AT ALL. So, success there. A couple of 'negatives' though:

• My chest feels very very tight, which I'm assuming is normal after this, and which Dr Levick assured me it was.
• I seem to be a bit swollen still, my healing doesn't seem to have been as good as other people's on these forums (tho I expected that, as I'm normally a slow healer. Still a bit bruised and swollen, and the incisions are still scabby and raised.
• One thing that's worrying me: my right nipple/chest contour seems to be a bit 'dented', even though it doesn't seem, that the nipple is attached to the chest or anything.
  
  When I tense my pec, it gets worse: like someone's put their thumb by the outside of my right nipple, and run it out along towards my side, or like my nipple sits a bit below my pectoral contour (it doesn't, they're even on my chest horizontally). Tensing my left pec doesn't produce much movement in the skin round it.
  
  I'll try and get some fotos in ... spoke to Dr. Levick about it, and he was pretty sure it'd even itself out flat (to be honest my right hand side seems more swollen than my left, significantly, and I'm not convinced that it's not swelling above and below the nipple causing the 'indent'. Feels like there's the same amount of tissue 'under' each nipple). He mused that it might just have been that I had one side of the bandages (which I had to repair after they became loose) too tight, in which case it'd fill back out after a while, like when you take a tight ring of the finger it's been worn on for years.
  
  Come to think of it, immediately post op Dr Levick did mention that for a while it may be that my nipples were indented because of swelling around them (assumedly, everybody's op is a bit different) ... anybody else come across that?

Will update again in a week's time. :p

[ROOTSMANUVA]

thats good! hope ur pleased with the results KV,

im scared my bandages come of in 4 days!

Keep having nightmares the beasts will come poping out from the bandages once i take 'em off!!!!

ha,

cant wait tho!

[kayvee]

At 2 weeks now, so here's my update ... bit confused on this one.

• Far from swell up during the second week, my swelling has gone down and is staying down, it seems. My chest looks flatter than it did during the first week I had the bandages off, though now some bits of swelling are sort of hardening up. Will start massage soon.
• My range of movemet has increased, however it's different on each side of my body. I can lift my left arm up pretty much over my head now, but my rght one feels tight after about 160 degrees from flat-at-my-side ... this being the side I've had the most tightness in anyway. I'm not sure if the tightness in that side has improved at all.
• My 'dent' in my right hand side is still there, and I'm no longer sure there's really that much swelling to account for it ... though all around the nipple on my right hand side is pretty much the only area I'm still bruised, it doesn't seem to be going away. The left side slightly indents when I tense the muscle still. I suppose I should give it another week.

I have an appointment to see Dr. Levick for a follow-up examination on the 22nd, so we'll see what happens. I'd be happy ith what's going on, did I not have the inexplicable depression in my right hand side, and the tightness that came with it, am actually starting to really worry.

[kayvee]

3.5 WEEK UPDATE

SO

I went to see Dr. Levick yesterday. He was actually being sat-in on by a doctor from Belgrade, I sort of got shown off as a success story ...

Apparently, everything's healing fine. The side I thought was deforming, is aparently healing 'better' that the side I think looks fine, according to Dr. Levick.

Fortunately he was able to confirm that the swelling I thought my have been causing my 'dent' to appear so bad, was in fact there, and some on my side I didn't even feel was swollen. The rest of the dent appears t be my natural pec contour, where that pec is more developed than the left hand side.

Incidentally Dr. L thinks I have a 'nice set of pecs', hahaha.

There was one thing Dr. L said, though, that confuses me. When I asked about the slight bowling of the pectoral area when I raise my arms, and small amounts of denting, Dr. Levick said that this was normal because the tissues, having been traumatised, were 'glued' and 'tethered'.

I've heard of tethering being a heinous problem, an 'unrevisable defect' ... I specifically asked about it, but no ... apparently that's the way it's supposed to be, and will settle completely with time 'as the ;ayers tug and start to move again'. I'm assuming that he's insinuating that it's not tethered to the muscle, just the skin to the fat/other subcutaneous tissues being stuck in gloops ... but still.

Of course, I'm inclined to take his word for it over the internet's ... I asked him what kind of time-frame we were looking at for it to completely settle down.

"A year." was the immediate reply.

So I guess I don't have to be concerned with worrying for a long time ... he's specially extended my potential sugery guarantee time (coz I'm in Japan) as well, in the "extremely unlikely event" I need a revision.

Will keep people updated, jut figured this was interesting as Dr. Bermant's webpages seem to paint such a horrendous picture of surgeries where 'fat flap' etc. isn't used.

[ROOTSMANUVA]

Brilliant, I hope it heals up properly KV!

where the Fak has R summer gone!? and to think i have all these Tee's waiting to be worn without a jacket on, with out being dark, or baggy,.........and the sun does a runner!!!

ha,

[kayvee]

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. 

[Time_to_fix_it]

10 MONTH UPDATE:

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 of (cut the buggers right off for all I care, might even ask him to do so 

That bit made my eyes water 

Good luck with any revision and yes, it is great to know that it all comes free of charge. 

[kayvee]

Phoned Dr. L the other day, figured I would update with the details of my revision procedure I plan to have carried out:

Specifically, part of the procedure will probably involve a fat transfer/graft procedure into an area just underneath the mectoral muscle curve. What seems to have been done, is that more fat has been liposuctioned (or disappeared during the healing process) under my right pec. I have very little fat on my chest in the first place, so even though it's not a major divot it still looks slightly odd.

Dr. Levick basically said they'd be doing an what I gather to be an ordinary fat transfer procedure: removing fat from one area of the body and injecting/layering it into the area to be filled out.

I asked about the survivablility rate of the fat having heard from various places that fat transfer procedures were a) not permanent (lips, Dr. Levick explained that this was due to the comparatively very high level of mobility in the lips), and b) have a tendency to go hard or move unnaturally (though to be honest, the divot is in an area that doesn't move with the muscle, so I'm not too worried about that ... also I'm athletically very active, so I'll be moving the tissues about manually after surgery to make sure they don't set evilly).

The other parrt of the revision surgery is actually removing a little more fat from over the other side of that pectoral, and I get the impression that the presence of the excess is making the divot seem worse ... it's lying from above the top to over the bottom of the pectoral curve, for example, so when I tense it doesn't move.

The area with excess taken out, to be honest, doesn't actually look "unnatural", just bizarrely asymmetrically toned in comparison to the other side. Truth be told I think there may be scar tissue in the same place on the left hand side pectoral ... so until I actually get back to England and see Dr. L, the real nature of the procedure is going to be up in the air.

That, and he's going to get rid of the long/swollen/odd nips for me. 

Exercising a heck of a lot, I'm finding that my chest contour changes dramatically in response to how much sitting around/running/weights I do each and every day. Mentioning that I sometimes feel pain when I run, Dr. levick indicated that yes, this means the tissues haven't properly healed yet, so there's still a chance everything could right itself more ... simultaneously reassuring and frustrating.

Will update in about a month.