About me:
26 year old who's suffered from weight issues since childhood and gyno since puberty. I had a bad few years where my weight went up to nearly 25 stone and my breasts inflated too, now I am about 16 stone, have overcome a binge eating disorder, and took the plunge to take care of my gyno.
I tried the NHS route first, mainly just to get some advice beyond my GP. They referred me to a breast clinic and I went to see a Dr who was really annoyed that I was sent to him. "They need to stop sending me patients for purely asthetic conditions", he gave me a bit of advice but clearly didn't know much on the subject. Understandable as he dealt with mainly breast cancer. He wrote a letter to my GP saying there was "no evidence of gynecomastia" and it "simply appears to be a bit of loose skin hanging down" - utter nonsense (see pre op pics for just how poor this is coming from a breast specialist)! It was time to go private!
Thank god for this forum, otherwise I wouldn't have known what surgeons to pick.
I originally booked to see Adam Kalecinski in Poland because he was cheap, GMC registered specialist and not many bad reviews, booked the flights and was delighted at the opportunity to get it done so cheaply.
Then reality sat in, I sat down and had a long hard think about if that was the best choice.. I've learnt in life that if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. And having top gyno surgery and post-op care for a quarter of the price with no strings attached... too good to be true. Some of Adam's reviews mentioned that they feel a bit rushed and I didn't like that. The nail in the coffin was that he has a hearing with the GMC for alleged malpractice in five cases. I had to be honest with myself and cancelled. Decided to bite the bullet and pay for the best I could find in the UK.
At this point I hadn’t really discovered this forum, I first went to see Ravi Jain who has a fancy promotional video online where he claims gyno tissue can be vaser lipo'd out.. gave him a try. God he was awful.. no wonder there aren’t any reviews here for him. He told me does two of these a week - about the same rate as Karidis. I call bulls**t on that one. He basically told me I could never have a flat chest but that he could only reduce the breasts by half and that I may have excess skin that will need removal because my skin is " not of the type that will tighten back up", on top of that I as quoted £5k for just vaser lipo no gland cut! I left really worried about my upcoming Karidis consultation thinking I could only improve my Gyno to 50% or so and never be flat.
Karidis consultation was polar opposite... just goes to show how important it is to see numerous Doctors. Karidis is a complete salesman... but with a genuinely good product to sell. He knows how to say all the right things, he took one look at my skin and said it will snap right back. Didn't even entertain the thought of loose baggy skin - given his level of experience I soon forgot Jain's comments. I like the way he makes those comments like "I'll make that flat", and when he marked me up before surgery he said "this will be history". Gotta love hearing that confidence at a point where he no longer needs to sell you anything.
Picking Karidis wans’t even hard, Levick is the other guy who’s on the same level in terms of reputation in the UK and he is now retired. The most important thing in my choice of surgeon was experience and reputation for gyno ops – and Karidis with well over 1500 ops, and very little bad reviews definitely had that. Then the consultation finalized my decision.
I got the blood tests done by my GP, they were happy to given that I'd already been referred to no avail. I wouldn’t go with NHS anyway as you don't have the same options.
Since I knew I was going under the knife I've been smashing the gym, have lost like 14lbs and gained some muscle. Diet has been excellent and I'm looking much better shape. I wanted to give myself the best chance of surgery.
Arrived at the hospital at 6.40 but the ward didn’t open till 7 so had to wait a very long 20 minutes at reception, then finally went up and got checked in. I was told that he'd be coming to mark me up and that I was first on the list and would be going down around 8 which I was delighted with – no waiting around. Karidis came in around 7.50, and I was taken down at around 8.10.
As I was taken to the Anaesthetist room I happened to catch a glance at Karidis off guard who was now in his operating uniform with a cup of coffee in hand ready for action and that was the last I saw of him. Into the Anaesthetists room where the anaesthetist gave me a few drops of something into my hand, made me feel drunk... nice feeling actually and then the oxygen mask came on and that was all she wrote.
Woke up at 9.40 in recovery feeling super sleepy. A lot of guys say it feels like you go asleep and wake up 2 minutes later, for me it was more like a normal sleep, but you're super tired. Like doing an allnighter and then finally going to bed but somebody wakes you up after an hour (just want to sleep more).
After a few minutes I felt more awake, no pain, no nausea or anything. I was full of energy and was just a bit restless as the bed wasn’t too comfortable. I was taken up to the room and needed to piss straight away which I did no problem. I have to say that I saw no side effects whatsoever to the anaesthesia. It put me to sleep and that was it. No ill feelings or dizziness after at all!
Around 11.30 had a massive club sandwich and mushroom soup then a bowl of fruit and then just had to kill time throughout the day. Was a bit restless just having to lie in a bed for hours hooked up to that machine that cools the packs on your chest. Around 2.30 it was taken off and I was able to see my new chest – gosh that was a weird feeling looking down it was so flat.
However, I didn't feel that Euthoria that many feel... having read all the reviews 1 and 2 years post op I firmly now understand that the real battle begins in 4 weeks or so when scar tissue starts to form which may never even go away. But you know what, having once had a set of boobs that you'd think were massive on any woman - i cannot possibly expect perfection. I just want a significant improvement and I think all of us are naturally far too over-conscious about our chests. The reality is that the vast majority of people will never look twice at the things we probably worry about for months.
Karidis' nurse came in at around 3 to give me the vests and stuff, then at 3.30 I left. The vest is tight but it’s not that bad and definitely expands a bit as you wear it (thank God the weather has cooled a bit!).
One tip I will give is do not wear shorts, they give you some super long socks that go up to your knees that you need to wear home for 24 hours or so. I left the hospital wearing flipflops, the hospital long-football style socks, shorts and a pink formal shirt, looked more like I just came out of a mental hospital than anything. People were staring as I waited my 20 minute uber ride home - but I honestly couldn't have cared less, was just happy to go home and get on with recovery.
Day 1 I took a look at my new chest... I have to say I'm very impressed with Karidis' work, I really didn't think he'd be able to do that much with my chest partly because of how big they were a few years ago and the skin being stretched so much. I really expected there to be bags of excess skin hanging off. I'm completely sure I got a great op from the Dr for which I’m very glad I picked Karidis for this, now just the other two factors - 1. Me doing what I need to do to recover and work on my chest and 2. Mother nature and the impending healing and scar tissue process which will ultimately have the final say on the appearance on my chest.
Topic: Surgery with Karidis 22/06/2017 + PICS (Read 4908 times)
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