Ways to deal/cope with nerve loss (BA)

[anjaq]

Hi.
Since it hit me again this morning and I cried again for a while - maybe someone knows if there is any other way than trying to deal with it yourself...

My issue is that I had a BA 13 years ago and they damaged almost all the nerves they could find, I guess. About the lower half of the breasts, including the center are numb, there are some areas with feeling in the upper and inner regions, on one side I have some residual feeling in the nipples, on the other that is even less and usually only associated with pain sensoring. In some parts if I pinch I feel pain, but there is no feeling at the skin.

So does anyone know if there is help for that. I know that there is no chance to repair the nerves, that is over and I need to accept that somehow - maybe something can be done to make the residual feeling more fulfilling... I dont know. Maybe someone can help. I was considering if there is a hypnosis therapy maybe that can provide some help? Regular counselling will probably not do a lot, acupuncture and other means to improve healing or pain therapy are not really the right thing to try I believe ...

well, I will put this out there for now and see if someone has any good ideas. I am just sad - my breasts are part of my body and my body image, I love that they are there but I am sad that I can only feel them indirectly.

Greets

[Christine167]

Anjaq there are nerve damage specialists out there. Unlike say twenty years ago we can do something about it these days.

I googled nerve damage and about a half dozen good results came up for the states. I'm not sure where you are now but if you are willing to travel I think that you can be seen, diagnosed, and treated for it.

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/neurology_neurosurgery/specialty_areas/peripheral_nerve_surgery/conditions/nerve_injury.html

[anjaq]

Are you serious? I goggled nerve damage and breast augmentation before and only got warning lists of irreparable nerve damage as a surgery risk, people in forum complaining about it and comments that nothing can be done if after 2 years it has not recovered. If there would be a chance to get this really right, it would be awesome, but possibly beyond my present financial capabilities. Still - this is now giving me a (possibly unfounded) shred of hope - though I am not sure I can believe that it is something that really can be done in this case specifically.
Is there more concrete information on reparing these nerves somewhere? Like some surgeons names or a website about this?
That link there lead me to some information on other nerve damages that are repairable as it seems.

[Nicolette]

anjaq, I'm curious about the method that was used to insert your breast implants. I had it done in 1999 under the arms pits, and under muscle, without complication except for a slight allergy to the dissolvable stitches. Are both breast affected by numbness? I'm really sorry that this happened to you.

[anjaq]

The implants were inserted via an incision in the fold under the breasts and not under the muscle. the report says that the muscle was too pronounced so the looks would not have been right - also I had the BA mostly to correct a tuberous breast development. Now I know that this most likely could have been prevented by having a proper HT with ample amounts of progesterone added, but endocrinologists were stupid back then and many still are. Both breasts are affected - the left breast was always a bit larger but it has a bit more sensation. I opted actually against the armpit variant as I was told that this has a higher risk of nerve damage as there is some nerve running right along the armpit. Well - hindsight...
As I get it the risk of this happening is said to be <1%. However I found that over and over I hear stories of transwomen having some damage or other complications and I got the impression it is more often so than in other women - knowing how some surgeons think about transwomen, I am not surprised at this mismatch, but I don't want to rant about surgeons doing trans-related surgeries and thinking of us as "totally crazy people" or as deviant men fow whom a sensate breast or genitals are not needed anyways as we are in their minds just interested in "getting a hole" and "look like a woman". [sic] [sic] [sic] - Gah, I hate it to know that this goes on in some heads of people putting a knife to our bodies.

[nikkit72]

Hi Anjac,

Knowing nothing about BA and it's complications (yet), I do have some unfortunate experience with nerve damage. There is always hope, but at this moment in time, especially after this length of time since your BA, I believe you have as much recovery as you are going to get. However, there are things that you could try, but it may take time and drive you crazy, but from experience, the more you use/stimulate something on your body the better the neurological response from that area. This all depends on what undamaged/partially severed nerves are left in that area. What you are trying to do is strengthen the signal that the nerve carries. The more the nerve is stimulated (or whatever the technical term is) the more the brain will pay attention to it. In effect, getting a stronger signal.

In your case, especially after all this time, it may not work as chances are you may have stimulated those areas enough, however, like I said, there's always hope and giving this a try costs nothing only time. Keep at it. Like with all things nerve damage, what you gain from repetitive use you can also loose. If you get an improvement, you have to keep doing what you did to get that improvement or you'll loose it very quickly.

I don't want to appear negative, I just wouldn't want you to waste your time looking for answers on the internet which is full of people peddling false hope.

Nikki

[anjaq]

Yes - i am aware that most likely there is little to be done in terms of actual recovery. I kind of retreated already towards finding ways to cope with it. An online friend of mine suggested hypnotherapy which helped her to get used to the nerve damage she got from FFS. this is an option I will most likely try, but I wanted to hear if someone else has more or different suggestions or experience with this sort of thing.

[Katie]

I have no answer for you on the repair of your problem. On the other hand I also had a ba. I don't have numbness but they aren't that sensitive. For me though this is not any issue since Im not a sexual person.

Katie

[Oriah]

After this long chances are, it's not going to get any better.  I know how irritating the loss of physical sensation can be, as I can't feel with a good portion of my left hand and forearm since it got chopped almost off.  Everything healed decently with simple first aid, but since I didn't go to the hospital, there really wasn't much I could do about the nerves.  The ghostlike feeling of only having about 2% of feeling in that skin drove me crazy for months, until I just made a conscious effort to accept it and not allow it to bother me.  It's part of the human condition; decisions we make, and circumstances we are under sometimes cause damage, and some irreparable.  It's part of getting older; our bodies incur more and more damage and slowly degenerate.  I decided, that like it or not, the scars and the nerve pain are a part of me now, a part of my body....and I wasn't going to spend any more time hating a part of myself.

It still irritates me from time to time, like when a coal from the fire pops and burns me on the hand before I realize it's on me, or every time I go to test the temperature of a baby bottle on the  back of my hand, only to remember the back of my hand doesn't feel, but for the most part, adapting got a lot easier when I decided to stop stressing

[nikkit72]

Yes - i am aware that most likely there is little to be done in terms of actual recovery. I kind of retreated already towards finding ways to cope with it. An online friend of mine suggested hypnotherapy which helped her to get used to the nerve damage she got from FFS. this is an option I will most likely try, but I wanted to hear if someone else has more or different suggestions or experience with this sort of thing.

Ok, understood. Now to answer your question regarding the hypnotherapy bit, it is my opinion from hearing the accounts of others that have tried such methods of coping that it is a compete waste of time. It costs money and wastes time because it does not work and this is why I didn't bother using this method. My own experience with dealing with nerve damage is you can only deal with it yourself. This ultimately boils down to the fact that to move on, you have to forget about it and focus on other positives in your life. Other people or their hocus pocus cannot give you this. However, if giving others lots of money for them to make you believe that you have peace of mind fixes your problem, then go ahead.

Good luck.

Nikki

[Tessa James]

Anjaq I too am sorry about your frustrations.  I had a 33 year career as an anesthetist with a subspecialty in hypnosis and believe that it can really help us with what becomes the anxiety and stress related to function.  There are very promising breakthroughs in neuroscience and renewed hope for nerve regeneration that we once thought impossible.  The problem is these are in the research and development phase and not clinically available in this country.  If you are in a university area you could check in with the medical researchers there.

Having had a career in surgery and obstetrics I know too much about complications and what can go wrong.  It keeps me crossing my legs when considering even a simple orchiectomy under local anesthesia.

[anjaq]

Well -
Katie - for me it is not only about sexuality, but of course in some part it is. I considered myself basically asexual for a while but I am sick of it and want to change and this is bothering me then in addition to just not feeling parts of your body
Nikki - I understand - I am not sure about such things - hypnosis seems not much hocuspocus but rather I had the impression that it is about doing some subconscious stuff? Maybe it could help me forget more about it or not be bothered by it so much. I dont know - I guess its worth a try. I tried up to now to just deal with it - ignore it - not think of it. But then some event happens, or I just feel odd a day or night and then it hits me again and this is very sad then, so I am not really managing well to completely accept it, it always bothers me even if I manage to not think of it for longer stretches of time.
Tessa - well I am at a University bit not in the medical department and so experimental nerve regeneration procedures are probably out. Would be cool though.

[LordKAT]

Regrowth of nerves can take years. It has for me in some areas.

[saznat]

I had BA in 1996 and the the majority of the left breast was "permanently" numb and remained like that for 12 years. In 2008 I had the implants removed for personal reasons. I wasn't bothered because that left me with a decent size B. Reading this thread has made me think about it and realise that I now have no numb areas at all. Obviously, without the implants in the way, the nerve endings have been able to repair themselves. silly as it sounds, I haven't consciously realised that until now.

[Katie]

This makes me laugh a bit but over the last five years I have crashed so many time falling on my boobs playing rollerderby that I have come to value them as part of my padding. I can say this they have taken a beating and are totally ok. I dont know if i have lessened the implants lifespan but hey I play derby because I like it.

[anjaq]

I had the implants removed for personal reasons. I wasn't bothered because that left me with a decent size B. Reading this thread has made me think about it and realise that I now have no numb areas at all. [...] silly as it sounds, I haven't consciously realised that until now.

You realized only now??? Wow - I would have imagined something like that would be noticed... 
Did that numbness also include the nipples and did they also recover?
This sparks my interest now - I would probably have to get them removed at some point anyways as the lifespan is not unlimited and they are in now for 13 years. I dont know if I could leave them out without replacement - probably not, as I guess the shape after such a removal without replacement would be awful in me - how did that work out for you? How much cc did you have and did you get a lot of sagging afterwards? Maybe putting the replaceminets into a different place would be an option, too (e.g. under the muscle instead of above it? I did not think regrowth is possible after that long time... is this really possible?