I'd like to clarify that I will ultimately be checking with my surgeon tomorrow about this, but I'm also curious about other people experiences as much as their advice, which is why I'm asking. So don't worry, I will ask my surgeon.
I've been binding for two years or so before my surgery a week ago. I had a DI and all is well, I had my drains out after five or so days and that went well, bruising and swelling aside, everything has been rather easy... Except my compression vest/binder is crippling me. I feel like I know through experience what is too tight, but then I have the automatic trust in my surgeons judgement to size me up for this kind of stuff. It's the kind that does up at the front, with three hook and eye thingies, and then a zip over the top. Around the bottom of the vest is a thicker, tighter elastic strip, about two and a half inches wide that sits just under my pecs, around my upper waist. It's so tight I have trouble breathing. I undo the zipper and the bottom hook for an hour or so at night just so I can have a moment of peace, and I can feel my ribs moving back into place, and it's a sharp pain as it does. The rest of the binder pulls at my shoulder and back muscles, which is a problem I've had with binders after 5-8 hours, not after two or three seconds as I am in this one. It's so intensely uncomfortable that I tear up at the thought of having another three weeks in this, at least. It's so uncomfortable and I mean, I'm in it 24/7 with very little actual pain from surgery.
I still have the packaging and I sized myself up last night with the company size chart, and my waist measurements are a large, but I've been put into a medium, which does fit my chest, though on the cusp of a large...
Has anyone else had this issue? How did you approach your surgeon about it? I'm not sure how to say it, because I feel like I know what feels like the wrong kind of pressure on my body. This hurts. It shouldn't hurt and hinder breathing, right? I am getting my dressings changed tomorrow so I plan to tell him I think, or know, it's too small, that it hurts and I can't keep wearing it. But... Even if I also feel like I know exactly what wearing a binder feels like, and I know what unhealthy and unsafe binding compression feels like on my body... I feel like I'm telling a surgeon that it hurts after surgery. I mean, like, of course you're going to have some kind of pain, but the pain shouldn't come from the compression I'm talking about, right? Its not the compression on the chest or nipples, but under them, around my lower ribs.
Any advice or stories are welcome. On a more positive note I feel amazing. So there's that. Thanks guys!
