Top surgery anxiety

[lionheart]

I recently scheduled my top surgery for the summer, and obviously I'm super excited, but I also have huge amounts of anxiety. Not about the actual surgery, but rather the results. I'm really worried about being unhappy with what I look like after surgery. Although I trust my surgeon, there seems to be a lot of variation in his work and it's hard for me to try to predict what my chest will look like.

Probably my biggest concern is the nipples. My mindset is that scars will fade, but nipples are forever. I'm getting double incision (it being the only option), and I feel like there are all kinds of things that can go wrong with the grafts whether it be losing it altogether, or something as minor as the nipple not protruding. Not only that, but there's only so much consistency in shape and placement, and as much as I can communicate these things to my surgeon, in the end there's little that's actually in my control.

I think a lot of these fears come not only from self-confidence, but inconspicuousness. Being stealth, I'd like to be able to take off my shirt while raising as little suspicion as possible. How do I cope with this anxiety over not being able to know what my top surgery results will be?

[crazycool86]

just relax a little. i would say. he im sure you have relayed to him that you expect this surgery to be as close to perfect as possible. Before the surgery starts just go over everything with him again and hold nothing back when speaking to him after all this is your body that he is working on. ill add you as a friend i definitely would like to know the outcome of your situation.

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[Mr.X]

As someone who had these fears come to life, I can say it is actually not as bad as you probably imagine right now.
Both my nipples died to a never seen before (by my surgeon at least) infection on both sides. I was very unlucky. Regardless of that, my results are still among the best they had ever seen after healing up. I just had to get my nippes tatooed on, instead of having real nipples. To me, that is not a big issue. I was never a nipple person.

So the conclusion would be, you are most likely more than fine. But if ->-bleeped-<- would hit that dreaded fan, you will still most likely end up doing just fine. And if the results are not up to your standards, you can usually get a relatively cheap (or even free) revision.

[Kylo]

Yea, I've heard of people going back to have additional work done on the nipples, which usually isn't a problem. There has to be an initial healing phase and then if there are problems later, like if there are inverts or flat nipples they can often do something to fix it.

Although I was warned myself not to expect a world-beating chest or anything. Personally I just want the lumps off. Even if I never get to walk about comfortably shirtless I just need them gone.

[David]

My top surgery is tomorrow and I am very anxious.

Like you, I'm very anxious about the results, but I'm also anxious about the procedure itself (general anesthesia, waking up after it, recovery, etc).

I'm excited at the same time, but anxiety definitely overcomes it right now..

[RaptorChops]

We've all been in that place. I know the night before my surgery I was worried about the surgery, and worried about the results. They turned out pretty well, and I'm sure it will look better in time. All you can do is take good care of yourself after surgery. Eat healthy, don't lift your arms over your head, don't lift anything over 5lbs, etc.

[lionheart]

I'm excited at the same time, but anxiety definitely overcomes it right now..

That's exactly how I feel. I almost feel guilty for it, because I know not a lot of guys have this opportunity and I wish I could just be excited.

[Alexthecat]

I did not have that much anxiety beforehand. It would have been better if my family had not kept saying it was okay to change my mind while I was hooked up to IV before surgery. I measure the anxiety by how much sleep I got the night before. I had way more anxiety when I got 6 teeth extracted before braces (4 adults, 2 babies). It was my first sleeping surgery. When I got my 4 wisdoms out years later I had barely any anxiety.

As for nipples I was surprised at how nice mine were. They were not pink and looked like nipples the whole time. The only thing that happened to them was they shedded a scabby layer. I kept them covered and used the ointment. Biggest advice I can give is do not uncover the nipples and then put a shirt on too soon. The shirt will rub the nipples and that is uncomfortable. Keep them moist and if you want them to breath then be shirtless.

[Muscle Matt]

Honestly, I've got so much anxiety about getting all these requirements done before surgery (pre-op physical/bloodwork, letter, payments, etc), I haven't even had a chance to get anxious about possible results. I had my consult this past week and they told me I have to get all this stuff ready. And on top of that, my mom wanted to be my ride, and after locking in my surgery date, tells me, "Oh, that's the one day I can't do it." So now I'm stressing over finding a ride, too.

I'm sure the week of, I'm going to start freaking out more and more over the actual surgery and results, but until then, I'm being overwhelmed with everything I need to get done in time (if the blizzard hadn't made my original consult get rescheduled, I would have had at least another week to get things in order).

[FTMax]

Honestly, I've got so much anxiety about getting all these requirements done before surgery (pre-op physical/bloodwork, letter, payments, etc), I haven't even had a chance to get anxious about possible results. I had my consult this past week and they told me I have to get all this stuff ready. And on top of that, my mom wanted to be my ride, and after locking in my surgery date, tells me, "Oh, that's the one day I can't do it." So now I'm stressing over finding a ride, too.

I'm sure the week of, I'm going to start freaking out more and more over the actual surgery and results, but until then, I'm being overwhelmed with everything I need to get done in time (if the blizzard hadn't made my original consult get rescheduled, I would have had at least another week to get things in order).

Matt,

If you can't find another ride, feel free to reach out. I'm fairly local and I would not mind.

[Muscle Matt]

Matt,

If you can't find another ride, feel free to reach out. I'm fairly local and I would not mind.

Thank you very much, that's so kind of you. I actually have a friend that lives in Timonium, so for now I'm thinking that may be my best bet. I posted on fb and got quite a few responses of people offering rides.

[unclesean]

17 days post-op here.  By the time I read through all 40+ pages of the Top Surgery Recovery Updates thread, which I did the week before surgery, I had a sense of what all the problems could be, and also knew that for guys who dealt with those complications, it wasn't the end of the world.  Guys who had to have revisions, guys with various setbacks during recovery, guys who had grafts not take properly, all kinds of "worst case" scenarios, and still they lived to tell the tale and ended up with a flat, masculine chest even if it took longer than expected. 

It also helped me when I asked my surgeon what percentage of patients end up having problems, and he said not many, and I said "like 5 percent?" and he said "more like 2 percent".   

So the odds are it will go fine and even if it doesn't it probably just means a slightly longer road to the same end result.