Compression/binder after surgery? What did YOUR surgeon recommend?

[Vrekasht]

TL;DR background: AMAB, always kind of 'in between' growing up, grew breasts during puberty that never went away, found out 2 years ago I had an ovary all along (hence the breast growth and generally androgynous appearance overall)!

At any rate, I had the breasts removed June 30th of this year, and in all my researching on the healing process--and as an aside, this board was incredibly useful, especially for learning what to expect with the nipple graft healing, so a big thank you to all the guys who have posted their experiences and pictures!--I noticed one curious thing:

Every single surgeon seems to have a wildly different protocol for wearing a compression vest or binder after top surgery, with some not recommending it at all and others recommending wearing some sort of chest compression garment for 10-12 weeks.


So, I'm curious: What did your surgeon recommend, and did they give you reasons as to why they recommended what they did.

Since I'm starting:
My surgeon recommended chest compression for a minimum of 4 weeks and, after that, I could either stop wearing it or continue wearing it as long as I felt I needed it to feel comfortable while healing.
Her reasoning was that the first four weeks after top surgery are when you're at the highest risk to develop sermoas or hematomas, and a compression garment significantly lessens the chance that that will happen. She also mentioned that most  patients found it to be more comfortable as well.

Just for the record, I'm a little over 4 weeks out from surgery and have found it's simply uncomfortable (my chest aches after a few hours of no post surgical vest) without the compression still, so I'll likely continue wearing it for a couple more weeks.

[FTMax]

My surgeon gave me one to wear for 4 weeks post-op to reduce swelling and fluid retention, and overall help things "settle".

I wore it until 2 weeks post-op. It was giving me a weird rash and causing a lot of pain in my shoulders. Since I didn't have much if any swelling, my surgeon told me I could stop wearing it and just wear compression t-shirts (Under Armor makes some, but you can probably find cheaper at Walmart).

[RaptorChops]

I wore a surgical binder for a about 2-3 weeks and then after that I wore a Spanx tank top for a couple weeks after that.

[groudon18]

I wore foam + medical binder for 3 days, then the medical binder only for 1 week after.

[Ayden]

I wrapped my chest for right around 4 weeks, but I took it off at night. I just used the million foot ace bandage I got from the doctor. For about two months after though I wore tighter under shirts for my mental wellbeing.

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

[Rufio]

I had a medical binder and thick slab of foam for one week. I didn't wear any kind of compression garment after that.

They asked if I wanted to keep the binder after that, but I'd spent the end of the week constantly feeling like I was being crushed, so I was just eager to get away from it.