Recovery Questions

[Ezra_U]

I won't be getting top surgery done for another one to two years and I was wondering what recovery is generally like. I've done some research but it'd be helpful to get some experiences from actual people.

How long was your recovery period?
What are the drains like? That part is really what kind of grosses me out.
Do you feel comfortable enough to go shirtless? It's something I'm looking forward to and I'm slightly afraid of the scars being very noticeable.

[Elis]

My recovery period was for 6 weeks. I stopped feeling sore and had full mobility; plus the scars and nipples had healed.

I had double incision but no drains. Totally not worth it imo. Just causes more unnecessary discomfort.

And I think I would feel comfortable going shirtless. It's more not being used to my body being now seen as socially acceptable and my body type rather than the scars. If anybody sees them they'll just assume I used to be overweight. And most people have scars or something else noticeable on them; so why be self conscious about it

[Kylo]

I'd seen drains on photos for this surgery and they looked like little blood bags just hanging out of the surgical wraps.... I had two large bottles attached to me the size of a "large coke" from a drive thru. I guess they expected lots of fluid but I hardly produced any. One bottle had only 10 ml in it, the other about twice that. They're pretty disgusting to examine, but otherwise I didn't feel the drains at all in the wounds. It is only when they pull them out after 1-2 days that you feel anything and mine weren't painful to remove. While they are in though you are attached to them and have to take them wherever you go, like an IV drip. The nurse told me that some people find them painful to remove, but personally I didn't experience this. 

Honestly I'm more sore from the intubation in the throat than from the surgery itself, or the drains. I never used any of the morphine, only some paracetamol tablets.

[November Fox]

It depends on what type of surgery you'll be having. I had peri, with normal healing on the one side and complications on the other.

On the healed side, I had most mobility back by one month. The other side is taking a bit longer. But I can haul groceries, bike around, and carefully work out. I started doing my own grocery shopping (on foot) after 3 weeks. (But if you have lightweight groceries you could start earlier easy).

[Kylo]

I went home the next day but I'm beginning to think it might have been better to leave the drains in one more day (all the fluid that came out was extremely red, there was no "dead blood" in there). I can't be sure that the slight swelling I got after that is due to hematoma or fluid, since I've been wearing a compression vest almost continuously for a week now, and I think the drain holes closed over fast. I can't tell though, because I can't look under the dressings; I'm not allowed to remove them for another week. My left side is the one they had to do some extra work on, and is the one bruising up a bit around the edges of the dressings. Other than that though, no sign of infection at all, no need to take anything stronger than paracetamol so far.

One thing to note about recovery, the first couple of days after the op seemed to be the most comfortable. After that, you start growing your nerves back again, and then they start complaining. And... if you've got some SOs around, keep reminding them not to hug you. It only takes the tiniest pressure on it to send you to Pain City.

[invisiblemonsters]

my recovery period was about 6 weeks give or take. i went back to work after 4 weeks but i went back to school about 2 weeks after my surgery (one class - not a big deal). the drains weren't painful, just uncomfortable to deal with. i only had them in for 4 days. i stayed at a recovery house where they could monitor me so when i got my drains taken out, i went home. i go shirtless all the time. i know people use silicone strips or silicone gel kinda thing for their scars, which is what i used. you can start using those once your incisions are all healed up. it fades the scars for you if you're super worried about it.

[SeptagonScars]

My recovery time was in total around 8 weeks (2 months) but the last 3-4 of those weren't hard on me, just a bit annoying. It was my nipple grafts that took forever to heal, and the scabs on them stayed until I was 2 months post-op. My lower/horizontal scars had closed up about 4 weeks after op. I think part of the reason I healed a bit slower was cause I couldn't keep myself from my cigarettes long enough... (I quit smoking before op, but then started again a couple of weeks post-op). I wore a compression vest 24/7 for 3 weeks after op. I had the double incision method. I lived on my own and did not have anyone to help me after I got home from the hospital. It went fine, but it was tough, and in retrospect I should have asked my mother to help out cause I knew she would and could have. Especially grocery shopping and doing laundry was tough.

I only had drains in for one day after my op. They were removed before I even left the hospital, so they were only a nuissance during that one night. Cause I kept entangling myself in them in my sleep. Getting them pulled out didn't hurt, just a bit uncomfortable. I stayed at the hospital one night before surgery and one night after. The night before was because I had a long way to travel (around 5-6 hours).

Mostly I feel comfortable to go shirtless, but where I live even the most conventionally attractive cis guys with gorgeous chests cover up, so I feel odd going shirtless cause literally no one else does here even when it's sauna hot summers outdoors. I was very self conscious of my scars the first year or so after my op, cause they were very purple and my skin around glowed white, so the scars felt very obvious to me. But as they faded I got more confident about that. Nowadays I don't really care about my scars showing, but I'm still aware that they're there and that people might comment on them or ask. But then no one ever does. Then I'm more insecure about my puffy stomach, tbh.

All in all, I am very happy about how my chest turned out, even though I got some permanent discolouration on my nipples, cause I think they look cool like that now. Literally like two leopard spots! I'm also satisfied with flatness, sensation and just generally. The result got way better than I expected it to, especially cause I had no idea who the surgeon was... (I mean he wasn't known and I've never heard of anyone else who's been operated on by him, before or after me). I have some chest hair, but not enough to cover the scars, btw. I had top surgery 4 years ago.

[Kylo]

I noticed while trying to sleep off the drug cocktail the night of the surgery something about the female chest. I was lying there with the morphine and everything there if I wanted it, and I didn't want it... someone had come in to give me some paracetamol about an hour earlier, and all I was doing was drinking water and spacing out. There was almost no pain immediately after the surgery, because the surgeon had used blockers in the pecs, injections of slow release painkiller I guess. But there was this faint dull ache in the background where my chest used to be. Which was nothing... it wasn't "pain", it was just this distant discomfort. And it was exactly like the sort of distant ache I'd get there all the time before. I mean it just hit me at that point - female breasts ache. You just get so used to it I suppose that you don't register it. But they do. If you try to sleep on them they hurt. If you retain water they feel weird. The cycle makes them sensitive. And maybe it's just me but they used to have this distant uncomfortable sensation all the time. The post-op ache was pretty much identical to it.

It made me laugh out loud at the time. I'd just had someone slice me up, pull some flesh, glands and fat off me and stitch me back up, and it was no more painful than "normal". Normal was probably more painful when I think of the accumulated discomfort.

Since then the only pain has really been the twinges from the reconnecting nerves and if I've been stupid enough to stretch my arms up further than they should at this stage. But in general the "ache" from it is the same as the ache from a "healthy" body. That just strikes me as bizarre, and in that sense I'm glad I've got rid of those glands.