Hello everyone.
I just had my first consultation with a surgeon from Melbourne, Andrew Ives.
It went pretty well.
Based on his examination. He told me that the method that he would use for my chest would be 'circumaerolar'.
Andrew told me about some risks that might occur on the surgery, such as nips that might die that it has to be removed, or numbness.
But it's very unlikely.
Has anyone here had this procedure before ? If yes, would you mind to share your experience? or even maybe a post op pics ? (If you don't wanna share below, you can PM me)
Thank you !
Isn't that just another name for the peri-areolar incision type surgery?
Andrew Ives is very good at discussing all the potential risks even if they are highly unlikely outcomes, it is the professional thing to do after all. I was unaware he did top surgery for guys, good to know.
If this is the surgery where instead of making an incision underneath your entire breast they only cut around the coloured area, take the tissue out and then stretch and sew the skin up, I did that here in Sweden. You can see my thread here if you want and I can answer any more questions you might have:
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php?topic=199752
From what I was told, basically, after the surgery blood coagulation (swelling of the breast that they then need to suck out with a sort of straw-like tool) is a normal side-effect that can be taken care of in like half a minute. If you think one of the breasts is swollen then just go to the clinic and get them to check it out, because if it's really bad then it can make you heal more slowly. Heavy bruising of the chest is so normal it's always expected. Infections and nipples dying however are extremely extremely rare (or at least, they are if you have any kind of good surgeon), I tried to talk to my doctors about it because long story short I live in a very unhygenic house and they just sort of laughed me off. And no, I didn't end up getting any infections either.
As for sensitivity, in my case, after the first surgery the nipples and everything were stretched flat and pulled out so they didn't "stick up". After the second surgery, they were still flat for about a month and then they began acting like normal nipples again. And they've actually gotten a lot more sensitive compared to how they were before, in my case it's probably a mental thing as I've always had stuff like sexual dysfunction due to the dysphoria.
Fever is always a possibility with any surgery and it's very serious if you get one, but I didn't have any such thing. Same for if your wound seems to bleed a lot or something. I also never pulled any stitches (apparently you'll know if you do because it'll hurt a ton or you'll bleed a lot). You WILL get a sort of yellow or white-ish pus that ooses out of your wounds; based on what people say online, this is actually that when they do the surgery some skin dies and gets trapped inside your body, the dead skin then leaks out from the wound area in liquid form, stuff like that that's nothing to worry about.
After the surgery but especially after the first surgery your chest will be very sore. You don't want to do this surgery in the winter because if you have to put tons of winter clothing onto your chest it's really going to hurt, AND cold temperatures make surgical wounds both hurt and heal more slowly. The healing time to get me back to feeling pretty much normal, was about 2 weeks with the first surgery but only like 4 days with the second one, that's how big the difference in strain on your body is between the two.
I took some photos for someone else yesterday so I can try to grab them from the camera and upload them for you. I'm only 2 months into my healing of the second chest surgery (= the touch-up for the first one) and most of the healing takes place over the first 3 months, while the scars around the wound keep healing for a year or so (as in, until then going out in the sunlight with your bare chest will make the scars darker, swimming also isn't a good idea). During the healing of the first surgery, I was worried the whole time because one side was healing really slowly, but right at the end of the 3 months it got better and was looking pretty normal. The same side is healing slowly again this time, so probably the same thing will happen. *goes off to find the camera*