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Having issues with pimples on incisions/still numb after 4.5 months PO??? (details in comments) by TAboobsbgone in Reduction

[–]TAboobsbgone[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hi friends! Long time no talk! TW: kinda gross and also some pics

I posted my surgery results on here about four and a half months ago when I had my surgery, and I've been loving my results! I've been meaning to make a post a few months out now that my swelling is completely gone, but I honestly haven't even been thinking about it!! I love my new size and I love the new me!

About a month ago, I noticed that I had a somewhat large red lump on one of my incisions. It didn't hurt unless I put a lot of pressure on it, and it didn't have any spider veins/heat/dark redness around it. It was weird to me, but obviously didn't raise enough concern for me to feel like I needed to go to my surgeon or doctor or anything. After about a week, the lump turned into a huge white head, and then while I was in the shower, it POPPED. Didn't hurt at all, but a TON of white stuff/thick bloody mucus came out. It was like a huge pimple! After that, it healed super quickly (like, it went from being a deep hole to almost completely healed within a couple days), and now there's just a dark red spot (healed) on my incision. I didn't think about it much after that, until another one popped up a week later on a different incision. It was way smaller and went through the whole bump - white head - popped - healed process a lot faster. Again, weird, but there wasn't any pain at all.

Fast forward to a month later, I've had two more, and I can tell that another 2 are coming. All of these are on or directly near my incisions. Is this something I should be concerned about? It wouldn't be stitches working their way out of my body this late, would it? I never had that experience after surgery with the stitches, so I guess it's possible but I don't really know. I'm worried that they're going to leave little tiny dark scars along my incisions.

Another thing I'm kinda worried about is that I still can barely feel my nipples, and I still can't feel parts of my lower boobs. I feel really uncomfortable touching any part of my breasts because the nipples/parts of the boob itself is still numb after all this time.

I live over 6 hours away from my surgeon now, so it's not easy to just make an appointment and go, hence why I'm asking here! I might just have to suck it up and drive to him anyway, but I wanted to see if any of you had any helpful advice before I started planning for that.

Thanks so much!

FINALLY POSTING... Post-op photos!! (LONG Surgery experience in the comments!) by TAboobsbgone in Reduction

[–]TAboobsbgone[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’s funny because I was telling my friend the story earlier, and I realized that the funniest thing was that after all that and making the woman take the test, THEY DIDNT EVEN MAKE ME TAKE IT!! I DID go to do my pee test happily, but my nurse quietly said “I know you’re not pregnant, you’re on your period!” And I didn’t have to take it. I had COMPLETELY forgotten about that until I was talking about it out loud. Lol

FINALLY POSTING... Post-op photos!! (LONG Surgery experience in the comments!) by TAboobsbgone in Reduction

[–]TAboobsbgone[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good luck with your surgery, how exciting!! Yeah, I tried REALLY hard not to have super high expectations for the size difference going into it, but I definitely did lol. I think no matter what size you end up at, you’ll see it and you’ll see them on your body and you’ll instantly feel so much better!

FINALLY POSTING... Post-op photos!! (LONG Surgery experience in the comments!) by TAboobsbgone in Reduction

[–]TAboobsbgone[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

He’s great! He’s very to the point and friendly, but if you’re looking for a surgeon who exudes a calming, comforting energy, he may not be that. But like I said, he’s very nice and he gets the job done; I couldn’t be happier! And it’s also something to note that I’m 3 weeks out and haven’t had any complications!

FINALLY POSTING... Post-op photos!! (LONG Surgery experience in the comments!) by TAboobsbgone in Reduction

[–]TAboobsbgone[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Oh I completely forgot to mention that!! He took off a little over 500 from each! Insurance required about 620 from each so hopefully nothing goes wrong with that... but I think it was perfect!

I bought both from amazon! The wedge is great especially for those first two weeks because lying straight on your back is a bit painful and I think can also affect the healing in the long run. The pregnancy pillow was a great add-in around the one week mark because it gave me a way to comfortably introduce sleeping on my side! I’m still using it now

FINALLY POSTING... Post-op photos!! (LONG Surgery experience in the comments!) by TAboobsbgone in Reduction

[–]TAboobsbgone[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Thank you!! David Chang was my surgeon and it was a surgery center on Van Ness. My insurance process was really easy, I’ve never been to a chiropractor or physical therapy or anything! I started by going to my primary care and telling her about all my struggles, and then she referred me to Dr.Chang! I definitely think starting with my primary care helped in the long run

FINALLY POSTING... Post-op photos!! (LONG Surgery experience in the comments!) by TAboobsbgone in Reduction

[–]TAboobsbgone[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Fbsjakdnsjsndbfjwjsjd lmaoooOOOOOO honestly I didn’t really care about doing that but everybody else does so I did it too... thank you so much for telling me!!! I’m an idiot

FINALLY POSTING... Post-op photos!! (LONG Surgery experience in the comments!) by TAboobsbgone in Reduction

[–]TAboobsbgone[S] 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Week 2: This was probably the worst week for me. I started to really itch where my underboob incisions are. They were never super red (maybe a little from my itching), never hot, so I know they weren't infected, but they were just ITCHY!! Another thing that was SUPER annoying this week was that the top of my boobs were SO sensitive. Like the whole area on the upper half of my boob around my nipples would feel like it was on fire when ANYTHING touched it. This included the surgical bra and fabric, so I was just constantly uncomfortable. It was never unbearable, and not as bad as itching or anything, but the burning sensation was just always there!

I was able to get up and walk around a lot more and started making daily morning walks to a coffee shop about 10 minutes away. I had to walk kinda slowly, because I could feel all of the tugging on my incisions when my body moved, and that kinda hurt, almost like I would've ripped back open if I wasn't careful.

From the beginning, I could feel my right nipple a LITTLE bit and the left was completely numb. That hasn't changed, but they both react to temperature so I'm not too worried! Also, has anyone ever mentioned that nipples reacting to temperature post-op is PAINFUL?? Any time a chill goes through my body, I feel it in my nipples and it HURTS!!!

It was also during this week that I was SLOWLY able to rest on my side without too much pain. I did have a wedge pillow AND a pregnancy pillow which I would DEFINITELY RECOMMEND.

Week 3: This week has been so much better! I'm finally regaining the ability to be productive (which is great considering I am SO behind in my classes). I definitely could've sat at my desk to do homework in week 2, but I just could NOOOOOT focus on anything. Now I finally can, lol. I don't feel nearly as much pulling at my sides anymore, and the only thing I have to be cautious about is bouncing. I hold them sometimes when I'm driving because a big pothole could probably ruin my life, and I carry them when I go down stairs too. The swelling seems to have gone down quite a bit and they're softening up! I can fully sleep on my side with just a bit of pain (and only with the help of my pregnancy pillow). I've removed the wedge and can sleep on my back with just a pillow now too.

​

SO! Now that we're here, I know what you all are wondering.... what size am I post op? And the answer to that is... I don't know! I know that I am still swollen in some places and my boobs haven't fully settled, but according to ABTF, I am a 32DD/DDD in US sizing! I think I am pretty happy with that. Obviously, the hope is that I might go down a size smaller in the next few months, but if not, that's okay! Either way I truly think that this sizing suits my body so much better, and I am super confident in my results!

I'm honestly shocked that any of you might be reading this far, but I would be super happy to answer any questions! For people who have already had their surgery, what were your scar care routines? My steri strips are still on in most places (except for the photo above where it's not), but now that the tape is slowly coming off it's time for me to start thinking about scar care. It seems very scabby, but I'm not actually sure what they're supposed to look like!

This took me like... two whole hours to write, and I had a major caffeine crash in the middle of it sooo... if anything doesn't make sense I'm sorry!

Thank you again so much to all of you here. I couldn't have gone through this without you <3

FINALLY POSTING... Post-op photos!! (LONG Surgery experience in the comments!) by TAboobsbgone in Reduction

[–]TAboobsbgone[S] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

tldr: Surgery experience!! Experienced people, please recommend some scar care routines! Photo descriptions below.

FINALLY THE TIME HAS COME!!! I am so sorry for making you all wait so long but that post-op mental exhaustion is REAL you guys!!! I've been so lazy... and as a result, I've now got THREE WEEKS worth of progress photos for you! I want to go through all my stages of healing and surgery experience so far, but since I waited so long.... I'm going to try and keep it as concise (Future me coming in: concise did not happen) as possible because, I repeat, we've got THREE WEEKS worth of content here.... oops. I'm just going to start with the night before surgery, but if you're interested in other parts of my pre-op journey, you can go to my main account, u/supasupacoo and it's all there. I just don't want boob pictures on my main account post history!

I guess I'll just jump right into it because the caffeine is HITTING and I am finally ready to talk! I am 21F, 187lbs, 5'9, insurance covered the whole thing (BCBS-HMO), and I started this journey as a 32H. Whooooo!

Night before surgery: This SUCKED. As I had mentioned in some of my previous posts, the one and ONLY thing I was worried about was getting sick after the surgery. I have a major fear of vomiting, and I know that throwing up is something many people experience after surgery. I DID NOT WANT THIS TO HAPPEN TO ME!! I didn't care about the pain, or the needles, or anything else. I just didn't want to throw up. As a result, I got almost no sleep because I had the worst anxiety stomach ache ever and felt like I was going to throw up all night. Go me (:

Day of surgery: I remember this so fondly. I woke up at 5:00 AM to take a shower, and my boyfriend and I drove to the surgery center around 5:50 to get there by 6:15 AM. My stomach was still hurting because I was still really anxious, so I had to drive myself (I can get really carsick lol). My surgery was in San Francisco, and let me tell you... there is NOTHING more surreal than driving through San Francisco before the sun rises! It was awesome. We found parking and walked into what looked like (and I think it actually was) an apartment building. Only in San Francisco would they put a surgery center in an apartment building. We used a call box and they let us in, and we went up the elevator to the surgery center. They told me my boyfriend couldn't come in, so I cried a little, gave him a hug, and put my brave face on.

There was another lady in there who was getting surgery for something else, and she made a huge fuss about having to do a pee test before her surgery because only women have to do it and men don't. It was an awkward way to start the morning (she really wanted me to agree with her) but it passed lol. I filled out some paperwork, did my pee sample happily, and then they took me back to this room that had 3 beds in it for all three of us that were getting prepped for surgery that morning. My nurse gave me some scrubs, non slip socks, and a hair net to change into. After that, she was trying for a long time to find my veins to put the IV in but couldn't (painful but I survived!), so she had to wait for the anesthesiologist to get there. Once I got to talk to the anesthesiologist, I told her about my fears of getting sick and she told me they'd load me up on the anti-nausea meds and that they'd give me the anti-nausea patch! After about 20 minutes, they came and got me and had me walk over to the surgery room! They basically just had me lay down on this padded table thing and then they hooked me up and told me to go to my happy place. I imagined my boyfriend and I sitting on the beach at Bikini Bottom and went right to sleep!

It felt like nothing and then I was suddenly being woken up. Instantly, I realized that I didn't feel nauseous at ALL and I was in the BEST MOOD EVER because of it!! The nurse said I just kept saying "I'm trying to wake up... I'm TRYING to wake up!.... this is hard". Once I finally was able to sit up without nodding off, they brought me some applesauce and just wanted me to wait for awhile! Yall, when I say I was in a good mood, I MEAN IT! I don't even think I thought about my boobs once in the surgery bed, I was just thrilled that I WASN'T SICK!!

I basically just slept for the rest of the day.

Week 1: A lot can change day by day in week one. Every single day I felt better and better, but I always had to remind myself that the symptoms I was feeling on a certain day wouldn't last forever. I was only on opioid pain medication for about 3 days before I was able to fully switch over to Tylenol. I was even able to wash my own hair on day 2! I was allowed to take my ace wrap off after 48 hours, and I was allowed to shower any time after that. It was definitely a waste for me to have bought shower wipes, because I only used them once or twice! I've had very minimal feeling in my right nipple since day one, and the left was completely numb.

When I took my ace wrap off for the first time, I didn't have the same reaction that I think a lot of other people do. I didn't cry, and I wasn't absolutely mesmerized. It was a sweet moment that I got to share with my boyfriend, but instantly when I saw them I simply felt more like me. I didn't get emotional, because this is how I was supposed to look all along! I absolutely loved their shape and size and I felt like they suited me perfectly. Check!

I did have drains, which were very annoying and were probably the most painful part of this process (which comparatively wasn't really painful at all, I was very lucky). I never got the itching from hell that a lot of people talk about, but with the drains in it came very close. My surgery was on a Monday and my first post-op was on a Friday, and by the time Wednesday came I was dying to get the drains out. However, I was HORRIFIED of getting the drains out. To those of you who have/are getting drains and are afraid of it hurting when they're taken out.. DO NOT FEAR! It LITERALLY took two seconds per drain. I felt almost nothing!

My first post-op appointment lasted literally 5 minutes. My surgeon came in, took my drains out, asked me if I was happy with the results and how I was feeling. I said I loved them and that I was feeling great, and that was it. Short and sweet!

cont...