View Single Post
Old 08-23-2003, 07:40 PM   #1 (permalink)
Cedar
Crazy
 
Location: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Breast reductions: a personal experience

(I keep forgetting that there's no such thing as TMI in this forum! )

Five years ago, I had a breast reduction, and with all the talk about boob jobs that's going on, I thought I'd open a new thread to share my experience and answer questions.

At the time I had the surgery, I was wearing a 34DDD bra. That's all fine and good maybe if you're Pamela Anderson or six and a half feet tall, but I was 5'3" and 120 pounds, a size four on the bottom and a fourteen on top. I had backaches, neck aches, problems with one of my shoulders, couldn't breathe properly, and had strap marks in my shoulders. Of course, I was also horribly embarrassed by the way I looked. Clothes never fit. I had to buy old lady bras. Forget exercising.

After my sophomore year in college, I decided that I wanted to look into reduction surgery. I did some research on my own and got a recommendation on a surgeon from a friend of mine that had the surgery when we were in high school and was very pleased with the results. I ended up with a woman doctor with an all-female staff, but more importantly than that, this doctor was known for being one of the best in the area in her field. She did an evaluation, took pictures of my breasts, and talked to me about what the surgery entails and what she would report to my health insurance company. Many health insurance companies won't cover the surgery unless a certain amount of tissue is removed, which is at least some improvement from the years when reductions were considered cosmetic and insurance companies wouldn't cover them at all. After lots of going around with my health insurance company (usually not a problem, but this was a different case because my father, whose insurance I was on because I was still in college at the time), they agreed to cover the procedure. One thing that I thought was interesting was that when my surgeon first met me, she said that she could tell from the way I sat on her couch that the muscles in my back had been lengthened and weakened by trying to support the excess weight, and after the surgery I had to do special exercises to get the muscles back to their proper state.

My surgeon's nurse was wonderful, telling me every little detail about what would happen before, during, and after the surgery. I'm normally the kind of person who can't even watch ER because I can't deal with the blood and guts, but having her talk me through the procedure really alleviated a lot of my fears. The surgery itself took six hours, everything went fine, and I left the hospital the next morning with drains and instructions on how to change the dressings (had to get my mom to help me for the first few days). I didn't really have that much pain; it was more that I felt like I'd been hit by a truck for a few days The drains came out...I think it was three days later, and the stitches were out I think in a week. I was on painkillers for a week and had to sleep on my back because during surgery, they performed some liposuction. That was probably the thing that was the most painful and took the longest to heal, the liposuction.

I was restricted on my activities for about six weeks. I couldn't play (I was majoring in percussion) for a while and had to put my senior recital on hold, and wasn't allowed to lift anything heavier than five pounds. In general, I had to be very careful about my physical activity, but I found that after about a week I was feeling well enough to do quiet activities like go to dinner or the movies with friends. I wore a soft bra and a sports bra type thing during that entire time, except when I was showering. Even after six weeks, I took things easy, but was back to my normal level of activity in not too long. The healing process can take anywhere from six months to a year to complete.

As far as negative side effects, I had none at all. I lost none of the sensation in my breasts and will have no problems breastfeeding (even though Mr. Cedar and I have decided not to have children). It used to be that during surgery, the surgeon would remove the nipple and reattach it, but that's changed (or at least my surgeon did things differently). 75 percent of my scars aren't even visible, because they're underneath the breast, forming sort of an anchor shape from the nipple straight down and underneath. The scars themselves are quite thin and have faded over time. Once the swelling went down, I was wearing a 34C bra. Last year, I went up a cup size for no reason and now wear a D cup. I've never been so happy with any decision in my life. I can buy clothes off the rack, and the back pain has stopped. One of my sorority sisters even said to my then-boyfriend, "I didn't know how skinny Cedar was until she had her reduction!"

I know there's always talk about implants and augmentations, but I thought I'd share my experience with a reduction. Please don't hesitate to ask me any questions. I'll do my best to answer. Surgery is pretty extreme in any case, but it was definitely the right decision for me.
__________________
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
I am large. I contain multitudes.

-Walt Whitman, Song of Myself
Cedar is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360