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.

Awesome story -- way to take care of yourself!

Hey that is great! I feel stupid.. I'm a 34C and have always wanted to be reduced to a B cup.

In my defense I am active in showing dogs and horses and my sports bras do not hold me enough, especially those few days before I cycle where a feather touches me and I scream in pain.

so... how much pain do you have to be in before a reduction can be considered a medical necessity. I carry a pair of DD's around which I would LOVE to see as ample C's, or hell, even regular D's. I get back pain occassionally, but it's kinda part of my life, really. i have a mild case of scoliosis (sp), but they stopped x-raying my spine every year when it stopped really getting any worse... No shoulder grooves or anything, though...

It's not about how much pain you're in, but about how much tissue they take out. Most insurance companies will not cover the surgery unless, I believe, the surgeon estimates that 500 total grams will be removed.

Also, one thing I forgot to mention: You don't get to choose the size you'll be after the surgery. I did ask my surgeon about this, because I'm not a very big person and remembered that I was completely miserable as a C cup in junior high school, when I was more or less the same size I was at the time I had surgery. She told me that the only promise she could make was that I would be proportional. I could be a B, but she said that most women end up as a C, which would look just fine. In junior high, she told me, I was more likely a D and wearing the wrong bra size.

It is also my understanding that scoliosis is completely unrelated to the size of your breasts. I never had it, but girls I went to school with who were much smaller than I did. Possibly, the fact that you had it might be incentive for your health insurance to cover a breast reduction, but no guarantees.