27 Y/o, No Kids Going from Fs to Ds - Denver, CO

Holy cow! It's happening! My original surgery date was November 28, but they just moved me up to October 5! So now I have less than 2 weeks to prepare for surgery when I was planning on having 2 months. I'm beyond excited but nervous that I'm not prepared. The one appointment I've had with my surgeon was more about how the procedure works and how long afterwards that I should lift heavy things. So thanks to RealSelf I know I should get an unlined bra, and that I can't sleep on my side. I would love some input on what things were the most helpful to those of you who have had a breast reduction. I've seen those pillow wedges to help with the sleep issue, I've seen bras from Walmart that people have raved about. So what things should I focus on acquiring in the 10 days I have until my surgery?

And to hopefully help someone else down the road: I've struggled with back pain since high school. I threw it out a couple times when I was around 17, and a few more times in college. I've done physical therapy to strengthen my core, to stretch out the muscles that would help relieve tension on my lower back. I've done massage and chiropractic therapy. Ice packs, electrode machines, so many pain killers. All the things. And literally nothing helps.

So finally, after being married for almost a year and thinking about having kids, I decided to talk to my doctor about getting a breast reduction, which I honestly didn't even know was a thing until a couple years ago. So she sent me to another physical therapist and gave me a muscle relaxer, (the muscles in my lower back are rock hard literally all the time). So my new PT, Sara, told me that with chronic back pain your brain literally shuts down the muscles because it knows it hurts. So it thinks "if I don't let those muscles work, they can't be in pain, right?". Wrong. The result of that is the muscle turns into fat, because the brain won't let those muscles build. So that was comforting. But made sense to me. So I was very grateful that my doctor was helping me with my pain while I got the ball rolling for surgery.

Fast forward to my meeting with the surgeon and nothing is news to me. My mother in law and sister in law have both had breast reductions so I already knew the process. The money question was "will insurance cover this?" I think he actually interrupted my husband and said "Oh definitely. For it to be considered medically necessary we have to be able to remove 500 ccs of tissue, and you'll probably be 750+." Oh good. So he thought we'd be able to schedule about 6 weeks out, well that ended up being 12. So I turned down the excitement meter because now I'd have to wait 3 months. BUT IT GOT MOVED UP!! So now I'm freaking out because this is so exciting but I want to be prepared. And thankfully my work was able to work the schedule around with such short notice. Praise.

I had my pre-op appointment this morning with the nicest nurse I've ever met. She made me feel so comfortable. She gave me all the rules going into the surgery, none of which surprised me. I have to stop taking ibuprofen/naproxen as they are blood thinners. Tylenol would be fine but that never worked for me. I have to stop eating and drinking 8 hours before check in which would be 1:30 am, so I can have dinner but the morning might be tough. Surgery is scheduled at 11:30, so I imagine I'll be pretty hungry. And then knowing I might be nauseous afterwards makes me sad that I won't eat all day. ????

But I got 2 packets of antibacterial soap that I have to wash with the night before and morning of the surgery. I got some blood work done to make sure things like electrolytes are fine. And a urine pregnancy test because it's been about a month since my last period (even though I have the arm implant.) She also asked me a LOT of questions about my health and history. If I'm a smoker, had a history of asthma, any rashes, shortness of breath, heart problems, headaches...

We also had the talk about breast feeding. My surgeon said probably not, but the nurse said some can some can't. I'm not worried about it as my mother and grandmother weren't able to breast feed without this kind of surgery. But she was very kind about it. Other than that, she told me to wear clothes that are easy to put on, leggings, sweatpants, and button up shirts. I wasn't surprised by that either but now I have a good handle on my surgery outfit. ????

Then I went to my physical therapy appointment. I wanted to get in one more session before the surgery. We increased the difficulty of some of the exercises for my back, which are done on my back, so hopefully I can get back into them a few days after I come home. Obviously I'm not going to push it, but if they don't affect my upper body I don't see why they would be terribly hard to do with bandages on. We'll see how that goes. 5 more days to go!! I'm so ready for this.

So I'm starting to freak out a little but because it seems like I'm getting a cold with 4 days before my surgery. I've been taking zicam, emergen-c, mucinex, my allergy medicine... I took an epsom salt bath, I'm drinking lots of water. And I feel ok but I'm getting a little too mucous-y for comfort. I didn't have a temp at my pre-op appointment but I'm terrified that I'll get worse and they won't let me get surgery with the sniffles. Praying that I dry up before Wednesday!!

I also have this weird worry about laying on my back for a few hours for the surgery. I've never had surgery like this before and I'm afraid that my back will seize up like it does when I lay on my back for too long (I mean like 10 minutes). Did anyone with bad back pain have issues coming out of surgery? I know I'll get pain meds but my back has been killing me the last couple weeks so that's all I think about now.