BA is A Major Surgery, Not For The Faint of Heart. - Long Beach, CA

My doctor has been lovely and attentive. My experience with her has been really great overall. However, the pain has been excruciating. Much more so than what most people experience, I believe. One reason I chose to get implants was that I am somewhat pigeon chested from a very athletic childhood. I have always had a very prominent, muscled clavicle and rib cage in relation to my actual breast tissue, which was slight A/AA. Typical athletic build. My ribs were more prominent than my breasts, and my breasts were set rather wide apart with down-sloped nipples. We did both a BA and a crescent wedge lift. I am 41. My doc said that when she cut into my chest, it appeared to be 10 years younger than my age and was highly muscled with almost no subcutaneous fat. (As an adult I hike a lot, SUP, and do yoga, although not nearly as religiously as I did 10 years ago. I also used to do a lot of KBs and Olympic lifting, but I haven't in abt 4 years. I am also a former competitive cheerleader, both amateur and professional, but that was 20 yrs ago. Frankly, I consider my upper body to be my weak point. So I'm not sure why I was still so muscled throughout my chest.) She said that she had to ask the anesthesiologist if he had actually given me a muscle relaxant, since my muscles were still so firm/rigid. Because I am tall and broad, 5'8", 150 lbs (Size 6-8), 36-28-40, I went with a fairly large implant. I wound up with 498CCs in one breast and 533CCs in the other. Which, brings me to what I think will be about a C cup when all is done. They look very proportionate to my frame. I think that my musculature combined with the size of the implant is why this has been so incredibly awful for me. At this point, given my experience, I absolutely would not have had the operation if I had known that this is what I was in for. I may change my mind when I'm more comfortable. But I would have never knowingly put myself through this. That being said, my doctor has really been wonderful about working with me through the entire process. I don't think it has anything to do with her and the level of my pain and appearance of my breasts continues to improve everyday. Altogether, with time off work, which for me wound up being about 8 full days off, this has wound up costing me quite a bit more than the $7,700.

Went in for my one month today. Doc says I'm healing well. However, since my chest is so muscular, I will most likely be bandaging and massaging until the new year to achieve the correct result. Oh Joy. I looked at my before pics in her office and I now remember now just how far down my chest my actual breast tissue started. I'll have to search around and see if I have any of my own. I know I have them somewhere. I'll post before and afters when I can. We really are making boobs out of pecs here. Pain is lessening, still very tight and achy though. Bought a very cool strap from this company http://www.designveronique.com/ that at least looks more like a camisole than a bandage. It's lacy in the front. Hooray for that. If I'm going to be doing this for three months I'm going to need to be creative.

I'm still very limited in my activity and still in constant discomfort. My breasts feel sunburned and raw. My nipples are incredibly painful to the touch and I have a lot of tightness and pressure. By the end of the day I'm in so much discomfort I rush home and get straight into a hot bath. Mornings are generally my best time, strangely enough. I think it's from 8 hours of having a heating pad on my chest.

My doctor is in contact with me and we are managing things as best we can. She says it's because I'm so muscular and, she's actually seen my muscles, so she knows. I find it hard to believe, since I'm so weak compared to what I used to be. I haven't lifted a weight since 2009 and I lost a lot of my strength when I went on a super low-cal diet prior to my wedding in March. I feel like a weakling, but apparently my chest muscles are still very strong.

What I'm doing:
1. Hot baths and stretching every morning and evening.
2. Massage of different kinds.
3. Topical Arnica, arthritis cream, and Zim's Max Freeze for pain and soreness on my breasts, multiple times a day.
4. Antibiotic ointment with pain reliever to numb my nipples.
5. Eucerin all over my chest every morning and evening.
6. Scar cream and paper tape over my scars.
7. Sleep on my back with a firm pillow and a heating pad on low on my chest. I'm starting to wake up pretty stiff, may look into other sleeping positions.
8. Bring my heating pad to work and sit at my desk with it on my chest. (or try my ice pack out of the fridge to numb me when I need it)
9. .5mg valium at night
10. Ibuprofin or Aleve every day as needed up to max dose.
11. Eating right.
12. Very limited activity. (Like no more than work every day and running a few errands on weekends.)
13. Tight bandages and surgical bras with gauze padding as needed, adjusted several times a day.

Still waiting to get actual before pics from doc. When I was much younger, I actually kind of dug the fact that I was flat chested and ran around bra-less. It's just not as cute in my 40s. ;)

The last few days my pain has changed and been reduced to discomfort. Thankfully. I'm still sore and swollen, but I don't hurt all the time like I did. My doctor said I would most likely see changes from week to week rather than day to day and that's pretty much the way it's going. It's been 5 1/2 weeks so far. I'm now able to sleep on my side, get by with less pain stuff, and wear a sports bra with my band. I've also changed the position of my band to be a bit more aggressive, since I'm not hurting like I was. I'm using a 3" ace bandage and I wrap it very high up on my clavicle, making sure I actually have it above the implant as much as possible, I scoot the back part of it down to bra strap height and then I fold it over. It's pretty tight and it's definitely pushing down on the implant. Now that they're not killing me, I want this done as quickly as possible!

I finally got sized today. 34DDD aka 34F...holy cow. My girlfriend who has had multiple boob jobs over the years says I'm still swollen and I should wind up more like a DD when all is said and done. They don't look that big to me!

You may notice I took all of my pics down. I read an article about people posting people's surgery pics on other sites and freaked out. So no more boob pics. That being said, I wound up much larger than I expected. They don't look outsized on my frame, but I'm a 34DDD. I thought I was a 36AA before. I may have actually been a 34A. We were going for large C, small D. Oops. Doc also said that because my breasts are wide set I would probably not get much cleavage. Wrong again. ;) Overall, I'm happy with them. They're still settling. So, we will see how they look in a few more months.

So, I had an unusually difficult recovery from my BA. Thankfully my doc is wonderful and was there with me every step of the way. I saw her once a month for the first 6 months for progress pictures and for her to see how my implants were dropping. After that I saw her at 9 mos and at a year. I think my problems were a combo of being athletic and getting larger than average implants. In the end I went from an A to a DDD and they're really very pretty. Nothing like before.

No one ever thinks they're not mine, which is pretty cool. They match my frame and, even though they're big, they look natural.