30 Year Old Making over Her Small, Tuberous Breasts - Melbourne, AU

There aren't a lot of reviews on here that deal with tuberous breast correction. Most people find it difficult to look at me and see anything wrong, or understand this is a condition that requires a lift as well as implants - I've barely got any breast tissue! So I'm hoping that sharing my case will be useful to other women dealing with this condition.

After nearly two decades of hating my breasts I've decided to do something about it. I never realised how confronting the process would be, even before surgery. I knew my breasts weren't right because they were different to my three sisters, but I had no idea they were tuberous - or what tuberism even was before my consultation with the first surgeon. Add to this the fact that I have shrunk from a size 14 as a teenager to a size 6-8 during my twenties and you've got a pretty good case for surgery.

As a side note I feel I must stress - surgeons have poor interpersonal skills. All my experiences with them have left me cringing. They lack bedside manner, can make you feel awkward, call you silly names in order to relax you, and leave you with the feeling that they don't understand how you need them to act or communicate. This is normal - be prepared, be kind to yourself before and after, have support from friends, and most importantly, don't judge them for it. You're paying them for their technical brilliance and their surgical and medical skills. This is what you need to keep in mind.

I began the process of looking for breast surgeons around Melbourne years ago. I was in my mid twenties when I found Professor Mark Ashton online, who specialises in breast reconstruction. I booked a consultation but later cancelled, knowing I'd never have the financial means to go through with it. In January this year I confronted my parents to ask for a loan to cover the procedure. Twenty years of not being able to look at myself in the mirror is long enough. They were unsupportive but eventually agreed.

Mark was the first practice I contacted, but he was booked out months in advance and I wanted to get a second opinion anyway, so I booked in to see Craig Rubinstein. Craig was lovely, quite thorough and extremely realistic, to the point that it scared me off. He said I would never achieve a great result because of my tuberous breasts, but I could expect an improvement. I explained I was open to surgery options without implants, whatever would help, but his approach was sort of an implant-only solution and I had the sense that I wasn't his normal kind of patient. I left feeling extremely hopeless and deflated.

My appointment with Mark Ashton a few months later renewed some hope. I explained my situation and experience up to this point, and he examined me and laid out three options. recommended a lift to fix the tuberism and shape, and implants to provide volume. He laid out three options. Firstly, I could have a lift to tighten and correct the tuberism. Secondly, I could have a lift with implants to provide the volume I'd need to achieve my ideal breasts. Thirdly, I could have the lift, wait a few years and see how I felt, and then choose to have implants down the track if that's what I decided. He sent me away to think about it and bring in pictures that represented the results I wanted to achieve. Basically I was after full, young and youthfull looking C cup breasts - I want them nice and close together with the nipples facing forwards and plenty of lower pole volume (this is the most exciting part for me because currently I have none!) But I'm not wanting to look really fake or ballony.

After some too-ing and fro-ing with my parents, who decided they would no longer support the loan for the procedure, and then re-committing a while after, I decided to have a lift with implants. Mark's approach was different. He didn't photograph and measure me, he just examined me for a while each time I went in. I showed him pictures and tried on sizers, and brought in a friend to look at the sizers with me. He was upfront, very upfront, and his answers to questions were brief. In truth I sometimes felt he needed to explain more, but I had the overwhelming sense he knew what he was doing and hand done this countless times before. I used the nurse to ask additional questions and now, sitting one week away from my surgery, I'm very scared, and excited.

Here are my details:
Height: 168cm / 5'6
Weight: 54kg
Breast size: A cup, wanting to achieve C cup.
Ordered: Smooth, round high profile silicon implants in three sizes to choose from: 300cc, 320cc and 340cc.

So far everything has gone perfectly. I cannot recommend Frances Perry House (Royal Melbourne Women's private hospital) enough - private room with a cityscape view (almost felt like a hotel!), brilliant staff, everything ran like clockwork. They all looked after me so well and made the experience very comfortable. Pre op I was a little nervous but the annecietist and nurses were great. I was out before they could finish telling me they were putting me under. When I woke up I was spacey and had a bit of pain and tightness but totally fine - no nausea or anything. They gave me some intravenous pain relief and returned me to my room. I was monitored every two, then four hours as the nurse checked blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, examined the implants and emptied the drains. I had panadine fort when I first returned and then endone about every four hours. It was all very manageable and I dozed in and out for the remainder of the day and night.

The surgery itself was a success - the tuberous shape and extra skin has been corrected with a lift and my nipples are now facing forwards. Of the three implant sizes I ordered Mark went with the largest - 340ccs and I'm so glad he did. I'm really happy with the size. The implants now need to drop and settle into their pockets over the next few months. I haven't had to deal with seeing the vertical incision lines and those around my nipples but one step at a time. I want to focus on healing and getting through this next stage before worrying about my scars.