What to expect after a bilateral mastectomy.
Hiya everyone! So I made a post ages about how what to expect if you go on HRT (for trans guys and similar) and here is my experience with a bilateral mastectomy and what will happen during and after if you get it. No pics in case it gets flagged as lewd.
Ok so here is what your surgeon should/will do:
- They will remove some of the fat from your breasts. I say some because the amount will be in proportion to your body type. They and you want your pectoral to look like it still belongs to your body, like the fat has distributed itself naturally there but in a more masculine way. So if you’re ‘overweight’ you might not have as much taken as you think, leaving you with ‘man boobs’ instead.
- They will shave the nipple and trim the size of the areola if needed. I had quite large nipples, but my areola were deemed ok by both my surgeon and me. My partner was the opposite way around. You may be fine without this being altered and should talk about it with your surgeon.
- The areola/nipple will be moved to a more masculine line on the pectoral. It makes a whole lot of difference, like, you probably didn’t even think about that before (I know I didn’t) and I love it now.
So what happens after?
Oh gosh you will be so hungry and pale after surgery. If you’ve never had any kind of surgery before, be prepared, oof.
Your surgery team should give you some exercises to do, ways to move your arms to keep you from seizing up. If they don’t look them up. I’m not even joking on this, even if it aches a bit, do them as much as you can. Directly after surgery when you start to feel awake again they will likely be no pain, which is a perfect time to practice them.
Keep your compression socks on for a week or so. They should tell you this, but here I’m preparing you now.
You will have drains in the wound, meaning you’ll have bags slowly filling up with waste fluids and blood. These should be emptied whenever they look to be getting pretty full. My best advice is to try and keep one either side of you, including when sleeping, which you’re gonna have to do on your back for a while.
Your nipple scabs will be the last things to go. The scabbing around the scars? Goes quick. Areola? Same. My nipples scabs hung on in there. It is so tempting to want to just pull them off, but you have to try and resist as much as possible. I was always messing with mine a little, and just managed to stop myself fully picking them off.
However! I found to my shock and horror that there seemed to be NOTHING under the scabs. Well, that means my nipples fell off right? That can happen after all. In my case...no. The skin around and under was healthy and pink* and after a good few months I started to see my nipples raising up again as healthy as ever. There was little about this on the internet, just one of two similar guys who had had it happen, so lets bring that number up by one. Unless there is pain, it’s likely fine! Your nipples just need a bit longer to heal.
*I completely lost pigment in my nipple/areola after surgery. They went from dark to super pink under the scabs and are only just starting to darken a little again. Who knows if the pigment will return, but I certainly never expected it as a side effect.
If you feel constant/frequent pain, redness, soreness, weeping, blackening of the skin - see a doctor/ contact your surgeon again. If you get dog earring (bits of skin sticking out from the area under your armpits) it can be fixed so don’t worry about it too much. The scar will stretch from the end of each pectoral to under the armpit, but with care and time they will fade. Bio-Oil is supposed to be good for scar lightening.
That’s all I can think of, but I’m happy to answer any questions anyone may have if I can ^^
Edit: Great addition was made, can't believe I forgot about antibiotics. Here in the UK my surgeon gave a course to me just in case even though my immune system is fine. There's always a risk of infection even so and you should certainly ask if you think you'll need antibiotics but won't be provided them as just part of the treatment
