There’s a lot of talk about breasts on this message board. Much to amazement, after my surgery almost everyone who knew about it claimed to know someone who wanted to do it. So ask away. I’m very satisfied with the results.
Do they donate the “leftovers” to those less fortunate?
You’re female, right? Sorry but my uncle needs it too.
From what size sniff down to what size?
Do they have some kind of template to make sure the new size is correct?
Why did you have it done?
What was your recovery time?
How much does something like this costs?
How do they look?
Have any pics?
May we see?
[sub]sorry, someone was going to ask. I figure why not me?[/sub]
My apologies for asking a serious question, but I’ve heard that after an enlargement, you lose nippleage sensitivity. Did they remove your nipple during the surgery, as I should imagine the same loss of feeling, what with the nerve endings being severed. Now for the REAL question…does it bother you, having all these flat-chested women call you a bitch when you tell 'em you’ve had yours reduced?
How long ago was it?
How are your scars?
Do you have kids? If so, was it before or after?
I too wondered about the nipple sensitivity. Breast reduction surgery isn’t an option for me right now (I will be nursing a baby come late March), but I still think about it sometimes. As for all those who would be insulting to you for daring to get a reduction in a time when so many are getting implants, I just want to say this. It may be OK to have larger breasts but when they get REALLY big, they can pull on the shoulder, neck, and back muscles, causing headaches and backaches. It is hard to find good bras that support without digging into the shoulders. And if you can’t afford to shop at Fredrick’s of Hollywood, you can hardly find bras in your size that don’t resemble what your grandmother would wear, so you feel frumpy. And I can’t even find MATERNITY bras that fit without the aid of an extender–which means I get a bra with shoulder straps that constantly slide off my shoulders. And if the rest of your body is average-sized, then you have trouble finding shirts that fit in properly everywhere–if it fits in the bust, then the underarm area and the shoulders are too large, and if it fits in those areas, it’s too small in the bust. And it’s damn near impossble to find button-down blouses wherein the buttons don’t “wink.”
And just SEE if a guy even notices what color your eyes are when you are well-endowed. He may not even realize you have eyes.
It isn’t all bad, of course it isn’t, but neither is it the paradise that some imagine it to be. I’m not sorry to be large breasted, but there are times that it is literally a pain in the neck! 
So bluethree, enjoy your newfound freedom!! 
Nipples are kinda sorta the general same shape as eyes… kind of.
How many times have you read an article in a woman’s magazine on how a bra should fit? And you just have to laugh when it says the bra straps aren’t supposed to hold anything up. As if!
Since my surgery, I really don’t need a bra for support. They are firm! I wear bras, though. And of course I still need a sports bra for jogging.
I was a large D or DD before, and I wanted a B but my surgeon thought it would look to small on me. Since he had 30+ years of experience, I let him decide. I would say they are a full C now, and I have no idea how they gauge them during surgery. I have a feeling they just “eyeball” them.
My surgeon said “there may be some change in nipple sensitivity.” Meaning some women lose sensitivity, and some gain sensitivity. I had almost no sensitivity beforehand, so mine got a little more sensitive afterwards. Which is good.
They do remove the nipples and set them aside while they do the rest of the job, yet there’s the still the possibility of being able to breast feed, depending on how the surgery goes. I have never had a child so I don’t know…if I’d wanted to be a mom some day I might not have had the surgery. Well, I would have once I was done nursing.
My mom, who is very proud of being the largest-boobed sister in her family, was kind of disgusted with me for getting the surgery. Hey, she hasn’t exercised in forty years, whereas I was running several times a week. Actual blisters under the bra strap aren’t fun. My sister also thinks I’m crazy, since she’s very proud of her enormous post-pregnancy bazoombas. Each to her own.
I was 30 when it was done, a non-smoker, non-drinker, non-sunbather type–so my scars healed very well. My surgeon warned that you never know how your scars are going to heal and apparently some people end up with big, ropy scars. I could probably completely cover any trace of my scars with a little makeup, if I wanted to expose my breasts in public.
What the scars look like. Draw two semi-circles next to each other, they should look like the underwires in your bra. Then draw two little circles representing your aureolas in the appropriate place. Then draw a line from the middle of the bottom of each aureola to bisect the semicircle that represents the bottom of each breast. That is what the scars look like. I think there were 200-some stitches.
I believe it costs in the neighborhood of $4000-5000, but the military paid for mine.
I didn’t have any pain. I was given pain pills and told to take them at the first twinge of pain, which I did. I hear the many other women have a great deal of pain from this surgery, but I didn’t have any.
Sometimes I get weird phantom sensations in my breasts which I never got before the surgery. They move everything around in there, I guess there are some pockets of air or something.
Anyway, I recommend it to anyone who’s interested. We all have our own health concerns to consider.
That was several years ago, and I’ve had no health problems. One thing is that I will have to wait longer to have a mammogram because my breast tissue is now so dense. That’s fine with me.
I had it done mostly because I was trying to participate in Army physical training with uncomfortable, flopping mammaries holding me back. The damn things were preventing me from even doing push-ups properly, according to the sergeants who kept telling me I wasn’t going down far enough. If they’d dug a hole for my breasts, I could have gone down farther. Jerks. (there are just oodles of innuendoes in this, aren’t there?)
It was a month before I had to do any PT afterwards, and I appreciated every minute of it. I was very protective of my breasts after the surgery. I probably could have returned to office work after about a week if I’d had to, but fortunately I didn’t. I’d have been constantly nervous of being jostled, and as it was I was very wary of the shoulder belt when riding in a car.
It’s weird…after the surgery they were almost perfectly symmetrical, but eventually they reverted to the right one being slightly bigger.
I forgot to say that while the main, urgent reason was PT, an underlying reason was the unwanted attention the breasts had attracted since I was 11. I’d been wanting a reduction for a loooooong time.
I don’t know if you’ll be able to answer this, as you mentioned that you are a non-smoker, but here goes:
My friend, who is also well-endowed (we’re about the same size) consulted a surgeon about a reduction. In both of our cases, a reduction would be covered under our provincial health plan. He told her that because she smokes, she runs the risk of losing circulation to her nipples after the surgery and having them actually fall off!!! Really! Obviously, it totally freaked her out, and she didn’t get the surgery. I’ve thought about going in to consult, but this whole nipple falling off deal worries me. One other person told me the same thing after her consultation, so perhaps it is true. Have you heard anything? Because if that’s true, then I’ll just stick with my G cup and leave well enough alone.
I just don’t know. It doesn’t really sound right, does it? It must have been some weird scare tactic to get her to quit smoking, uh, right? Were you told anything about less nipple circulation at all?
I would love to have my breasts put back where they started from. I went from a 34 almost A to a 36 Bigger than a B, but not a C. Finding bra’s is a nightmare. I want my old tits back. Wahhhhhhhhhhhh. [sub]Can I say tits here? tits tits tits **
When I was nursing, I swelled up to nearly a D cup. This was not acceptable in my boob book. Mr. Ujest naturally, loved the bazonga’s and pouted when I finished nursing.
And I’d like to donate the roll from my belly to some Ethiopian who needs some winter fat.
lolagranola, my surgeon wouldn’t show me any before/after photos of his previous work (invasion of privacy, I guess), but he did show me one photo of a woman whose nipple had died after her breast reduction surgery. It was pretty scary. If that were to happen, they have ways to fix it with more cosmetic surgery. Then you would definitely have one non-functioning nipple (if not two). He didn’t say that it had anything to do with smoking, but he already knew I was a non-smoker.
I’d have posed for before/after photos as long as they kept my face out of them. They didn’t take any, though. Wait, maybe they did while I was under anesthetic. :o)
Whoa, I don’t know how that smiley happened. Better learn how those things work.
The colon and “o” make that smiley you got, instead off the cute, clown smiley you wanted.
That’s weird. Surgeons in the cosmetic surgery business SHOULD show you before and after pictures of their work. I wouldn’t want someone operating on me without knowing how their work would turn out. The pictures are anonymous; they don’t show the faces. But it seems like you had a safe experience.
I’ve been wanting breast reduction surgery for years. I absolutely hate my breasts. I’m a DD. Contrary to popular belief, naturally large breasts (unlike fake big breasts) are not perky. And I can’t do the exercises I want to do. I can’t run, cause it hurts. My shoulders hurt all the time. I have lots of stretch marks. My boobs are definitely NOT attractive nekkid. I finally, finally found a kind of bra that holds up after a few weeks, and it’s one of those minimizer bras that squishes me, unfortunately.
Anyway, I have an HMO, and they don’t pay for cosmetic surgery, from what I understand. Phooey. You know how long it takes to save for cosmetic surgery? A damn long time. I have tried, but a crisis usually comes up to wipe out my savings.
I know I know WHINE WHINE WHINE.
I’ll stop now 
Lorie
It IS possible to get insurance companies to cover reduction, but you have to prove up one side and down the other that it’s not just cosmetic – my mom is very good at arguing with insurance companies and got them to pay for it for me. Total was about $7000, I think. The part that really pissed me off was having to send pictures to some guy behind a DESK to decide whether I really did need the surgery enough for them to pay for it. (I’m very short, and went from a D to an A. The surgeon was aiming for a B but once the swelling went down har har I ended up as a rather large A.)
Also, the procedure I had didn’t involve actually removing the nipples; they were sort of moved upwards. (It’s pretty icky, from my understanding.) I did lose sensation on the bottom half of my breasts and if anything my nipple sensitivity, at least to pain, went UP. I was told there was a chance of losing them, but it was highly unlikely since they weren’t removing them.
Recovery time, not bad. I went out of town two weeks later. The first week I had no stamina, and I was on Vicodin for a few days. I hated that stuff, but it worked wonders. I’d say I was completely back to myself within a month. But I’ve always been a fast healer, so this may well not apply to you.
Oh, and it was worth all the hassle. It is a major surgery but it’s oh so wonderful. It’s been just over three years now. I do have visible scars but they’ve faded a lot, and anybody who’s going to be seeing them will know beforehand.
Superlorie, as whiterabbit says, you may be able to get your breast reduction paid for. Back pain is a factor, as are gigantic grooves in your shoulders from your bra straps. You should definitely ask your doctor about it.