Gynecomastia Surgery: Realistic Expectations
The whole point of gynecomastia surgery is removing some excess skin, fat and breast tissue to look better with a more trim, taunt, masculine chest. Note, I didn’t say perfect.
My patients want to look better for the following reasons:
- Weight lifters want perfection
- Teens want to look like other teens
- 20 and 30-sometings want to look good shirtless
- 40 and 50-somethings want to look good in T-shirts
Plastic surgery has a concept known as realistic expectations. If you are 60-ish, a cosmetic plastic surgeon can perhaps make you look 45-ish. But 20? No way. That boat has sailed!
All procedures have various levels of what can actually be done, given the material presented to the surgeon. Just as sculptor is limited by the material in which he works (you can do certain things with stone that you can’t do with wood) so too a plastic surgeon is limited in what he can do with the body and tissues of a patient.
Because an experienced surgeon has molded human flesh many times over – and has seen the changes healing can make – he or she has an excellent concept what can realistically be accomplished from surgery.
That same experience also gives a surgeon of many years experience an equally good idea when the odds are stacked against you or, worse, when defeat may be about to be pulled from the jaws of victory.
Body builders are indeed a hardly lot who put in countless hours of grueling, exhausting training while living on a healthy but scant diet most people could not tolerate a couple of days.
Their yard stick is the mirror; they are judged on the degree of perfection shown in their bodies. Is it any wonder they often expect perfection?
Often, after gynecomastia surgery, weight lifters complain they can feel “something” under a nipple and demand a revision procedure. But I have to point out that 99 percent of onlookers don’t feel your chest – they look at it. (In fact, most admire it greatly after the surgical fix!)
Then, I usually point out a 98 percent improvement is nonetheless very, very good. And, given all the elements involved, striving for a perfect improvement may actually drop the results down to 90 percent.
There is always an element of unpredicibility in surgery; infections are possible although I haven’t had one for years. (Knock on wood!)
I can also thank my operating room for that. (Read more about the exacting standards to which my gynecomastia surgery O.R. is held.)
A major part of finding a good advice about realistic expectations for male breast reduction surgery is finding a fully qualified surgeon.
A couple of tips:
- Make sure his or her board certification is from the American Board of Plastic Surgery
- Check for many before and after plastic surgery pictures