Right, I actually went through with it in April after all that agonising, combined job, lipo and the gland cut out. Chest is settling and I am pleased so far. But now I am fixating on the scar, which I know is daft, but after twelve years of hiding the thing I really do not want to swap a soft chest for a visible line I am then self conscious about instead.
Mine went round the bottom edge of the areola, that darker rim, and right now at about seven weeks it is a pinkish line, a bit raised in one spot. So the honest question. Is this what it stays like, or does it actually calm down and fade like the clinic kept promising. And is there anything you lot did that genuinely helped it, or is that all snake oil. I am not expecting invisible, I just want to know the realistic end point.
Mine is three years out now and honestly you have to know it is there to spot it. Same place as yours, the lower rim of the areola, and that join between the darker skin and the normal skin hides it really well once it settles. At seven weeks mine was pink and a touch lumpy too, so where you are sounds completely normal. It is a long game though, it kept fading for the best part of a year.
Not had mine done yet but this is my big fear so watching closely. The thing that scares me is keloid, I scar badly on my shoulder from an old thing, big raised mess. Does that mean I am going to get the same on my chest or is it different skin. Genuinely putting me off booking.
You are asking exactly the right thing and no, it is not all clinic talk, but let me give you the honest version rather than the brochure one.
The standard incision for the gland is periareolar, tucked along the lower edge of the areola where the darker skin meets the normal skin, and that border is what does the hiding. Mine is years past now and it genuinely is one of those things I have to go looking for to find. But it does not arrive looking like that. It goes through an ugly phase first. Pink, firm, sometimes a little raised, exactly where you are at seven weeks, and then it fades and flattens over months, carrying on settling for up to a year. So the pink line you are staring at now is not the finished article, which is the bit nobody quite makes clear in the moment. Our write up on the scars and how they settle walks through the stages and the scar care, and I would not obsess over it before month six.
Two honest caveats. Where a lot of skin has to be removed, in the bigger grade IIb to III chests, the scars are longer than a discreet line round the areola, so the picture depends on what your chest needed. And on the keloid question, that is a fair worry and worth raising: hypertrophic and keloid scarring can happen, more so if you already scar that way, and it is one of the things listed under the risks worth naming. If you know you keloid, that is a conversation to have openly with the surgeon at consultation, because they can plan for it, not a reason to just not turn up. But whether your skin will behave is genuinely something only someone who can look at your existing scars can weigh, not me.
Silicone tape was the one thing that felt like it earned its keep for me. Started it once the wounds had fully closed, kept at it for months. Cannot prove it did anything but my line settled flat and pale and I was chuffed. Ask your surgeon when you are allowed to start it, do not just slap it on early.
This has calmed me right down, thank you. Going to stop inspecting it in the mirror every morning and let it do its thing for a few months. Reassuring to hear from people years out that the pink line is not the ending. Will get some silicone tape and ask at my next follow up when I can start.
