Bit of an odd one to admit worrying about but it is bugging me. I am about five weeks out from a combined op and the left nipple is basically numb, I can touch it and it feels like touching through a glove. The right one is the opposite, weirdly, it is so sensitive that the vest seam catching it makes me wince. So one dead, one over alive, which does not seem to make sense.
What I actually want to know is whether this is temporary and it comes back, or whether some nerve got cut and this is just how it is now. Nobody mentioned numbness to me before the op, or if they did I was not listening because I was fixated on the swelling. Anyone come out the other side of this?
Been exactly there. My numb side came back gradually, it was properly numb for the first month or so, then patchy, then pretty much normal by around the three month mark. The oversensitive one settled too, that was actually the more annoying of the two at the time. It is nerves that got roughed up, not necessarily cut. Give it time before you write it off.
Standard mate. The little nerves to the nipple get stretched and bruised when they work in there, and they sulk for a while. Numb, tingly, hypersensitive, all of it is the same thing healing. Mine took a few months. Do not go poking it every hour testing it, that just winds you up.
Direct answer first: altered nipple sensation after this operation is common and, in the large majority, temporary. Numbness in one nipple and hypersensitivity in the other, as you describe, is a completely typical early picture and not a sign that anything has gone wrong.
Here is what is actually happening. Working around and behind the nipple to remove the gland and the fat inevitably stretches and bruises the small sensory nerves that supply the nipple and the chest skin. Bruised nerves conduct oddly while they recover, which is why you get the full range: patches of numbness, tingling, and areas that are briefly too sensitive to touch. This usually recovers over weeks to months, often the better part of three to six months, and it tends to come back unevenly between the two sides and even across one nipple, so a numb patch and a touchy patch on the same chest is normal rather than contradictory. Permanent change in sensation is uncommon. It is one of the recognised outcomes rather than a complication as such, and you will find it set out honestly in our piece on sensation changes after surgery, alongside where it sits among the other risks.
What I would flag, and this is where it stops being reassurance and becomes see your surgeon, is anything that is not just altered sensation: a nipple going dusky, white or darkening in colour, pain that is climbing rather than easing, or a side that swells tight and hard. That is a same day call. Numbness on its own, at five weeks, is not. But whether your particular pattern is settling as it should is a question for the surgeon following you up, who can actually examine it, not something to grade from a post.
Reassuring to read this because the hypersensitive stage caught me out too, I could not have the shower spray hit it directly for weeks, it was almost ticklish and painful at once. That faded though. Now months on it is just normal, feeling is basically back. The numb bit was the last to sort itself but it did get there.
Massively reassured, cheers all. Makes sense that it is bruised nerves and not cut ones, and knowing both the numb and the oversensitive thing are the same process settling has stopped me catastrophising. Going to leave it alone, stop testing it every five minutes, and raise it at my follow up rather than assume the worst. Appreciate everyone.
