Day one post op, writing this one handed because I am currently attached to a small plastic bottle.
Nobody told me beforehand that I might come home with a drain, and I have got one on the left and nothing on the right, which is the side they took more out of I think. It is not painful exactly, it is just the strangest sensation, a tug when I move and a tube taped to my ribs that I keep catching on the vest.
Questions for anyone who has had one. How long do they normally leave them in. Is it grim when it comes out. And is one side only a sign that something about the left went differently, or is that just how they do it?
Mine was two days both sides. Coming out was a very odd pulling feeling for about three seconds and then nothing, genuinely not painful, more like a weird sensation you brace for and then it is over. Do not build it up.
#3April 24, 2026, 10:02 am Moderator, and yes, I had one too, so I can at least tell you what it is like from this side of it.
On the how long, a small drain is sometimes left for a day or two to stop fluid collecting, and a couple of days is the usual sort of window rather than anything longer. Whether you get one at all, and on how many sides, varies with the surgeon and with how much came out. Ours goes through the practicalities in the gynaecomastia surgery procedure, and the whole shape of the early weeks is in recovery week by week.
One side only is not automatically a bad sign, and your own guess is the sensible one: more tissue out on the left means more raw surface for fluid to gather against, so that is the side someone would put a drain in. Mine was similar and nobody treated it as remarkable.
The bit I would actually say to you at day one is different though. Do not spend today reading the tube as a verdict on how it went. I did exactly that, decided the drain meant my left side had been a problem, and it turned out to mean my left side had had more done to it, which I already knew. Ring the clinic and ask them directly rather than asking us. They will tell you in thirty seconds and it is the sort of question the nurses answer twenty times a week.
And the standing rule from the section: a side that swells tight and hard, heat, redness, a fever, a wound that opens or weeps, or pain that is climbing rather than easing, is a same day call, not a forum post. Everything else is normal healing being uncomfortable.
Practical things nobody tells you. Safety pin the bottle to the inside of the vest so it is not swinging off you, and put a towel down before you sleep. Write down what comes out if they ask you to, they will want the number when you go in.
Showering is the awkward one while it is in. Ask what they want you to do rather than guessing, the answers vary by clinic.
Out this morning at day five, which is longer than most of you had, and no I do not know why, but the nurse was completely relaxed about it and said it was still draining enough to be worth keeping.
Ben was right about the removal, three seconds of very strange and then done. Feel considerably more human without a bottle attached to me. The safety pin tip should honestly be in the discharge leaflet.
This thread stopped getting replies two months back, so it is now closed. Anything about your own chest, an incision that is healing oddly, a lump you can still feel, or a side that has swollen belongs with your surgeon at a proper follow-up, where they can put hands on it rather than guess.
