Nineteen, had this since I was about fourteen. Saw a GP last month who was perfectly nice about it and said it very often settles on its own after puberty and to give it time. Which, fine, except I have already given it five years and nobody will tell me what time actually means here.
Is there a point where wait and see stops being the answer? Because I am at university, I swim, or rather I do not swim any more, and the phrase give it time is starting to feel like a way of ending the appointment rather than a plan.
Also does it matter that it has not changed at all in about three years. It got to how it is by about sixteen and has just sat there since.
The not changed in three years part is the bit I would put in front of whoever you see next. That is different information from it has been there since fourteen.
Agree. Wait and see is aimed at the lad whose chest turned up six months ago at thirteen, not someone whose chest has been static since sixteen. Say the word stable and say how long. Different conversation.
Also worth asking whether anyone has actually felt for gland versus fat on you, because if it is a firm disc that has been unchanged for years then no amount of further waiting is going to dissolve it.
Moderator here, and speaking as someone who spent his twenties doing the waiting rather than the asking, so take that for what it is worth.
The wait and see advice is genuinely well founded and not a brush off. Gynaecomastia that starts in puberty commonly settles on its own as hormones stabilise, and the usual guidance is to hold off surgery while that is still likely and while other causes are being excluded. Our piece on gynaecomastia surgery at what age goes through why waiting is the default rather than the fob off it sounds like.
Where I think your instinct is right is that stability changes the conversation. Adolescent gynaecomastia that is going to resolve tends to do so within a couple of years or so of appearing, and tissue that has been established and unchanged for years is a different proposition, because settled gland does not melt away with more patience. That is not me telling you that you need an operation. It is me saying the thing you want to put in front of a clinician is the timeline, specifically that it appeared around fourteen, was at its current size by sixteen, and has not moved since.
The other thing worth asking is what it actually is on your chest, gland or fat or both, because that decides everything downstream. Our guide to telling gynaecomastia from pseudogynaecomastia explains how surgeons work that out. I am a patient and not a doctor, so what any of this means for you is for someone who can examine you.
Last thing. The not swimming any more line landed with me more than the rest of the post did. That is a real cost and it is allowed to be part of why you keep asking.
The pool thing, yes. Ten years of that here.
One practical note, and I hope this is useful rather than depressing: at nineteen a lot of surgeons will still want to see you a couple of times over a period before doing anything, so getting the conversation started now is not the same as getting an operation now. Starting early just means the clock is running on the right process instead of on you avoiding it.
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.
