On February 5, 2020, almost exactly nine years after I got a breast augmentation, I had Symmastia Repair Surgery.

I want to give a huge thank you so much to all of you who have supported me as I’ve gone through this symmastia repair recovery. It’s been quite the journey! I’m excited to finally share how it’s gone, after these long five 1/2 months (I’m writing this on July 14, 2020).

I wrote all about my experience getting symmastia and the massive chronic pain it caused me in this blog post. I strongly suggest reading that post first! It will give you all the context about what symmastia is and why I chose to have repair surgery this year.

I was a tad nervous sharing this very intimate part of my life, but I’ve done it in the hope of helping other people who have symmastia. There is so little information online, and very few people willing to talk openly about their boob jobs. So here I am!

So here’s my Part 2: the Aftermath. (Read Part 1 here.)

GREAT news: My symmastia repair surgery was a success!

Like, holy F you guys. It worked!

I am honestly super relieved. I put every ounce of my energetic and emotional energy into staying positive going into this surgery—I was determined to manifest the best possible outcome. But nothing was guaranteed to work. Symmastia repair is one of the most challenging breast surgeries done.

But you can see for yourself the new separation between my breasts in this pic here. (soooo different when you compare to my Before photos!)

It’s amazing. I constantly run my finger down my sternum, down that beautiful flat strip of chest that’s now back between my boobs. During my recovery, I constantly—and I mean constantly—looked down to check to make sure the breasts were still separated, that that space was still there.

I would be lying if I told you I didn’t dip back down into fear during my recovery. I still do sometimes—I still don’t feel completely safe that I won’t rip the tissue back up off the bone and ruin everything. It didn’t help that I had to sit with my fear, literally—I couldn’t turn to working out as a stress-relief outlet like I usually do. And that was a huge mental and emotional challenge.

But that worry is letting up with time. That’s actually why I’ve waited so long to write this follow-up; it felt too soon to call it a success before. The recovery has been incredibly challenging and painful, as I’ll get into more below, but I can finally see the end of my journey ahead.

I’m definitely glad I had this symmastia repair surgery, especially when I did.

Here are the details of my repair:

I first want to note that in this post I am sharing my experience. My experience may not be your experience—everyone’s body is different. Every surgery will be different. I’m not a doctor, just offering this information as a resource as you do your own research. You should always trust yourself and your intuition and do what’s right for you.

  • As I wrote in my previous post, after interviewing many plastic surgeons around Southern California, I chose to have my symmastia repair done by Dr. Daniel Barrett in Los Angeles. I was really happy with him and my experience with his office. And he clearly did a great job!
  • In my 2011 breast augmentation, I got silicone implants, under the muscle. I chose this again (with new implants, of course).
  • I went with smaller implants: from 300 cc R and 275 cc L down to 250 cc R and 200 cc L. The new size fits my body much better.
  • My scars from my first surgery are under the breasts, so this is the entry Dr. Barrett used as well. My scars look way better now than they did before too, which is a bonus!
  • The cost was *drumroll please* a whopping ~$20,000. No, none of it was covered by insurance. Was it worth every penny? You bet.
  • From what I understand Dr. Barrett repaired the damaged pocket by sewing back down my tissue from inside.
  • I did not use strattice, which I explained in my previous post about symmastia.

My surgery also revealed a special surprise: my right breast implant was ruptured.

That actually did change how I felt coming out of surgery. I want to be 1000% transparent with you guys, so to be honest I do now feel like an explant would have given my body the best chance to recover from so much damage. It’s really rare to get a ruptured implant. It’s even more rare to get symmastia. Somehow I ended up with both.

But I’m also working to accept what is and thrive under the path I’ve chosen.

I actually had the intuition that the implant was ruptured—I brought it up to my primary care doctors many times over the years that maybe that’s why I felt so sick. I had an ultrasound done which did not detect the rupture—because it was on the underside of the implant, out of reach. An MRI would have found it, but that wasn’t covered by my insurance because I have implants, and is hundreds of dollars out of pocket. (An example of the many, many issues with American healthcare…)

It can be really scary to look up ruptured implants online. People love to scream about how badly one will damage your health, and that’s one of the reasons I fell down into fear post-surgery.

But I have to turn back to what I believe: our bodies know how to heal. They’re used to fighting injuries and invaders all the time. I’m an otherwise healthy, plant-based vegan and yogi passionate about wellness, so I know I’m setting my body up for success. Stick with me, follow the health practices I share right here on my blog, and you’ll be ok, kid.

It is always possible to recover, and I trust my body to bounce back from whatever detoxing it’s going to continue to have to do. Just like I did before surgery, I keep turning to Dr. Joe Dispenza’s book You Are The Placebo as a guide, which I highly recommend.

Because the road to recovery (for me) hasn’t been a quick or easy one.

The major challenge of the recovery was that I could not move my arms for about two months.

TWO. MONTHS.

8 weeks. I’m not exaggerating.

And when I say I couldn’t move my arms, I mean I could not move my freaking arms. Not if I wanted to. And even the small movements I could do hurt a lot.

At 6 weeks I could bend my elbows and do very basic things like opening a fridge (but very carefully). From there it’s been a very, very slow journey back to functionality. At 3 months I could lift my arms, but not a lot—under shoulder-height, and not at all out to the sides. At 4 months I could lift my arms to slightly above shoulder-height. I finally broke through a plateau around that point, the beginning of June for me. I’m making much bigger strides now, and can nearly lift my arms overhead, as well as out to the side. But not without difficulty.

I was not expecting all this going into surgery. Once the initial eight weeks of healing had passed, I had fully planned on returning to teaching yoga full-time, which I now realize was completely unrealistic.

My recovery timeline was pretty typical of symmastia repairs.

This symmastia patient post-op document is publicly available online from one of the doctors I interviewed (Dr. Pousti in San Diego), and while I didn’t choose him as my surgeon, these general guidelines are helpful if you want an idea of what you can expect. It matches up to what I experienced, with most of the recovery being in those first four months.

You may heal a lot quicker than me! I hope so. But please make sure you have help. I’m so thankful to my ex Matt who came down to care for me for most of that time (we are still close friends), as well as my mother. I also had a lot of friends coming by to feed me dinner or walk my dogs. Peach and Corgi (the corgi) are currently staying with Matt in Seattle, and I miss their healing snuggles. That was definitely a theme during my recovery.

Matt was able to take off work for all those weeks, which enabled him to stay home with me all day, every day. I honestly don’t know what I would have done otherwise; I initially needed to be spoon-fed, and needed help with basic movements like getting in and out of bed/chairs and showering. Those first two weeks are especially limiting, so please protect yourself and get help. You don’t want to cause any further pain or damage with such a delicate repair. Not moving your arms will ensure your body has enough time to heal and secure the muscle and tissue in place.

I’m still not physically able to do a plank or downward dog—so it’s looking like 6 months is the actual amount of time it’ll take me to fully recover. That said, any surgery can take a full year or more to fully resolve.

I am so grateful that mine has gone well, because I have heard now of many symmastia repairs that have been unsuccessful.

If there’s any downside from hearing from all of you (which I love! keep the DMs coming!), it was that I heard a lot of worst-case stories leading up to my surgery that really scared me. I even got an Instagram comment from some random doctor about a month into my recovery who warned that repair recovery “usually starts out ok.” That was it. Talk about ominous and not helpful and also WHO asked you, good sir?

But thankfully I stayed the course, despite plenty of voices, including my parents’, who thought it was a bad idea/told me to wait/doubted that it would work. And my inner light led me down the right path, as it always does.

Honestly, I was also really lucky that COVID-19 hit when it did, too. Even though it’s been an absolute tragedy and has caused so much suffering, the timing of it was perfect for me. The closures began during my sixth week of recovery—shutting down my places of work and leaving me unemployed. While THAT sucks, this time has allowed me to recover much, much better than I would have otherwise. Instead of working, I was able to peacefully rest and recover at home for all these months. The timing of my surgery was a huge gift and I realize that basically never happens.

I also consider myself blessed to have been in physical therapy during my entire recovery, because I was in it before to treat the pain the symmastia was causing, so it’s covered by my insurance. My PT has been key in helping me get my arm mobility back slowly while re-training my muscles to work properly, now that my pec muscle is reattached. She’s helped me heal mindfully, and I feel better being under her watchful eye. I have sessions twice a week (we meet virtually now) and I don’t know what I would have done without her.

Speaking of which, let’s get into what seems to work (and what doesn’t!) with symmastia repair recovery.

A few things seem to be extremely important to have a successful surgery.

Let’s talk about them. If you’re considering symmastia repair surgery, consider these essential.

  • You must have at least those first two months to rest. Do not move your arms more than necessary! As my surgeon put it, the surgery is only part of the success of this recovery. A lot of it relies on you and what you do after. Make the commitment to tune into your body and do what it needs—this isn’t something you want to push.
  • Skip the strattice, if you can. Like I mentioned in my previous post about symmastia, this is a form of mesh that was previously thought to help aid symmastia repair. Now, it’s been shown to frequently not help and add more complications. Older surgeons still push for it, from what I’ve gathered. But I did mine without it and it worked perfectly!
  • The Thongbra. That’s literally what it’s called lol. And you must wear it, for as long as necessary (unless your surgeon tells you otherwise). This special bra presses down the space between your breasts. That compression is what enforces your tissues while they heal down, so it’s super important. Your surgeon should supply this bra for you; mine was put on me before I left the operating room, and didn’t come off for about four weeks (except to shower), if I’m remembering correctly. My surgeon checked and told me when it was safe to stop wearing it, so refer to your doctor’s guidelines. I won’t lie, mine gave me a bad rash and itched so bad. I hated it. It was a real good day when I got to throw that away. (Psst: I’m wearing it in a photo here!)
  • Recover with a physical therapist or personal trainer if accessible. Because this surgery often involves the reattachment of your chest muscles, your body will need to relearn some movement patterns. And even if you’re into fitness, it’s a really good idea to recover with the help of a functional expert. I’m thinking of putting together a guide of exercises to do to help recover from breast surgery—let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in!
  • Getting in the water. This is a little random, but this helped me SO MUCH. My apartment’s pool was shut down because of COVID-19 for months, but two weeks before I moved out, they reopened it on a reservation basis. Up until this point I could still only barely lift my arms to about shoulder-height. But the support of the water allowed me to get a much better range of motion, and has helped me get my arm mobility back quicker. My PT keeps telling me to get in as much as possible! It’s challenging to have access to a pool, but if you can find one, I’m telling you, it feels so, so good on your shoulders and back. I’ve been using this awesome website Swimply (this link gets you $5 off!), where you can reserve people’s pools by the hour. It’s like AirBnB for pools, which has been so helpful while most pools are shut down!

Here are other important tools I used that had notable success in aiding my recovery—use as many of these as you can:

  • Wedge pillow. This is KEY. You need to be elevated when you sleep, especially in that first week of recovery, and a good wedge pillow is critical for comfort and support.
  • Turmeric. Fresh is always best, but it’s also awesome in spice form. I also take this pill supplement every day.
  • Bone Broth/Collagen. Breast tissue is made of collagen, so it’s really helpful during a breast surgery in particular to add this into your diet. I’m typically vegan; however, to give my body the best chance possible of success, I did have bone broth, very carefully chosen from Belcampo, an organic farm that raises its animals with love. (There is sadly not yet a vegan form of collagen.) I’m back to vegan, no animal products now. After the first couple months the broth stopped tasting good; I could tell my body no longer needed it. You can also take a collagen supplement, but bone broth is the pure form and is more readily absorbed by the body.
  • This heating pad. My upper back and neck felt SO sore from being stiff and immobile for too long, so I bought this baby and it changed the game. My only regret is not getting it sooner.
  • Straws. I couldn’t lift a cup up to my mouth for a long time, so straws were critical to my hydration. My favorites became these long, wide-mouthed reusable silicone ones.
  • CBD. Learn more about it here!
  • Also weed in general helped me relax! I’m a medical user in CA, where it’s legal. If it’s accessible to you, opt for Indica edibles to help you chill. It’s like a natural muscle relaxer.
  • Scar gel. My surgeon recommended this one from Skinuva to help my scars heal. You have to wait until your surgeon tells you it’s okay to apply, but this will help your scars heal better!
  • Epsom salt baths. Once you’re cleared to start taking baths, epsom salts help so much to bring down swelling and aid recovery. Plus it feels amazing. (I am very picky and always get the kind without any fragrance, because they add a ton of nasty chemicals you don’t need to bathe in.)
  • Posture corrector. Don’t use this until you’re after the four month/initial healing stage, but once you can stand up straight this will help you re-train your body to have correct posture.
  • A final shout out to button-down shirts and sweatpants, because I wasn’t able to dress myself in anything else for months.

Who’s ready for some goodies? Dr. Barrett filmed videos recapping my surgery!

**Warning: surgery talk + NSFW partial nudity ahead**

If you really, really want to know more about my surgery, watch these awesome videos from Dr. Barrett’s Instagram.

I wasn’t sure whether or not to share this since my boobs are just …out there… but I figure at this point we’re all close enough to get down to real nitty-gritty of the whole thing. If you want to know what a ruptured implant looks like and some details about what exactly my surgeon did, enjoy these videos:

 

I do still have a ways to go, but I’m so happy I can tell you that it’s possible to have a successful symmastia repair!

My surgery really went as well as one could hope, and it’s an exciting turning point for me.

A big part of why I had this surgery was to help heal the pain I’ve been in for almost a decade. And it’s helped a lot; but it hasn’t been a magic wand. I have to re-train my body, and heal from years of muscle compensation and tension. Plus the ruptured implant.

But it’s like a fog has lifted from my mind. I used to have a daily throbbing headache that would snake up my neck, and that’s gone. I’m already in much less pain.

So while I still have work to do, it’s incredible to look back and see how far I’ve come. I’m proud of my body and proud of myself for taking care of Me as much as possible through this whole process.

That’s the real medicine: loving and nurturing yourself, through it all.

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Do you have Symmastia? Have you had it repaired? Share your experience in the Comments below!

xo,

Amy

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