Scar strips get itchy

I have been somewhat regularly using the silicone scar-strips on the front part of my chest (the part that is the most visible) and so far I think it has evened out some of the higher parts of the scar tissue. However, wear time is supposed to be pretty much, as long as you can stand it. My skin likes to breathe and after about 12-16 hours it itches and makes me want to rip and tear at it. So I take it off. Then it isn't supposed to be put on until your skin is dry and clean so if you are into bathing a lot, this product is for you! I like to give my skin a break from soap occasionally as well so right now I've gone almost a day without the scar strips. Ugh. That defeats the purpose. Oh well, I will pout them back on in an hour or 2. In other news, most of the skin glue has finally fallen off. what I see is just me.

All about scar tissue and how to deal with it

It's a month and 2 days since my top surgery. I am healing really well, but I have some concerns about the condition and extent of the scarring on my chest. There are some obvious things to avoid, like the SUN. I am aware of many Youtube videos where the transguy is relatively healed up and can't wait to take that shirt off and sunbathe. Do not do this unless you think scars are sexy. If you want your scars to be minimally visible, shun the sun! My doctor recommends an entire year out of the sun. I'm afraid of skin cancer so that probably won't be an issue for me. I am excited about wearing my suits and looking good in them :) Another thing I wanted to mention is scar treatment. I am using adhesive silicone strips to cover the scar tissue. What this does is flatten out the scar and relieve pressure from bending and stretching the scar tissue. Check out the pic from today below. As you can see, I have applied the scar strips to the front scars because I am most concerned with how they look. I haven't applied the strips anywhere else as I am almost certain to have revisions under my arms due to loose skin from weight loss.

4.5 weeks since my top surgery

OK, this post is mostly to upload a picture since I got my stitches out and apparently nothing is going to fall off. The surgeon gave my right nipple 2 thumbs up as far as being ahead of the curve on healing, and a C grade for my left nipple. Since my top surgery I no longer see myself as awesome so every time I look at a picture I think "OMG you are sooo fat", but I know I am in a lot better shape than I was a couple months ago!


Picture from 5/10/17

Warning, if closeups of stitches being removed makes you queasy, do not watch. Stitch removal on my nipple grafts including close-ups of the nipple grafts are available in a video here:

https://youtu.be/_TQVoiv-6WY

4 weeks since top surgery

There are a lot of things that I read about, but couldn't know about since it has to be experienced. One of those things is "dog-ears". In my case, I was quite a bit over weight and lost 20 lbs right before surgery and I continue to lose weight. The incisions under my arms, (in my lower arm pits), are now the only part of my body that actually jiggles if I jump up and down. I don't like this, it is not a good thing. There is a bunch of loose flesh there and immediately after surgery it was mostly numb. After a couple weeks the nerves woke up and it was just painful..all of the time. It hurt when I raised my arms, it hurt when I lowered my arms. It hurt when I was laying down, it hurt when I was standing up. It was maddening because there was no position that I could be in that would make that low level pain go away. As a sleep aid I took CBD/THC pills rather than than the opioids that I was prescribed. An addiction to pain meds is not something that I wanted to deal with on top of having to wear a really uncomfortable compression vest and nagging pain and itching, healing flesh.

I want to mention the compression vest. It was cleverly designed to be able to hook the drain reservoirs to, but it was so tight that it bruised me in areas that I didn't already have bruising from the surgery. Yes, bruising is a result of the surgery. I imagine that when the skin is pulled together it has already been roughed up when it is moved from its original position to a new one. The reasoning for the compression is to keep the skin and nipples in close contact with the blood vessels so they will grow into the grafts, and the skin that was moved is almost like a graft. The nipples take about 3 weeks to be out of danger of being easily "sheared" off by normal activities like putting on a shirt or washing. I am past that milestone and I am very happy to report that my nipples stayed where they were sewn. My wife was their guardian, making sure that I didn't brush them off, scratch them, or do any damage to them accidentally.

My pain levels are at about 0-1 unless I stretch something that hasn't healed up quite yet. The places where the drain tubes went into my chest seem to be pretty deep and are healing inside slower than the outside. My biggest irritation is the tightness I feel in the areas of the incisions. My upper chest is very tight and if I try to stretch it feels like something might split. I don't know if that is actually true but I don't want to find out. I stretch until it feels uncomfortable, then I stop. I had thought originally that there would be a little slack because I was losing weight but the surgeon cut all of the excess skin off. It's strange, (more like ridiculous), because my chest is muscular from the 5 weeks of upper body building I did before surgery, but I have a big belly below it. Sigh..eventually I can lift weight again. In the meantime I go for walks, but I get tired easily. Healing takes a lot of energy.