All About Gummies

Thanx Sweeiie  for all the great advice.  I am going to check out those sites now.

Wow! I too remember that itching!  I had forgotten about that- it DOES go away!:) 

One thing i think i should mention about the gummies is their tendancy to take on the ambient temperature of the room/or enviroment.  On the skating pond - they get very cold, in air conditioning - they feel unusually cold compared to my other body parts, and in the hot tub- they heat up and get REALLY soft and pliable (a good time to massage).  I find they hold the 'outside' temp for about an hour.  Guess thats the cohesive gel?  Makes sense - same as a hot/cold pack.

My breasts(gummies) are firm - but now, 7 months post exchange, I'm starting to realize the 'firmness' I feel is tight pec muscles and now tightened Scalenus muscles that run up in my collar bone area towards my neck.  The gummies themselves are soft.  The process of having breasts covered with muscle fibre is.... fiborous. 

The gummies themselves are soft and lovely.  B/C Reconstructed  breasts are not jiggly, bouncy, fluid/wavy breasts.   But, neither are largely augmented ones. Nor are  some 'natural' ones, like  some small ones, nor some dense ones.  

Gummies are very realistic.  How your body responds to your surgery/PS's technique/and scar scaffolding will determine YOUR results.  Thats why we are all different in our description of weither we find them "tolerable" or not.

My gummies look like 'push up bra' breasts when in wearing my loose pajama tank tops - lol - a little overly sexy (especially with projected reconstructed nipples), on a hot morning eating cheerios, ya kno??? But,hey! Its better than the small saggy ones I used to have (from breast feeding four kids), lol. Neither set were perfect in EVERY way - so, I'M VERY HAPPY WITH MY GUMMIES!

Hi Lilah- 

I'm glad you said that.... altho i just did a big EDIT on the last two paragraphs.... sometimes I get a bit lengthy, so i shortened it some.

You love your gummies????

geneskirt-Love it! you are hysterical! Honestly thank you so much for your lengthy in detail post, it is huge help to those of us under gummy contemplation! Don't you realize when we are seeking answers to questions we literally hang on every word someone posts that can help us, so please be lengthy in your detail! I am putting all those words in my memory bank because although someone else's experience or opinion cannot make your decision for you, it always helps with perspective and brings you closer to making your own! so thanks girl!

Lilah Doll;  Thats a GREAT comparison.  I forgot you are sporting one 'gummy' and one reduced! Perfect!!!! Talk about comparing 'apples to apples', or 'oranges', or gummy(ies), lol

Sweetie ; I did forget what its like to be searching and in process.  You are SO right !!!!!  Every word counts and we extract what feels right, and make it our own.  Is it hard to believe that this time next year this will all be behind you and replaced with confidence, happiness, and wholeness? 

It is an astounding journey..... a difficult one...... and one that forces us to search, grow and change. Soon.... you will LOVE the changes you have perservered through!  Your hard work will become your joy very soon!

xo

Aw Sweetie -- thanks for your kind words.  I am pretty happy with my results so far! 

I have to say two things: (1) I don't know if there is something your PS knows about your body that I don't know, but it seems to me a lot of women on this site have had wide apart TEs that their doctors were able to move closer together... so that doesn't make a lot of sense to me (2) so far I'm not able to wear bras that push me (up or in any direction) on my gummy side... though I did ask my PS about that and she seemed to think I could eventually; to be honest my gummy doesn't really move much and I don't see how it would ever push up!  If what you WANT is a breast that moves... you might be happier with a regular silicone implant.  I honestly don't know what is better... I guess I'm just worried that you keep posting about this and it's the same question.  My implant does not move at all.  When I lie on my back, my natural breast moves a little and the implant points straight up. 

Lliah, thanks for the advice I'm sorry if I keep repeating the same questions. Your right. I think I am over analyzing this and I should just let it sink in and let my heart tell me what to do at some point. You have been a great help to me though and I appreciate what you have shared. I like knowing what to except, at least then I know I have made an informed choice.

M-star hmmm I am definitely asking him again to move them closer and I will mention about the stitches on the side. You and I have a very similar frame from what I see in your pic. Don't worry about the size. Like I said I'm only filled to 300cc's and on my frame they look huge! I think your final result is going match your frame nicely and still be what you want. I wish I could put my pics on the forum but with TimTam shutting it down soon there's no point. I could email to them if you want.

Hi all!  FYI TimTam has reconsidered shutting the picture forum and so at least right now people are working on figuring out how to keep it open.  At least that's as of 2 days ago. 

m-star I think the capsular contraction and rejection etc are so difficult to predict and probably not worth worrying about in advance too much.  Infections, on the other hand, are something that is preventable so do take all appropriate precautions and make sure all nurses and docs do too, leading up to and after your xchg surgery.

Regarding the gap between the TEs, that's partially determined by how your muscles attach to your breast bone and everyone's anatomy is different.  I don't have hard data on it but it seems that its pretty frequent that PSs err a bit on leaving the TEs too far apart rather than placing them too close together.  My impression is that its very hard to fix the problem of the TEs or implant being too close togheter but much easier to fix them being too far apart by opening up a bit more of the pocket near the breast bone when placing the implants after removing TEs.  But again, even that is limited by how your muscle is attached there.  If they detach too much, then the implants can move too central and you end up with uniboob...definitely not good!

I will second Lilah about how the gummy moves and/or can be shaped by a bra - essentially it doesn't and isn't.  Like her I'm a uni, although I didn't do any surg on my healthy breast.  While the healthy breast stretches and flattens when I raise my arms or lay down on the bed, the implant kindly behaves itself and stays right in place, perky as always. (I don't know how different this is for regular silicone implants...I've been meaning to ask some other gals.) The bras I have are not push up bras per se so I guess I can't say for sure that it can't be pushed up a bit to increase cleavage or upper pole fullness, but if I push with my hand like a bra would have to, I have to push quite hard to make the implant sort of squish out more at the top compared to just gently on my healthy breast for same effect.  Given all this, I think the bottom line is that with the 410 gummies you need to get the projection you want from your implant size/projection, and not expect a bra to do much of the work.  But don't take that to mean you can't get good projection and cleavage - Lilah's pictures are a case in point.  You just need the right size/projection implant for you. 

Hello ladies, I'm a gummie girl, well, eventually anyway.  I had my TE's placed on June 23rd and have had one fill.  I am at 220 on one side and 180 on the other side, so I have a ways to go yet.  One expander has more because they filled more during surgery and my old mastectomy side wouldn't take as much as the skin sparing prophy mastectomy side.   I didn't really explore other options for implants, my plastic surgeon is very experienced and has been doing gummies for 10 years (I'm in Canada) with great success and he said that's what he would recommend for me.  He said he thinks I would be happier with the look of the gummies.   Although I'm just at the beginning of this, I am so happy to have a small mound on my left side, it's been over a year and a half since my IDC diagnosis and first mastectomy.  I really don't think I could have looked in the mirror and saw that much longer. 

I am recovering very well, no pain at all except for one very small area under my right expander.  It's killing me!  My plastic surgeon says not infection as there is no signs of that at all, he thinks it's that the expander is on a nerve and told me to massage the area.  Alternatively, he said it could be expander rubbing on rib.  The pain is not there when I lay down and when I push on the area, there is no pain, but when I walk around it gets very painful.  Has anyone had this?  I think I'll post this topic as a new thread and see if I get any takers.......

M-star well you a little taller as I am 5'7" 130, but it sorta evens out. I saw your pics and your TE looks so much like mine right now. PM your email address and I'll mail them to you. I read and heard several time that gummy's are less likely to cause capsular contraction. That is one of the benefits of them and the fact they won't leak.

cs777-thank you for your comments. Good insight about the gap. I am going to ask my Dr. It was just strange how he said he can use a wider implant but didn't really say anything about revising the pocket or actually moving them. I wonder if it has to do with my muscles as you have said. At least now I know what to ask him. From what I have read and heard regular round silcone not gummy's do move more. The Dr. told me they flatten out when you lay down and they can be pushed up in a bra. That is nice when your wearing a bra, but he said the gummy's look better when you nude.

Lilah- your my sweetheart! Your so patient with my redundant questions and you never get mad at me! thank you!! I think I will try putting my pics up there. I hope I can figure out how to resize them because I'm not a computer whiz with stuff like that, I'll let you know if I can figure it out.

JillyG-welcome! glad you joined our "rock'n" forum!  I am glad you are doing well. About that  pain near your TE I had the same thing. I got this weird cramping type pain. It was so bad I had to take 2 pain meds. I agree I think it is sitting right on a nerve because I had that TE removed because my wound wouln't close and when he put the new one in the pain was gone. I assume because it is no longer sitting on that nerve. My Dr. gave me Nerontin for the pain and it helped along with Vicodin but I eventually weaned off it.

After the tightness of the TE, the gummy side does feel "jiggly" to me.  Sometimes I would prefer it not to be so jiggly though since I think the nerves and everything are still healing in there.

Kitwe, I had my first fill last week and I found it very easy.  Not painful, I was pleasantly surprised just how easy that was.  I can't wait for my next fill.

Liz, I just noticed our stats are the same and we were diagnosed a month apart.   Thank you for starting this thread, it's very helpful.  I've heard others mention fat grafting.  What does the fat grafting do?  They take fat from somewhere else and then inject into the skin around the implant?  Will it help the ripples?

Mantra - Oh, no. I would have been embarrassed as well, but it does give you a funny story to share. I had a giggle over it.I have bumped into some random stuff, just takes some getting used to I guess. Of course, I'm not used to it and who knows if I ever will be.