TEs. A Beginner's Primer

Imoore4, my right TE was under my armpit and painful for 2 weeks after surgery. My first fill relieved some of the pressure and my 2nd fill even more. I can't wait for next Tuesday and my 3rd fill. I do push my TEs together with my upperarms, my PS told me too. Also he told me to move it with my hands, gently pushing with my hands. I have gotten hours of relief doing this. Hope this helps.

Thanks everyone for the welcome and warm wishes for my surgery last Friday. Everything went well (I was told).…PS filled with 60cc's, so I've got a little something! It sure doesn't seem like much after reading about some of your fills. Now I wish I would've asked why I got so little! I saw the PS in his office yesterday, but he didn't fill then…I have to wait two more weeks.

Have any of y'all had extreme swelling after surgery? I can't find posts with anyone complaining about this! Before I left the hospital, I could tell my arms were swollen especially in the elbows. The nurses were not concerned. Now I have it in my stomach/waist area! Where my panty elastic goes around my waist I have a DEEP indention as if my underwear was 3 sizes too small! I am so worried this is a sign of lymphedema. My breast surgeon did a SNB (negative) in January and she said she would not be taking anymore lymph nodes. But when I saw her in the hospital after surgery, I was too out of it to ask about that. --Lorie

Hello, Ladies - As I read this thread I remember so well being exactly where you are about 22 months ago. A few things about TEs:

1. They generally fill W I D E before they fill out, for some weird reason and your armpits will literally seem to disappear. (Moon used to talk about running into door jambs because hers were so wide. And I walked like John Wayne toward the end...)
2. Low and slow is the mantra for fills. This isn't a race, and you'll be much more uncomfortable if the fills are too frequent or too large. If it hurts; tell your PS you want to go slower, or that you want smaller fills. This is no time to be a hero. This is a painful process, but also a means to an end and a 'necessary evil'. As a general rule, many of us got 50ccs every other week for the duration.
3. The tenderness that some of you are experiencing is nerve pain. You become hypersensitive to any kind of material touching or covering 'the girls' for a while and then one day you realize that it's gone away completely. I suffered with it for about six weeks and then one morning I woke up and it was just gone!
4. You'll find that the more fills you get, the less painful they become (usually). BUT if you're in a lot of pain, saline can also be REMOVED from the TEs if the fill process is going faster than your skin is expanding.
5. It takes about a week for every hour you were under anesthesia, for the effects to leave your body completely . The more water you drink, the faster you'll rid yourself of the effects of anesthesia.

I hope you all have a relatively easy time of the TE experience, because it really does get better, and it will be worth it in the end! One day at a time, one foot in front of the other. You got this!

hummingbird, my PS advised me against hot tubs, mostly due to possibility of infection due to high heat/ long soak times. Hot showers and a swim in a cool pool are fine.

I feel that cold water thing when I'm drinking, too!! Crazy. I've stopped using ice because it's so weird.

Welcome, websister!!

Lorie, I'm so glad that your surgery went well, but that swelling sounds awful! I didn't have any, but hope that you get some answers and some relief soon.

AZ, great advice! Thank you. I know that my TEs look more like hot dogs than hamburgers. It's weird. I'm assuming it will all work out in the end. . . .

Lorie, I'm the same way. My BS said at exchange everything would even out. I'm hoping he's right. I lived my whole life with the left being way bigger than the right.

My right side, the smaller side, is way more painful than the left side. I'm thinking there is more skin on the left as it was bigger.

I'm just hoping I have a really good outcome. This whole mess has been so upsetting. It's been the worst 6 months of my life. I'm hoping new symmetrical Foobs will make it all worth it.

LOL...perky. The other day I asked my PS what he thought of Caitlyn Jenner's implants. He said "they're too high"! I told him they were perfect, I want mine like that. So now I'm bringing Vanity Fair into the operating room.

Just kidding, of course. I want more cleavage than Caitlyn. He already told me there will be a fingers width between them. I can't wait for August.

My NSBMX is scheduled for this coming Thursday (6/11) and I had my last appointment with the plastic surgeon this morning. We had discussed doing direct to implant but since the Natrelle Inspira won't be available until end of June/beginning of August, the decreased complication rate and the ability to "tweak" things at the exchange it was decided to go with TEs instead. She said she usually fills 300 at the time of surgery and goes to 700 for someone of my size (natural size is 38D) but she may go a little bit bigger initially based on how much skin is leftover after the BS is done. She said that with the Inspira's I'll have cleavage 24/7, they'd look like an augmentation and be perky. I told her that, at age 51, I'm okay with that. I don't have horrible sag/ptosis at the moment but this will be a nice change. I've always been more bottom pole heavy so it will even things out but I told her I don't want them in my chin. She laughed, love her. LOL

I'm not really afraid of the pain, I can handle pain (would only take half of a low dose Percocet maybe once a day after my excision biopsy/lumpectomy) but the PS and BS keep talking about the possibility of me losing my nipples. I've grown rather fond of them. They say they're going to use some sort of sensor that can tell how well the blood flow is and hopefully keep them, but with them saying that well it's a possibility over and over again I'm nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.

Lorie -- I look a lot different right now than I did in the week or so after my BMX (I'm 3 weeks out now). I didn't know what to expect, but I wasn't thrilled when I first saw myself. I wasn't upset because I was uneducated on what I would see, but I wasn't thrilled. My left side, which has always been my bigger side, looked a lot bigger than the right -- I thought that he'd filled one side a lot more than the other. And they were big in different places with a crease in my left side. Turns out my left side was more swollen and that went down. My right side filled out more at the bottom, and my left side filled out more at the top, but they look pretty symmetrical now once you take into account that I'm only about 1/3 filled and they've filled in slightly different places so far. I feel like they look pretty good now, considering. . . . I get my first fill on June 19 -- just two days after you.

hello ladies!! I'm new to this thread. I'm so glad I found it. I had my double mastectomy in March. I see a lot of ladies hadfills at the time of surgery. I didn't get any at the time. I've been doing 50 cc at a time. My goal is 500cc. I have to say like everyone else these TE are so uncomfortable, the first couple of fills were painful. Now these the last couple have been painful now. My PS is saying all the skin is stretching. It is hard to sleep with them, I sleep on my side. I wake up with it hurting at times. Thank goodness for the medicine. I always take take a pain med and Valium when I leave the office. I'm at 450cc, one more to go. I'm going to skip a week. I love that I don't have to wear a bra, I will wear a sports bra if I go to a appt. I can't get the exchange til I finish chemo. I'm also having reconstructed nipples done. Has anybody had this done?

Halee, isn't that a kick in the but??? I spent my whole life hiding my lopsided nipples in padded bras, just so ironic.

I have decided to get 3D nipple tattoos and I am going to buy a set of stick on nipples so once in a while I can put them on under a t-shirt for shits and giggles. I'm thinking the tattoos will be a good guideline for where to place them. The ones I want are $250, I think on the Curediva website.

They have "sparkle" and glow-in-the-dark nipples?!! It is amazing the things that exist that I've never imagined. . . .

My PS doesn't like the fact of tattooing. He wants toreconstruct them himself. He said it will be after I heal from the exchange. I thought about not doing it, but I'm leaning towards reconstructing them. I haven't experience the weird feeling while drinking cold water.

That makes sense about waiting for them to drop before reconstructing nipples. His nurse is leaving for commuting reasons, but is coming in Friday's to finish her patients. I'm so sad to see her go. She said he was the best PS.