Nipple sparing mastectomy

I had one. My cancer was nowhere near the nipple and my surgeon got all my breast tissue out. I wound up losing half of one of my nipples due to necrosis but otherwise everything went fine. I am kind of shocked at how real my foobs look.

I had mine free grafted back on, which is a little different as the nipple is removed entirely (and removed from the pedicle), then put back on where one would expect to find a nipple on a flat chest.

I'm a little over 2 months out from my surgery, and I do have some feeling back; they can feel hot/cold and do react to cold (they get a little 'pokey'), and I can feel when there is pressure on them or something is rubbing on them, but they don't yet feel pain and they likely won't ever get any 'erotic'--for lack of a better word--sensation back since a lot of that depends on the pedicle.

It can, however, vary from person to person, depending on how their body heals; I wanted to increase the chances that I'd get as much feeling back to my chest area in general so, after surgery, I started taking a B-complex vitamin, EFAs, calcium/magnesium supplements, and lecithin supplements to hopefully assist with that.

However, as I mentioned before, everybody's body heals differently and, especially if you had to go through rads or chemo (which I didn't, my bmx was preventative), it can still be possible to not regain feeling in the nipple.

Hi bigdogsmama,

I had a nipple sparing mastectomy - straight to implant. (DIEP on the other breast). I had it done a couple of years after diagnosis.

From what I understood, keeping the nipple is for esthetics. And the percent for recurrence was like 1 or even lower. But I would confirm that info with your bs.

Personally, I like how it looks. I was scared too in the beginning about losing feeling in the area, especially erotically. It's the reason why I kept the healthy breast and just had a unilateral mastectomy. But I couldn't deal with the stress of keeping it. There was still a sense of loss, and grief but when I would looked down at my new breast, well having the nipple there kind of tricks my brain. Does that make sense?

My husband, he's always touching me. I'm very lucky lol. And the way I see it, your brain is the biggest errogenous zone.

Good luck with your decision.

I'm so sorry to hear that it came back. Are you getting the procedure done soon? I'm dealing with a recurrence myself at the moment, finished treatment in April and I'm finally starting to feel like I've turned a corner.

On a side note, I wanted to add that I got a nipple tattoo on my DIEP side. I was pleasantly surprised at how much it improved the way I felt about that side. I did it because it was offered to me, and thought, why not? I've been also playing with the idea of getting tattoos to cover my scars.

Soldiering on, xo

I had my nipple sparing BMX 6 months ago. My right one was treated with nitro-bid paste for 10 days after surgery due to blood flow concerns during surgery. It was blackish for a while but that was the outer layer that died and eventually flaked off. In the end both survived. Now my left side gets more erect than the right. However, I just did a "poking" test. I can feel the pokes on the skin ofboth breasts, but nothing on my left nipple. Interestingly my right nipple was painful to poke. I think it's from the edge of the port on the TE which is very close to the nipple.

I have my exchange on Wednesdsy. I'm hopeful that pain sensation will go with the TEs.

So overall my sensations in my breasts have been increasing but the fact that my left nipple still has none makes me think that spot may not improve. I'm not quite sure what to think about the pain in the right except I hope it goes away.