Choosing prophylactic mastectomy

it was easy for me. I found out I have 2 gene mutations which cause breast cancer. My MO strongly recommended BMX as well as a full hysterectomy. This has not been a fun year but I feel like I'm doing everything I can to eliminate as much risk as I can.

For me, there was never a question about it; when I found out there was a strong family history of BC on both sides of my family, with the earliest diagnoses being around 38 (I'm 36), I had absolutely no qualms or reservations about having them both removed and remaining flat. When the high risk coordinator wanted to "discuss options" I told her that the only option I'd consider was a bilateral mastectomy.

I was never over the moon about them anyway as they were big, saggy, and extremely painful (fibrocystic breast disease).
They looked great in a push up bra, but that wasn't enough for me to want to keep them or want to deal with the hassle of reconstruction; I didn't want to go through any of the flap type surgeries as the recovery seemed horrific to me, even when everything went flawlessly, and didn't like what I saw for end results with implant reconstruction after a BMX, so going flat was a pretty clear choice for me.

It's been amazing being flat, to be perfectly honest. My back and shoulders no longer hurt, shirts fit, nothing jiggles when I walk, run, or go up and down stairs, and I honestly wish now I'd saved up years ago to have them removed. Recovery was pretty easy; the drains were annoying, but not unbearable, and I didn't really need pain meds at all, even right after surgery. I'm about 4 1/2 months out and, aside from some residual swelling (which can last for 8-12 months), everything has been 'back to normal' since about 6 weeks.

For me I don't regret a single little thing about having a BMX.
I'm more comfortable both physically and WAY more confident in my appearance (in my head, when I pictured myself, I always had small, barely there breasts, not big ol' saggy DDs, so now being flat matches with how I always pictured myself. Bonus! ) than I ever have been in the past.

Even my husband has noticed that I seem a lot more confident and comfortable as well, which he thought was odd as he just assumed a woman in general would be pretty down about losing her breasts and I was almost ecstatic that they were gone.
My PS thought I was having a weird reaction to the anesthetic as the first thing I said to her when I woke up was, "They're gone right? I can't feel any of the usual pain."
"Yes."
"Oh, thank GOD! I'm so happy, you don't even know!"
I guess 20+ years of chronic pain will do that though, especially when it's suddenly 100% relieved. Without wanting to seem dramatic about it, the pain from healing from surgery and even from the drains was absolutely nothing compared to the constant stabbing, burning pain that was always present in the breast tissue prior to my BMX; nothing touched that pain and my breasts being compressed (like in a hug), squeezed, etc...made it worse and made them almost throb for hours afterward.
On pain scales I'd tell them it was around a 9-10, the pain I'd rate the post-BMX? 1-2 when in comparison to what I had before.

4 1/2 months out I have no pain at all left and it's the first time I can remember since puberty that my chest hasn't hurt.

My only regret is that I didn't look into family history sooner and had them removed in my early 20s; it would've saved me a decade of chronic pain, which insurance didn't deem a 'viable' reason for a mastectomy.

I lived for a year as a Uni. I wanted the other removed all along and doctors tried to talk me out of it. I persisted and in Feb 2016 I had a PMX and started the reconstruction process with tissue expander placement. My surgeon advised that nothing was found in the breast. However I finally got round to picking up my. Pathology report and, though there was no cancer, there was a .5 cm benign cyst which no doubt would have shown up on the mammogram that had been originally scheduled for the same day as my PMX. There were also tissue changes in the breast, including microcalcifiations that were reminiscent of those found in my 'cancer' breast 5 years before my cancer dx. I am so glad I had the PMX, it has eliminated one constant worry. 💕