Immediate post-surgery compression

No compression for me. I woke up with a standard post-mastectomy bra with big ol' cups. Which would have been great if I had had reconstruction. As it was, it provided nothing. And to make matters worse, the front closure pressed painfully on my sternum. My PS agreed that the bra was useless and she allowed me to remove it at about a week post-op. It's probably best that I didn't have compression because I had about 1/2 of the skin die on the right side--big giant black dead tissue. Gack! Compression was out of the question during that recovery.

My doctor didnt use any compression garments or special bras after my BMX with no recon 2 months ago. I had steri strips over the incisions (leave on until they fall off) which stayed on for maybe a week if I recall. Over the steri strips were some padded bandages and I think they had me remove those bandages after the second day. That was it. I wore a soft cotton post mastectomy camisole.

Interestingly I had a lumpectomy the month before and was sent home in a compression bra.

Is the thinking that the compression garment helps with swelling or something else?

Had BMX on 11/15. I had a compression vest on coming out of surgery. Wore that for one week, then switched to sports bras at night and a bandeau bra during the day. I like the feeling of compression. It makes my chest not feel so abnormally tight- I can chalk the tightness up to the bras. That being said, the tightness has gone away considerably. Numbness has diminished too.

Armecia, I ordered the mens' gynecomastia (which is pretty much a mastectomy) post surgical vest, and ordered by chest size; my bra band size was 36, and their medium (I believe that's where 36 fell) fit like a glove. I was a bit surprised, as I have pretty wide 41" shoulders, but it fit them just fine as there was enough stretch to accommodate.

If you don't like the abdominal compression part of it, you just don't have to hook it up all the way down; when I slept in it, I'd just do up the first four or five hooks to get chest compression but not abdominal compression. During the day I'd sometimes hook it all the way down just for the slimming effect.

Edit to add, you can also hook it up all the way down and fold it up over on itself to get something about the length of a sports bra that provides extra compression; I did that a few times on days when things were extra achey, though I wouldn't leave it like that for more than 4-6 hours tops as it'll start to hurt your ribs with the extra tightness.