It's my first summer since age 9 without underboob sweat.

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ravzari
ravzari Member Posts: 277
edited June 2017 in Living Without Reconstruction After a Mastectomy

AND IT'S AMAZING! :D

Underboob sweat was always my biggest dread of summer and nothing really helped it, I'd just sweat through whatever I used because I had big, heavy, droopy breasts and it got hot under there. The best I could do was wear a super supportive, super uplifting push up style bra to keep the dang things lifted up and aired out but I never found those bras to be all that comfortable, plus, the padding in them made them hot in the summer so I'd just end up with a gross, damp bra.

Don't have those big girls hanging out this year, and it's honestly pretty great.

I can wear light colored tops without getting that band of wetness on them where the sweat would soak through.

That doesn't even touch on how much more comfortable bike rides are without bouncing all over the place (even in double sports bras). :D

I was kind of concerned about how I'd look in tank tops but that was a silly worry; I do look strange, to me, in spaghetti strap tank tops. I look kind of boxy. However, tank tops with wider straps look just fine so, easy fix for the one thing I'd worried about. Plus, I'm so much more comfortable this summer vs. last summer (my BMX was June 30, 2016 and I'd had chronic breast pain since puberty due to benign cysts and super dense, fibrous tissue) that I hardly notice if shirts look different because I'm not roasting and worried about sweating through the fronts of shirts and don't have that chronic pain.

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  • Tappermom383
    Tappermom383 Member Posts: 643
    edited June 2017

    What a great attitude, ravzari! Glad you're so much more comfortable and cooler.

    MJ

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  • Momine
    Momine Member Posts: 7,859
    edited June 2017

    Glad you feel well, and I know what you mean about the chronic pain. Mine always freakin' hurt, and they weren't even big, just painful. One night, not long after the BMX, I was out with my dog, and I started running with him. And it didn't hurt, I could run! For the first time since I was a little kid.

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  • ravzari
    ravzari Member Posts: 277
    edited June 2017

    Momine

    Yeah, the first time I rode my bike after having the BMX I instinctively brought an arm up to hold my breasts still before realizing I didn't have to do that anymore as there was nothing to bounce or hurt when bouncing.

    It's nice to be able to run, bike, and do cardio that involves a lot of movement again, which is something I was never able to do due to how much they always hurt.

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  • ksusan
    ksusan Member Posts: 4,505
    edited June 2017

    Yes, I at least enjoy being bra-free.

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  • ravzari
    ravzari Member Posts: 277
    edited June 2017

    ksusan

    Oh, I LOVE that aspect as well; I never liked wearing bras. I have some sensory issues as I'm autistic, and I could ALWAYS feel a bra, even if it was custom or well fitted, I was always acutely aware that it was there and it drove me nuts, but I had to wear one as it's not socially acceptable to not wear a bra if you have large breasts and, frankly, it can be kind of uncomfortable in a different way to not wear a bra if you've got large breasts. :D

    I just got to choose between the socially acceptable uncomfortable--a bra--or the socially unacceptable uncomfortable--the 'not wearing a bra, but have large breasts'. As a fun aside, for a few weeks before my BMX, my PS asked me to stop wearing a bra if possible so my breast tissue would be as 'naturally hanging' as possible so she'd know how much skin she could safely take when reconstructing my flat chest to be flat. So, for those last few weeks, I just wore stick on silicone pasties to avoid nipple show through t-shirts and tank tops at work. Man, did I ever walk SLOWLY though, just to avoid having super obvious (and painful) bounce though! If I worked with mostly women, I probably wouldn't have cared, but I work primarily with men and didn't want to make them weirdly uncomfortable around me and my obviously mobile DDs. XD

    I absolutely do not miss having to wear bras, and when I had to wear a sports bra for minor compression after my revision I was reminded immediately of just how uncomfortable and annoying those things are.

    When I was going through clothes to donate after my BMX, I actually counted how many bras I had (most were bought with the promise of 'this style/type/whatever will help with the breast pain!', yeah, that never happened, they hurt no matter what I wore) and had 47 different bras.

    Probably 40 of them were still in good, useable condition so those all got donated.

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