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Look for a plastic surgeon that is on your jobs insurance plan and network. Make sure it is a Plastic surgeon and not some MD just wanting to cut ya up. Go look at his work and talk to him about the surgery.
When you go in for the consultation, make sure you tell him that you are wanting the surgery done because it is very painful and hurts. In order for the insurance to even look at it, it has to have the right ICD-9 codes written down for PAIN. Most insurances, like Blue Cross, will cover this surgery if pain is the reason....this isn't a for sure though, so not 100% success here.
You can tell him that it makes you depressed because people have always made fun of you since High School. Tell him that it formed when you were going through pubertal years, and that is has progressively gotten worse since that period.
Tell him, that is hurts to lie down on your stomach or when your wife/GF lays on you. Heck, tell him it hurts when people brush up on you.
There may be an ICD-9 code for cancer as well if I remember correctly.
Most surgeons are gonna drill you with the "Do you take any hormones or steroids?" question so just know that ahead of time. Just state NO! They will probably ask if you take any supplements, and i'd just say no to that as well, as some MD/surgeons can really bias toward any of that stuff. The most i'd admit to would be a multi-vit and maybe fish oil caps. I wouldn't mention anything else currently or ever in your past.
Tell them you workout and try to take care of yourself in hopes that your situation will improve, but that it just seems to do nothing for it. Make yourself sound healthy.
Now if you have been on most oral AAS, or certain Aromatase Inhibitors, like are usually used during cycles, then you may want to quit way in advance or else when they do the blood panel tests, your cholesterol is gonna be jacked up....they will have a clue if you are jacked up with muscles and a low HDL, low LDL, and crappy triglyceride levels. So stop the orals MONTHS in advance.
Don't act like you know anything about AI's, AAS, or anything illegal or"cutting edge" either....
A good MD, or rather one of his nurse's will work with the insurances for you. Try to find one that will take care of this for you, because working with them on your own doesn't really get you anywhere from all that I know. Don't be afraid to switch surgeons if you think they will not work with the insurance, remember they work for you.
The surgery itself is failry painless in my experience. Get total gland removal! They'll probably talk you out of it, but tell them to get as much as they can and any ductal branching as well. Make sure they do at least some lipo to go along with the excision. The lipo is what causes most of the brusing and swelling, but it is worth it in my opinion, for much of the soft tissue removal (not glandular or hard tissue). A lot of these plastic surgeons leave just enough so that you have a chance of a reflare, and then they can go back in and charge you more for the touch-up. Tell them to remove the whole gland, or as much as they can + lipo.
The actual excision doesn't hurt hardly at all, the lipo is what causes more pain. My surgery, they only had to do minor lipo, so I had small amount of bruising. Bruising and soreness will also pend on the surgeons experience with the surgery and his slight of hand, so find a good one at any chance you get.
After the surgery, there is not pain, they next few days afterwards there is some tenderness, but not much more than that for most.
Most surgeons will pre-order a chest compression vest for you to wear post-surgery. My recommendation is to wear this thing as long as you can. I wore mine for 6 weeks! Besides the surgeons experience, I feel the vest is the most important thing. You may or may not need a vest with drain tubes....I didn't need the tubes.
I had my surgery after being off AAS for 10 months. I started up low dose test and Oxandrolone post-cycle for healing purposes only. I'm not recommending this, just sharing my experience as well as what some others have done.
I was back in the gym at about 4 weeks. Really, i would not try to do much during this time outside of some calves. If you get your heart rate up, or start excercising early, your chest will swell up. IMO, i'd recommend just taking the month off and enjoy yourself....but still try to eat correctly. I'd cut out cardio + lifting for at least 3-4 weeks post-surgery. At that point, you will be able to start adding some things in fairly quickly.
I had hernia surgery done the same time as my gyno surgery, so mine was a little more extensive. I had my embilical hernia fixed. I'm not sure if I just have a high pain tolerance or if my surgeon was that good, but none of this hurt me at all. My hernia took me out for 8-12 weeks from doing any squats/deads though.
My surgery for the gyno was around 5,000, but the insurance covered 70% of it, so I only hadto pay 30% of the costs. I think my hernia was around 4,500 as well. I think I paid right around 2,000 for both.
As a note, some surgeons may split the cost between the excision and the liposuction. You can get the excision fairly cheap, but the lipo costs the most from what I have seen. But be sure to get both if possible.
This is all based on costs within the USA. Now in places like Brazil, gyno removal only costs like $300.00
Hope some of this helped some
BMJ
