Gynacomastia Surgery

This all started when I was ten. My then-deskmate noticed that my chest was getting bigger, and I was big on wrestling those days, so I liked it and thought I was finally on my way to looking like John Cena. I did not know it was progressively going to get worse with time.

A year later, my gynecomastia made its first move on impacting my life. I enjoyed playing hockey but was a B team player, and because the B team did not have jerseys we had to play with our tops off to differentiate us from the A team, I had to quit hockey because my male breasts had gone so big and I would have been the butt of every joke in school.

I also had to quit trying to learn to swim because I was too ashamed to take my clothes off to learn how to swim. When I was 12 I had to start learning to wear different clothes because people were really noticing now. Our house help laughed at me for my boobs being bigger than my cousin who was a year older and going through puberty, some girls were laughing about it at school and the most heartbreaking one was my then crush telling me that I could breastfeed.

I went to boarding straight after that, and was very aware that there was no need for me to be any less cooler, I spent the next four years of my life trying to find bathing times where no one would see me, which is hard when you share a communal bathroom with 23 other people. It meant I skipped bathing altogether most times, and made me even more self-conscious because I am naturally super sweaty.

My entire life has been about wearing clothes that hide something that makes me deeply embarrassed and has gotten worse with time. I discovered running when I was 19 and realised that running a lot would protect against the male breasts getting bigger, so I have run since then to help mitigate against them growing, but as I have got older, I have battled with weight gain and also painful knees and this has resulted in the breast tissue getting bigger, ruining my self esteem and just making me feel depressed most of the time. I have added strength training to the running but these can only do so much, especially as I continue to gain weight.

The quotation I got for this surgery is £6500, and I am hoping I can do it this year to finally gain some confidence back, wear any type of clothing I want, and be finally able to learn how to swim and play sports without worrying about my chest size.