A Worry Carried Since High School

To anyone with the same concern

Gynecomastia is not a worry that appears one day out of nowhere. Many people carry it from their school years. In gym class, at the swimming pool, under a uniform shirt. And that worry quietly follows them even after they become adults. The patient I want to talk about today was the same. He carried a worry that began in high school well into adulthood, and only this year did he decide on surgery.

He Worried About a Hollow

What this patient feared most before surgery was complications — and among them, whether his chest might end up sunken. To be honest, because this is a surgery that removes tissue, if too much is taken out there is a possibility of something that looks like a depression. That is why we plan, before surgery, how much to remove and how much tissue to leave, and after surgery we continue to watch the course and manage the recovery. Because the course and results vary from person to person, this is a part best confirmed specifically, with your own condition in front of you, during the consultation. I believe the way to ease a worry is not a promise, but a plan and careful management.

First Impression, and Sedation Anesthesia

As his first impression of the clinic, this patient wrote: "Super clean, and the reception was super kind." That he used the same word twice was so striking that we read it with a smile. As the moment that stayed with him during surgery, he left this: "It was my first time under sedation anesthesia, and it felt fascinating." If a first experience of sedation anesthesia is remembered as fascination rather than fear, that is a fortunate thing for us. On the final item, too, he wrote again that everyone was kind.

The Exercise He Had Put Off

As the thing he most wanted to do after surgery, this patient chose exercise. At first he had tried to change the shape of his chest through exercise, but he said that watching it stay the same no matter how hard he tried, he came to feel the limits of that. Worried that exercise would make the chest stand out more, that clothes would cling to the body, that eyes in the locker room would be on him — the reasons men with gynecomastia grow distant from exercise are each their own. The very thing most needed for health becomes, because of the chest, the hardest thing to do. Within that paradox, this patient too spent a long time.

The Words "I Think I Did It Too Late"

In the box for others facing the same struggle, this patient wrote: "I've worried about it since high school — I think I did it too late." I believe these words are the whole of his story. The worry lasted a long time, but the decision came about more calmly than expected. Of course, this is his own experience, and whether surgery is needed, and when is the right time, is something to judge after confirming your own condition through a consultation. Still, if that worry has been with you since your school years, perhaps it is about time to confirm it properly, at least once.

- Dr. Yoo Jae-hyun, TRUEMAN Gangnam -