Hello, I had a double Mastectomy in September of 2020. I chose the reconstruction route because I feel more comfortable having breasts. Clothes just do not look good when you don’t have breasts. Tops always look baggy because there is nothing to fill out the chest part of a garment. I was originally going to have the implants. The plastic surgeon put the expanders in right after the mastectomy. They use the expanders as place keepers in case you need radiation. Radiation messes up any reconstruction. You generally need to keep the expanders in until you have finished radiation and have healed completely from radiation and surgery. About 4 to 6 months. I unfortunately I got an infection in my left breast and had to have the expanders taken out. I then had to wait another 4 to 6 months to get the expanders put back in. During that time that “flat” time I had the prosthetic breasts. I did not like them. I live in Arizona where it is quit hot during the summer, so the prostheses were hot and sweaty. During this waiting period I learned that there is about a 30% chance of getting an infection with any implant and an even higher chance of another infection if you have already had an infection. Plus the infection causes tissue damage which negatively affects the implants. Plus every year you have implant there is a cumulative chance of something going wrong with the implants. Implants do have shelf life of 20 years or so, Given that I was 63, I decided that I did not want to take a chance that I might have to have them taken out in my 80s. Anesthesia is much harder to recover from in your 80s. So I decided to go with the DIEP flap route, They basically take your belly fat/tissue and make them into breasts. (Silver lining : you are basically getting a tummy tuck.) This surgery knocks the stuffing out of you. It is about 10 to12 hours long. They have to tie the blood vessels in the flap to the blood vessels in your chest. They have you stay in the hospital about 3 - 5 days. The nice thing about this surgery is that you have your own tissue. Once it takes that is it. You don’t have to worry about future problems like you do with the implant. The one negative thing about the DIEP surgery is that the recovery period is little longer and it messes with your core strength, I had my DIEP flap surgery in November 2021. I had a great Surgon so my breasts look really great. I feel very good about my appearance. Cloths look so much better than when I was flat. I am doing some PT to get my core strength back. I am very happy with the DIEP option I took. Personally, I did not like the flat option. I feel very good about my body now.

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