 Hey you guys so I wanted to come back on after a few months to give you an update on my breast reduction. I know I said I will come on for a three month update and a six month update. Yeah girl that didn't happen. So this would be a nine month update. Because you don't know I had a breast reduction in May of last year and now that we're in January they will make nine months. So what I'm going to do is just briefly go over how I was approved and I will be linking in the cards below several videos because I do have videos of the week when I had my breast reduction, the recovery, and also how I got approved but I'm just going to give you a clip notes version right now. If you don't know it's really hard to get approved for breast reduction and it used to be 10-15 years ago as long as you were having back pain and a doctor said that you know approved you, you went to a surgeon, boom that was 10 or 15 years ago. Now insurance companies do not want to pay to shut all that money unless you absolutely need it. You have gone through physical therapy, you have gone through a chiropractor, you have tried pain medication and you have no relief. So for me it was two years of gathering documentation and finally approaching my insurance company which I purposely switched over from United Health Care to Sick Now and seeing multiple specialists getting, I mean I literally have 40 pages of documentation. So I made an appointment with my family doctor and let her know and so I was documented as being on a second set of painkillers for three, four, five months. Does that make sense? Okay. The chiropractor wrote a letter of recommendation along with the doctor notes from my family practitioner. So yes that was submitted and the insurance covered it but of course you're going to have you know your co-pay. So I would think at this point the surgery was a little over $20,000 and then I received a bill from the anesthesiologist that was like $80 which is nothing but then the hospital bill was $1,100 and my bill from the surgeon was around $400. So we're looking at $1,500 I had to pay out of pocket. So do expect that. So yeah depending on your insurance you still are going to have to pay something out of pocket. It's just not going to be 100% free. My recovery has been pleasant. The only, I'm going to explain to you what I've been having but the week of it was good. The only thing that did happen is that when I tried to lift up the dressing on my nipple it was kind of lifting and it was due to the type of gauze that was used and the surgery that was on call just advised me to use water slowly lifted up and that was fine. It was perfect. Okay. I did have swelling for a while and honestly I still, they still get a little swollen if I've been doing a lot the day before like I was doing a lot yesterday and I woke up in the middle of the night and I could tell they were swollen. They didn't hurt but I could tell that they were swollen. I'm sorry I didn't tell y'all what size I was. I went from a 38 triple D sometimes a double E and right now I can say I am a full C possibly D, 38, 38 C D and I'm very happy with my results. About two months ago my brush dropped because for the first month, not months or so they were up perky. I didn't mind that but they were up perky and hard like I had breast implants and that's I didn't want that but now they're soft and they've dropped I should say. They look great. My shirts are all baggy. I normally would have to get a size large or sometimes extra large but now I'm definitely in a medium, medium top. I also have to have light bulb on the side here because my breasts were so wide they kind of went into my oren pit so I did have a little bit of light bulb which I did not mind at all and so my top here, see if I can show you a little bit. Do you see that? Well you probably can't, yeah now you can see that. See how it goes in. I mean I always had a little curl but it really goes in a lot more now that I've had a little light bulb. I am very happy with my results. So let me tell you guys, I'll show you a little bit more when it comes to scoring and the complications I have had. I will say about, what was it made in July, about the end of July, early August I noticed my skin was very dry. Now I live in Arizona and it's dry and I expected some dryness and some itching but it got, I mean the itching was ridiculous and I have read that you can experience some itching due to you know the nerves repairing and all that and you know the skin itself. So I expected that and I had my creams and lotions and everything ready to go but the itching got so bad to where I started getting discoloration. I mean my breasts started to turn like a purple color but only from the nipple under okay and I'm just like what is going on itching, itching, itching. I'm using everything, I mean I literally used everything from coconut oil, shea butter, my own DIY eczema cream, tea tree oil, nothing seemed to help. And I will say this, that it will get better than it would get worse. So it would go back and forth so I'm thinking this entire time that this is just the Norman Healing process. Well I would say about a month ago I finally decided to go back to the surgeon and I had them to check it out and they said oh this is extremely dry skin and you need to go see a dermatologist. So now two weeks ago I went to a dermatologist she took a look at it and she said you know what this is more than just eczema and dry skin it looks like you're having a reaction to the internal sutures and I'm like wow okay. So I would definitely recommend that you, I should have went to a dermatologist earlier okay so that they could have given me my medication and yeah. So I've been using, I'm going to show you what I've been using and this is prescribed for me because it's called Try My Sun Only and they gave me a big tub of it, a huge tub of this because normally it comes in a 30, like a little bitty tub like it's like 30 ml. It's basically a steroid cream and I have to use it, I've used this daily twice a day only for a month, I get off of it for like a week or so and then I'll go back on because if you use it too much it will thin out your skin. So that's what I have to do personally and I would say after two weeks the color is coming back. I mean there's still some itching but not as bad. The coloring is definitely coming back and yeah it looks great, they look great okay. That's the only issue that I have had. Now let me show you what I tried and what I still would suggest trying if you don't have the issue that I have with you know the suture. So I purchased Palmer's Cocoa Butter Formula Dry Itchy Skin. Now this was working good you know it contains vitamin E, collagen and elastin. Yeah it was doing really well and what I did is I purchased vitamin E oil and started adding it to this and I like it that you can spray it so you can spray it underneath because my incisions or the scar goes from here all the way under okay. So all the way up spray spray spray spray spray spray spray spray and that's it. Another thing that helps really well and those of you who have small children with eczema or if you have eczema yourself Vaseline. Vaseline worked miracles for my breasts when they were on fire. I would literally make sure that my breasts were wet, slather on Vaseline. While I'm in a shower right after the shower I would slather on Vaseline and that really helped in addition to my steroid cream. One thing that I really feel like didn't work for me that everyone I saw what rave about my derma, my derma which is a drying oil, very quick drying oil, very very thin drying oil. Yeah really didn't work that well for me you guys and I used it consistently. I would rather buy this you know I purchased both of these three Amazon okay. I would say about three months ago I noticed that the scar under my left breast started to keloid. Now I've had surgeries before when I had my C-section when I had cysts removed I keloid and I was expecting that so I'm not surprised. I wasn't expecting it but I'm not surprised it happened so when I went to go see the surgeon a month ago she was like oh yeah you're starting to keloid so she's like I would recommend silicone gel strips I already got them girl. So I purchased the scar out gel strips from Amazon and this is what they look like. They come like this you open it up and you will probably have to cut it and apply it under now. I have not been that good about applying these and wearing these you guys because they're not comfortable and it says that it's self-adhesive maybe because I'm fluffy. Chubby. Yeah I they're not that great they're very sticky very flimsy but they don't stick well to your skin you know what I mean they get they catch onto everything else but your body so it did come with a tape and adhesive tape. What I think I'm gonna do is and this is some of the surgical tape I had here that's not even good enough. I'm gonna have to purchase some other type of tape and try it again. Now you can reuse them and I think for these it says it says each gel can last between two to four weeks and total treatment time two to four months. So this entire box two to four months you supposed to see a change after a week. I couldn't even get through a week because it literally kept coming off and I was afraid I'll be walking in public and this thing falls out my press. So I'm gonna have to get some proper tape so that I can apply them because that's what the the surgeon assistant or excuse me the surgeon was recommending that I try or that I use. Now when I have had scars that have keloid it goes away. It takes a very long time like for me personally it takes a good year but yeah. So yeah that is it you guys I just wanted to give an update because I did say I will come back and let you know if you have any questions jot them down below. I will say I've gotten comments or questions or you know whatever from women who are afraid to have a surgery they're afraid to go under. Let me tell you something if you've had a baby you can do this like out of all of my surgeries and I've had this one would have would be mine would have been my fourth or it's my fourth. This is this was the easiest one recovery was the easiest one. If you've had a C section then you can do three or four of these like seriously that's how easy it was for me but I also had a great team so make sure that you research your doctor your surgeon okay. I had a great surgeon I mean was a man of God or he is a man of God we prayed together that made me feel so comfortable because I am a Christian that made me feel very very comfortable. If that's not your thing fine just find you someone who's good okay he doesn't have to be a Christian just find someone that you trust all right I'm serious find someone you trust and that was that will put your put you at ease okay. Ask questions don't go on Google looking at all this stuff because everyone is different everyone reacts differently all right yeah that's what I would recommend but yeah everything has been great I wish I would have done this earlier really like if you're waiting and don't wait girl I wish I would have done this sooner meaning like right after I had my child because I did nurse them I will be I will be a little leery about that if you have not had children are you thinking about it I don't think I would get it done only because my breasts change after I had my child because I nursed them for two years and so they got longer and as you get older also your breasts change so I'm okay at having had this done at 37 years old but yeah you guys that is it like I said do you have any questions you have any comments drop them down below thank you so much for watching take care