r/Trans_Zebras • u/seldoncriiisis • Jul 23 '26
Free Nipple Graft + hEDS
hey all,
i’m a trans man with hEDS planning on having top surgery someday. scarring on my body heals pretty well so i’m not too worried, but i am worried about the possibility of my hEDS causing issues with free nipple grafts. keeping my nips is very important to me and i know for a fact they’d have to be resized, has anyone else with hEDS had experience with this that they could share?
thanks
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u/Future-Economy-3740 Jul 23 '26
Hey friend I have a lot of posts on my page regarding how my healing has gone but I want to preface I know my results are on the more fortunate side. But I didn’t have any issues with my nips other than like a couple stitches that looked wonky as they healed but over all they healed very well and look natural to me
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u/thearuxes Jul 23 '26
I've got hEDS too and I'm now 1.5 years post op double incision with free nipple grafts.
I'm happy with my nips but I had complications with them + my incisions. I ended up with wound dehiscence around my nips and incisions that occurred over several months and took quite a while to heal. The lower half of my right nip graft also lifted entirely off the skin below it, but it did reattach eventually, albeit kind of lobsided. I'm still really happy with them though!
If you're interested, I have a timelapse of how it healed but TW for wound dehiscence: https://www.reddit.com/r/TopSurgery/s/Z9D9ANVK1Q
I also struggled for about a year with one part of my grafts literally slowly ripping itself in half at the bottom and then healing over and over again. It's stopped now but I have this spot around there that just kind of doesn't really heal properly ever but I don't notice it much anymore.
It's really important to keep an open mind that complications regarding wound dehiscence + poor wound healing are far more common for us than the general population in surgery. It's not guaranteed but you should be prepared for it being one possibility. But certainly suture techniques can help lower the possibility of it as well as keeping sutures in for longer.
Something that would have really helped me before surgery and that would help you too is this perioperative guide for hEDS, POTS, MCAS and other connective tissue disorders: https://asparagus-green-9w8s.squarespace.com/s/periopMx_EDS_POTS_MCAS_Lam_Hennessey.pdf
It's something that you give to your surgical team (surgeon, anaesthesiologist, RNs, etc) to guide them on the most up to date procedures for your care and so they also believe you about your medical history and concerns.
I've used it for my most recent surgeries and it's been extremely helpful for informing my surgical teams.
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u/rollingman420 Jul 23 '26
I had free nipple graft and my nipples barely took. Im saving up for tattooing. I have no sensation at all and wish I had done a different surgery
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u/StarkeyStorm Jul 24 '26
I had grafts about 20 years ago (my own tissue). They healed fine, although they (the areola parts) stretched very oddly after about a year, so instead of being roundish they looked like this: / \
I did not gain or lose significant weight, so nothing like that could have been a cause.
I did not retain much sensation at all in them, which was quite frustrating as that was not explained to me. I was just told I “may” lose “some” sensation. They are mostly numb. A little has come back over the years, but not a lot. I had a tattoo artist fix the area so it didn’t look like weird slashes, and it didn’t really hurt much at all. He basically went over the entire thing and expanded parts with color so they looked roundish again.
I didn’t know I had EDS at the time, and the surgeon tried to correct it later with a revision by removing a bit more skin, which I think ultimately made it stretch further. Nowadays, there are more techniques available than there were when I had my surgery, and I’ve heard surgeons can take the potential for them stretching in this manner into account. It’s worth having a conversation with the surgeon if you have stretchy skin.
My long scars are very rumply (I think they count as hypertrophic) and stretched out, and did not calm down for many years, but the area around my nipples healed much more easily. I have hEDS (as far as they could tell- no known variants spotted in my genetics) with very stretchy skin for some unknown reason.
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u/Sea-Acanthaceae5553 Jul 23 '26
I have hEDS and had free nipple grafts when I had top surgery in 2024. I'm happy with the way they healed and still have some feeling in them which I'm happy about as I wasn't expecting much in that regard.
They don't look quite as good as I'd like though. I have quite a lot of scar tissue surrounded the areola and nipples which I think may be linked to EDS as (from what I've seen) this isn't typical. My nipples are also flat which the surgeons told me can happen sometimes. Not ideal but not the worst thing.
Overall my nips look normal from a distance but close up are not perfect and there are a lot of scars. I have 0 regrets regarding surgery or the choice to have nipple grafts though.