Review Detail

Dr. J is in a word amazing. She was super nice to all of my family and made them feel very comfortable throughout the entire process. I'm a physician in Florida and her approach to me was spot on and very helpful and making me feel more comfortable about going through with the procedure. The entire Mayo system was amazing at coordinating everything--went off without a hitch. I'm happy with the results and I think once I can start doing some gym stuff I'll be even happier. But I'm definitely still recovering, so the things I can add in terms of what to expect or what I have experienced beyond what I was expecting..

The genital swelling was crazy. It lasted about a week or so and slowly got better and is gone now but definitely wasn't expecting it to that degree. I don't think I really noticed it quite as much because of all the pain meds...

My procedure was a bit more complicated because I needed a rib plate/screws due to a displaced rib fracture (which I was expecting) and had part of my right middle lung removed and stapled due to a bullae (which was unexpected but necessary). So I may have had more post-op pain than the average procedure. I did the cryoablation of the thoracic nerves which I can't imagine having done this without it. Super helpful. But the idea of then making it through on Tramadol and Ibuprofen for me was a complete pipe dream -- it hurt, I needed oxys in fairly high doses. When I got back to Florida I had to go to a pain management doc to get even more. Overall I was probably taking 50-100 mg of oxycodone a day for a week and a half. Then it took me another week to get off of it with some withdrawal symptoms, and for the last month plus I have just been taking 800mg of ibuprofen every day three times a day around the clock. Now about 8 weeks post-op I'm just on the ibuprofen and the gabapentin and am definitely feeling more normal, but it has been a bit of a rough ride.

Post-op communication has been almost exclusively through Michelle (Dr. J's awesome NP) and Meagan... so I haven't talked to Dr. J but haven't really needed to. When I get my post-op XRs I can tell the bars are still in place so I haven't had anything to really worry about. She did her part which was to be extremely open and personable with my whole family and then do an awesome job on the surgery.

I still wake up feeling like there's a weird horror movie metal cage inside of me (which I wasn't expecting). It's there all the time and is something that has gotten less noticeable but is definitely still there. The feeling of 50 pound weights on my sternum pulling me down has definitely lessened. I still can't really jog but I feel like I'm getting close.. hopefully by week 10-12 I'll be able to start doing some light half miles just to start building back up.

Either from the change in posture or the change in rib angles on the upper spine I recently herniated a disc and now can barely walk due to severe nerve pain in my left leg so now I have to get over that too... I didn't do the physical therapy evaluation during my pre-op visit and I regret it. I recommend not skipping it.

Overall I would do it again and wouldn't have done it anywhere else or with anyone else. Highly recommended Dr. J to anyone who is seriously going to go through with it, and the Mayo system for pectus patients is impressively well coordinated. Just some above things to think about and realize that it's a long recovery and can be a bit rougher than you're expecting depending on what happens.