While breast implant and enhancement surgeries are gaining popularity with women all over the world, men are also becoming more interested in having breast surgery performed. Yet, men are looking for the opposite effect - they want a breast reduction.

It may surprise you to learn that many men suffer from a condition known as gynecomastia, or an enlargement of the breasts. Some experts estimate that this affects as many as 40 to 60 percent of men at some time during their lives, with most episodes occurring during puberty and adolescence.

Most boys see this condition disappear after just a few months, but for some the deformity sticks around. For obvious reasons, this can be very embarrassing. It can make men very uncomfortable going shirtless at the beach or the pool or even in intimate relations. Self-confidence often suffers as a result of gynecomastia, which makes breast reduction by a competent, qualified plastic surgeon an excellent option.

What Causes Gynecomastia?

Gynecomastia is not necessarily related to being overweight with extra fat around the mammaries, although that can be the cause. It is actually a condition that is often the result of hormonal imbalances. Yet there are a lot of other causes as well. These include the use and abuse of steroids, the growth of tumors in the tissue, chronic liver disease, syndromes like Gilbert’s and Klinefelter, castration and certain genetic disorders.

Gynecomastia can also result as a side effect of many medications, especially drugs that either increase estrogen or reduce testosterone levels in the body. Things like tricylyc antidepressants, marijuana, alcohol, and heroin have been known to cause this condition in some males as well.

If the problem stems from the use of medicine or drug abuse or obesity, changes in medication or other lifestyle alterations may be the solution but in all other situations plastic surgery is the only way to correct the problem.

What Does Breast Reduction Surgery Involve?

The preparations for this surgery will include finding a good plastic surgeon, providing him or her with a full medical history. Sometimes the plastic surgeon will require breast X-rays to be taken to get the best picture of the underlying fat and tissue positioning.

Gynecomastia patients going in for surgery should be relatively healthy, mentally stable individuals, and it usually a requirement that patients quit smoking at least two weeks before the operation.

The procedure is performed as the plastic surgeon makes a discreet incision around the areola or in the arm pit. The surgeon then uses a liposuction cannula to remove the excess fatty tissues, after which the patient is sewn back up, sometimes with a small drain left in the incision to allow excess fluids to escape in the next few days.

After the operation, the plastic surgeon will bandage the incision and wrap the chest tightly in some dressings to help with the healing process. The first few days post-surgery for gynecomastia patients will usually involve some bruising, swelling, and pain, but these can be managed with ice packs and prescribed pain medication.

After the recovery, breast reduction patients experience great satisfaction and often a restoration of self confidence as they no longer have to worry about embarrassingly large breasts!

The term “alternative medicine” is becoming a common by word nowadays. By alternative medicine, we mean the use of certain methods and practices for treatment other than conventional methods of treatments such as surgery and medications.Chinese medicine and the Ayurveda medical practice in India are considered as alternative medicine in Western cultures, while it is considered as conventional in those places where they originated from. Thus, alternative therapies are also largely a matter of social and cultural context. Most of the time, alternative medicine goes with a religious or spiritual element, but in some cases, this spiritual ingredient is not necessitated as alternative practices sometimes merely invoke self-awareness to tune in with the body coupled with natural supplementation.

Alternative medicine is differentiated from complementary medicine in that the latter, as the name suggests is complementing an alternative practice method with conventional treatment practices. Exclusively resorting to alternative treatments and completely supplanting conventional medicine – this is the real essence of alternative medicine. Some people make complementary medicine a recourse and the combination of the utilization of both alternative and conventional methods depends not only on a person’s illness but on his personal beliefs as well. To have a surefire, well-rounded treatment, majority of individuals use complementary medicine when either conventional treatment or alternative therapies are ineffective on their own.

A large proportion of doctors are currently utilizing alternative health techniques with conventional practices. In the last decade, there has been an increase in the percentage of individuals who resorted to alternative treatments from 33.8% to 42.1% in the US.Alternative practices are widely gaining acceptance in the Western world although conventional methods of treatment are the most widespread in these cultures. In fact, as of date, 60% of medical schools in the United States have included courses in alternative methods as a scope of getting an MD degree. The number of universities offering courses and even degrees in alternative medicine are on the rise.

A whooping 85% of nursing schools include the same in their curriculum.Reputable medical schools now include numerous alternative medicine courses in their curriculum. This instigated the expansive acceptance of alternative methods of treatment in Western cultures. However, there are some critics that denounce the effectiveness of alternative medicine. Presumably due to the fact that researches and studies have not proven the effectiveness of alternative therapies, these critics doubt the credibility of this technique. After all, by definition, isn’t it just an “alternative”? It should have been considered as another form of conventional treatment if alternative medicine was proven effective. As the practice of alternative medicine is significantly dependent on an individual’s eliciting body changes through self awareness, it is difficult to gauge the success of alternative treatments.

A person’s level of self-awareness is a highly subjective matter and would be exigent to measure objectively. Furthermore, there are presumptions that the positive results of alternative medicine may be attributed to the placebo effect or natural healing. It is however inarguable that alternative medicine methods are safe as long as properly employed. If the person remains under the care of a conventional medicine practitioner, alternative therapy is unlikely to be consequential and may even be the way to a speedy recovery.