Post: #1

After a 9 month travel stint in Asia and Europe, I returned to my home in the US to undergo a surgery to correct a deformity which had plagued me since childhood.

I have what's known as Pectus Excavatum (aka sunken chest). If you don't have it yourself then you, in all likelihood, know someone or have seen someone with it. It's a congenital deformity in which the sternum sinks into the chest. The condition ranges from barely noticeable to extreme, the latter being a circumstance in which the sternum nearly touches the spine. If you've never seen it, Google it.

Without going through my life's story about how it negatively affected me in terms of childhood bullying/taunting/insecurity with girls, I will tell you how I dealt with it in terms of the sexual world and was able to eventually get it fixed via surgery.

I never started to really get with girls until I got into college. When in college, I never had any really serious girlfriends so most of my sexual conquests were drunken ONS, usually in the dark. I preferred this as I did not want any girl to see my chest, although when it would accidentally show up girls would never mention or look away in disgust. At the end of college I weighed about 235 pounds, a real fatty.

Fast forward about 2 years, I end up losing about 60 pounds and getting down to 175. At my fittest, I looked almost like Brad Pitt in Fight Club as I became addicted to eating healthy and working out. Although I did see a dramatic increase in quality and quantity of women I was banging, I still had the nagging insecurity of my sunken chest. I would avoid pools and beaches like the plague. Even living in in LA, I probably went to the beach about 3 times and would always explain my aversion to beach life to people as my being more of an urban kind of guy, which is why I lived downtown rather than the beach cities.

By this time, I had mostly accepted my condition and decided not to allow it to interfere with my intimate life any longer. If I met a girl on Tinder or at a bar and we ended up going back to my place, I was not going to hide by turning off the lights (I did have a six pack after all) or anything like that. If she ran out of the room in disgust, "so be it" I told myself.

Of course this never happened and I did have many satisfying sexual encounters with women, especially after learning game basics. If anything, my chest should have been the last thing between me and getting laid, my mindset and lifestyle was what was in need of fixing.

Besides the cosmetic side of the situation, it was starting to affect my breathing. I contacted a physician that specialized in my condition and decided to go see him. I was put through some tests. My MRI showed my heart was severely encroached upon by my sternum and that my lungs were unable to fully expand. Like I said, I was very cut but was not operating at optimal capacity. After thorough research, I decided it was time to undergo the correction procedure.

Let me backtrack a bit. I originally had an attempted correction of my condition in 2003 by a doctor in Seattle that had no real experience with correction. The surgery was an utter failure and I was left with a complete relapse of my condition in addition to a nasty scar.

I'm about 1 month post-op and still in recovery. It will take me several months before I can start weight-lifting again. The pain is really bad post-operatively as there are now three titanium bars in my chest which will remain in place for about 3 years; the entire architecture of my upper body is completely altered.

Although the pain is bad and the recovery will be long, I don't regret having the surgery at all.

I'll leave anyone who has this condition on RVF with this. If you haven't already, accept your condition and improve upon what you have control over. I used to have a chip on my shoulder and a real existential resentment towards God about life in general until I realized the futility in it all and decided to work on the areas that I was able to control, most importantly the rest of my physique, social skills, etc.

PM me if you want details about other specifics regarding doctors or any other questions.

Post: #2

I have this condition, as do my brothers. Fortunately, it isn't too severe. In fact, I think it's become less noticeable as I've gotten older.

I'm glad that you got the medical assistance you needed. Hope the recovery goes well, Titanium Man.

Post: #3

Had mine corrected too. It looks like you had a Ravitch in 2003. They should ban that barbaric procedure. I find it curious that they put 3 freaking bars inside you - I always thought even 2 would be reserved for the most severe cases. My severity was roughly similar to yours and I just had a single one.

Having those things inside you is a strange feeling especially in the beginning when everything hurts and feels like it's constantly moving around or loosening. And especially once you go lifting again you will be super paranoid. So just take it slow. I had my bar removed in 2012 after 4 years and kinda regret it - the result is still fine but I feel like it helped me a bit with the back pain problems I have. But there's no long term studies on keeping them in your body for the rest of the life so getting it out seems like the most sensible decision.

All the best for your recovery.

Post: #4

Yes I have this never seen a doctor for it but the doctors as a kid says it's not anything unusual. I know what your talking about when you say insecure about body and especially me being skinny and bad posture it makes your chest look like a hole. At one point I was so skinny that you could see my heart beating through my chest!!! As soon I can go off on my own and get my hands on some weights I started to do something about it to improve my overall physique. Starting lifting weights at 16 at which point I was 5'11" 120 lb (55kg) and 19% body fat I lifted and joined school wrestling team and gained up to 175 lb 10% bf in my senior year then in college I started hitting it hard and got up to 195 lb. cannt say I'm so consistent now due to job but I do still lift at least twice a week and adding muscle to my body defiantly helps out with how my chest looks and now it's barely noticible. My advice to anyone with this condition is to do heavy bench press preferably decline since it works flared ribs as well. Dumbbell pullovers, dumbbell benchpress, also work on your back which will help your posture, deadlifts, pull-ups, rows. Core exercises will help pull in the ribs and push out the center of the dent.

I would never consider surgery since its cosmetic to me but I would like to get an Mri of my chest just to give me a piece of mind. Can you PM me the doctor?