New here!
Hi everyone!
It’s honestly so nice to find a community of people who are dealing with the same thing as me.
I’m a 25-year-old woman from Switzerland, and I also have pectus excavatum. For most of my life, it never really bothered me that much. As a child, I was never bullied because of it. My friends actually thought I was a cool “different” kid rather than the girl with a hole in her chest. 😄
Of course, I had my insecurities about it during puberty, but I never really felt ashamed of it. I even felt comfortable wearing low-cut tops — kind of an “embrace your insecurities” attitude.
Doctors in Switzerland have always been quite hesitant when it comes to surgical correction, especially since my pectus never seemed to cause any major problems.
However, over the past year, I’ve been experiencing increasing breathing difficulties. I also have asthma, which was poorly controlled for quite a long time, and I’m now being treated by a new pulmonologist. I can’t help wondering whether the worsening of my breathing could also be related to my pectus.
Every now and then, I feel some pressure in my chest, and I’ve never really had much endurance either.
I’m now considering really pushing for further investigation and, if appropriate, surgery especially because I would need the procedure to be covered by health insurance. Otherwise, it would be prohibitively expensive here.
I’m also an ICU nurse, so I actually did an ECG on myself. 😂 It didn’t show anything obviously abnormal, but there are a few leads that made me wonder about possible right-sided heart strain. Obviously, ECG interpretation in someone with pectus can be different from a normal chest anatomy, so I’m currently questioning whether I’m overthinking my symptoms or whether there could actually be something going on.
For those of you who are adults with pectus: How was your experience as an adult? Did you have breathing problems, chest pressure, reduced exercise tolerance, etc.? And if you had surgery, did you notice a significant improvement afterwards?
I’m also still a total chicken when it comes to anesthesia, despite literally working in the field. 😂
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences! I’ve added some photos of my chest as well.