Hi. I had a mastectomy last year with no reconstruction. We have booked a beach holiday in May but I can’t wear any of my old beach clothes. Any recommendations for where I can get swimwear and beach cover up clothes. I have looked into mastectomy bikinis but they are very expensive. Any suggestions of where I can get these from? I have seen some places do bikini with removable padding. Would that work and I could put my softie prosthesis in one side and remove the padding for the other.
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Hi Rosa
They are expensive suppose to be vat free but very costly , I bought some in Asda’s
and Sainsbury’s online which were under £15 pound , I also scour the sale section on the other mastectomy company’s I have got a few good deals .
I use knitted knockers aqua prosthesis which you can swim with they are made to measure so fit nicely into the pockets in swimwear. Hope you have a great holiday x
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Dr liz oriordan is on youtube and instagram. She is flat & swims. She had a few videos last year recommending swimwear.
May be worth a look.
Good luck
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You can get decent swimwear from Nicola Jane. They are expensive but they often do offers and sales. If you don’t want to use a prosthesis try unobra https://www.unobra.co.uk/ These are very expensive though. You can get a free NHS silicone prosthesis for swimming. Have a great holiday !
I bought the mastectomy swimwear it was so thick ,it took so long to dry .
My scar line area stayed wet .
I look for normal swimwear that I can open on the side to get prosthetic in .
I buy tankini so I can change the tops.
So much better .
I do the same with bras ,so to stop softie moving I added Velcro.
Hi there, I feel your pain! I took this into my own hands and did what someone else did, cut a hole in the lining and popped my swimming boob aka pru the prosthetic in. A little bit of sewing tidy up stopped it from fraying. I had a few costumes and bikinis that I didn’t want to get rid off so thought this a good option and totally free. As for a cover up, I’m going to start looking as just want something short, not a great big kaftan type thing, if you find anything, let me know. Hope you have a wonderful holiday, lots of love xx
Hi. Along with all the other booklets they give you from the hospital, there was a catalogue for Nicole Jane, a company who do a range of bras, breast forms and swimwear and offer a free post surgery fitting (this in UK). Haven’t used them myself yet, but have made a fitting appointment at my local Cancer Hub in April as needing new bras. It might be worth a look - nicolajane.com tel. 01243 537300
Nicola Jane or Amoena - sale because the full prices are extortionate. The pieces are very well made (you can see the engineering in them - as it were!) and last a long time but I think all these shops have a captive audience so price very OTT and a lot to fork out in one go. I’d say Amoena has the best range. I tend to buy their bikini tops and get plain bottoms to match from the high street.
I have an aqua prosthetic but also bought a ‘made for swimming’ foam one as the aqua one is heavy in luggage when flying. The aqua one is better - the foam one looks OK but the water flows out of it and I end up having a squeeze to get the water out.
Beach cover up - I use the same stuff I had before my mastectomy. I certainly don’t buy special stuff.
Have a fab holiday.
I love swimming and after my double mastectomy was disappointed with cost of specific swimwear and prosthesis however I use the M&S soft prosthesis a lot for all sorts including swimming which are just £10 and also Asda TU or M&s post surgery swimwear is good I also have swimwear with removable soft pads and they’ve been great too so have a look for those
Amazon seem to have some good options but I’ve not tried them myself
I did buy a specific one from Amaeno a specialist but only in the sale nothing special I preferred my Asda one
Good luck and happy holidays
I got a few bits of swimwear from asda and they have been great xx
Hi Rosa,
Try www.braveladies.co.uk
They have bikini’s from about £20 and swimming breast forms at £9.95.
They were set up by a lady who herself had a mastectomy and found it so expensive to buy swimwear and prosthetics. The photos on their site are mostly of real women who have had surgery, wearing the swimwear. I was a bit apprehensive at first as they were not professional ‘touched up’ photos of the swimwear but I ordered a black swimsuit and breast form and they are amazing. The swimsuit looked amazing on and fitted perfectly. I ordered a large breast form and then had to reorder an extra large ( saving the large one for when I lose weight!) my bust size is a 34F to give you an idea of sizing of the breast forms. Good luck and happy swimming xxx
Hi @rosa1 - I bought high neck, gorgeous tankini’s on a site called WalkonBeach https://www.walkonbeach.co.uk/swimsuits_filter_neckline_high-neck_p_4/
I replaced the cup padding with some I bought from Amazon as the ones in the swimsuit weren’t great. Quality was good though. Allow 2 weeks for delivery as they don’t come from the UK and the fit is quite true to size. x
And here’s another tip - I have a silicone reconstrcution, so when lying face down I placed a travel neck pillow under my reconstructed breast - took the pressure away and oh so comfy xx
Hi Rosa, lots of swimwear has a little pocket in the breast. I found a couple very reasonably priced in Matalan. I bought a cheap dome shaped sponge which I put into one of the breast pockets and leave it in there. As I get out of the water I squeeze my arm against the sponge and it is practically dry and works very well. I hope you have a lovely holiday . Best wishes, Jane xx
I bought prosthetic pockets from M&S and sewed them into my existing swimwear. Worked a treat and not expensive.
For the prosthetic though I splashed out a bit and bought a boost form online as didn’t want to have to squeeze the water out of the softie. Wasn’t sure if the chlorine would damage it as well and didn’t want to risk that as sometimes that’s all I can tolerate to wear. From memory the boost form was about £80, much lighter than the full nhs prosthetic, lasts for years and doesn’t stop or slow down your swimwear from drying.
Worked exactly as I wanted it to. I was so happy with it I used it for the entire holiday and didn’t even take my nhs prosthetic with me.
I also found a lovely company at awesomebreastforms.org that knit or crochet prosthetics including swimming ones completely free of charge. Unfortunately mine didn’t turn up in time so haven’t hard chance to try it yet but amazing that they do it for free. They custom make them though so would order sooner rather than later if you want it for May as they are made by volunteers. Mine was made by a wonderful nhs member of staff who does it in her spare time.
Hope you have a wonderful holiday though🥰
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I’m reading all the comments but the one thing everyone is mentioning is the cost of the clothes suited to this. A great website dedicated to sun protection swimwear which also supports many different types of support like mastectomy is a company called Sun Protection clothing which do swimwear for men, women and children. UPF 50+ Swimwear Collection | Sun Protection Clothing
Reach out to these guys as they are very knowledgable.
Early days I bought proper mastectomy costumes.
For me they are expensive and take a long time to dry .
And always made my scar sore .
I now look for costumes with the removable cups .
And use the hole in the costume.
Also buy tankini so after wet swap for a dry one .
My last sets came from SHEIN I didn’t need anything in them with the shape .
Hope this helps