Ellie Nash felt like she was being crushed by her JJ cup breasts. Photo / Supplied
When Ellie Nash was just 14, she was wearing a size F bra.
Her mum reassured her that her breasts would "stop growing soon", but by the time she was 17, she was a size JJ.
Nash, from Melbourne, Australia, spoke to That's Life! about what led her to the life-changing decision to have breast reduction surgery.
Australian shops didn't stock her size in bras so she had to order them from the US. Nash would suffer heat rash and blisters as well as cysts and felt like "such a mess".
She stopped going out, sick of being stared at and commented on. Playing sport was out of the question and the extra weight on her chest made her hips and back ache constantly.
"It was like I was being crushed by my breasts," she said.
When Nash was 18, her mum suggested she have a breast reduction.
She put off the decision as it was expensive and she'd just met her partner Joseph, then 24, who "liked me for me".
A year later she was forced to leave her job in daycare because it was too physical and realised she had to do something.
Hearing through Facebook how breast reductions had changed others' lives for the better, she decided to go through with it.
Nash went in for the seven-hour surgery in April 2022, with her parents helping foot the $9000 ($NZ$10,222) bill.
The surgeon promised her breasts would go down to about a D or E cup after removing about 1kg from each one.
But they ended up removing 3kg from each one, leaving Nash sobbing with joy.
"They look amazing ... I can breathe. And I feel like I could start running and never stop," she told her partner.
The reduction also solved her snoring and asthma problems and allowed her to cuddle her two-month-old niece close without her breasts getting in the way.
Nash said she's "still healing but I'm so happy and proud of my new body" - and she's still finding the perfect place to hang up the plaster cast of her JJ breasts.
"It's been a hard few years but at last I'm ready, and able, to start living."
The late Queen was forced to make a difficult decision in the final hours of her life.