Augmentation mammoplasty involves using a fat transfer or breast implants to increase your breast’s size. This may be because the breasts have become smaller after a pregnancy or weight loss, or just because you’re looking for bigger breasts. This procedure cannot significantly lift breasts, although a breast lift may be done along with augmentation for an overall size increase. Here’s what you should know about augmentation mammoplasty:
Choosing to Augment Your Breasts
If the below criteria apply to you, augmentation might be an option:
- You’re bothered by your breast’s symmetry, shape, or size.
- Have fully developed breasts.
- Have realistic expectations regarding the result of the procedure, knowing that it will not directly affect more than the size of the breasts.
- You’re neither breastfeeding nor pregnant.
- You’re physically healthy.
Breast Augmentation Procedure
During the augmentation mammoplasty or breast augmentation procedure:
- You’ll be administered general anesthetics — a medicine that makes you sleep so that you will not feel pain during the treatment or recall it later.
- The doctor makes an incision in the breast. It’ll be done within a region that isn’t easy to see, like alongside the corner of the areola, beneath your breast alongside the natural skin fold, or in the armpit. The precise location depends upon your preference for the place the scar is going to be and the kind of implant.
- A breast implant is inserted inside a pocket of tissue either over or underneath the chest muscle (pectoral muscle) but right behind the tissue of the breast.
- The doctor is going to close the interior incisions using layered sutures inside the tissue of the breast.
- Surgical tape, skin adhesive, or sutures are utilized to close the skin. These incisions are going to fade over time.
What You Can Expect During the Breast Augmentation Recovery
You’ll probably have the ability to go home the exact same day of the breast augmentation treatment when you’re able to safely drink water and walk. You must ensure that you get someone to drive you home because the anesthetics are going to make it hard for you to drive yourself safely.
The breast augmentation doctor is going to wrap gauze around the breasts, and you will have to use an elastic bandage or support bra that minimizes swelling and supports the breasts while they heal. You might have the ability to remove the gauze in a couple of days, yet the doctor might suggest that you wear the support bra for a couple of months.
Recovery differs for each kind of procedure and implant; therefore, your doctor will provide you specific post-op directions. You also will have to arrange a follow-up session to ensure that the breasts are healing properly.
Within one to five days, all pain should start to subside. But you may have some swelling or soreness for a couple of weeks. Take it easy and decrease your activity levels after the treatment to help the body heal. Check with the doctor concerning resuming normal activity and specific limitations on exercise.