Breast implants can greatly enhance your sagging breasts due to aging, childbirth, weight gain or loss, or inherently small breasts. However, most women who choose to enhance their breast by getting saline or silicone implants have very little clue (no idea!) what they are really getting themselves into when they get that breast augmentation procedure. Breast augmentation is a major plastic surgery decision and carefully weighing all the potential risks and benefits is tantamount.

Getting breast implants is no small matter and involves some serious consideration. This is my first posting on breast augmentation procedures. I will go into more detail however I am right now just touching on some of the “food for thought” considerations every woman should contemplate when considering this type of plastic surgery. To read more recent and related follow on posts on breast augmentation be sure to click the “breast augmentation” tag at the bottom of this blog article.

Warning: Your first breast implant surgery will most likely not be your last!

Most women don’t realize that once you get breast implants there is a very high probability that you will be going under the plastic surgeons knife one, two, yes maybe even three or more times having to do with those implants. For one thing, implants don’t last forever. I’ve heard one beauty quote from a plastic surgeon wrt breast implants “implants are just like tires, they need to be replaced every 10 years or so”. I’ve heard of some women who have had their implants for two decades but I would say those are the exception not the rule. Most have or choose to go back for one reason or another within around 10 years (if not sooner) just like that surgeon stated so succinctly.

Risks and complications

Your body is this flat plank, your breasts have all this mushy tissue to them, you’re inserting two synthetic nodules into that, what are the odds that they will come out perfectly. What are the odds that they will be perfectly symmetrical, perfectly sized, perfectly placed, and that they will heal and mesh perfectly with your body’s own tissue? The statistics say that there are substantial complications (I’ve read it’s around 10%-15% complications or so). What I am saying is that there are more complications than even that. So many women go for revision breast surgery it’s not even funny. And most of the revision breast surgeries don’t get written down into the complication statistics.

Basically it’s a women saying, something is not quite right here and my breasts actually look sort of weird and I am going to go back and get them done better. Maybe the same plastic surgeon will give me a big discount, or I can go to someone new and pay more. While I am at it, I might go for another nip/tuck somewhere else on my body too and no one will be the wiser. In following blog posts I will go into more detail on types of complications. Most complications come down to asymmetry, the breasts just don’t look aesthetically pleasing because of their position and location on the chest, and hardening (called capsular contracture) which means one breast gets scar tissue and moves , feels or looks funny after healing from the surgery. Often times capsular contracture doesn’t really become obvious until a few years after the actual breast surgery.

Breast augmentation surgeons

If you are considering any type of breast surgery, your selection of surgeon is very important. You want to receive quality care and select an experienced breast doctor. Board certified plastic surgeons (or breast surgeons) who have extensive breast implant surgery experience will possess the well-honed skills and life’s experience that you want. They also will know all the tricks in the book for reducing your possibility of encountering the risks and complications from the surgery. You want the benefit of a surgeon who has perfected his techniques over time.

I have to say that each person is so different, heals so differently and especially with breasts more than any other body part, there are so many variables, that even the best surgeon in the world isn’t going to stop the true fact that you might encounter complications and that there is a good chance you’ll be getting this procedure done again during the course of your lifetime. If I had to guess, breast augmentation and nose rhinoplasty are likely the two plastic surgeries that tend to have the most revisions done subsequently.

Word of mouth is invaluable when considering doctors, if you have a network of friends that have used this surgeon and are pleased with the results then that is fine recommendation. I recommend finding someone in your area with a very good reputation, or if you travel because you live in a small town then not too far – maybe a bigger city near to you where there are reputable doctors that you know about. Having family near you is always good too since having breast surgery involves going under general anesthesia.

At the very least you should get several consultations and think about this for a while before plunging forward. Look at the books, your own breasts, and pictures of breasts sizes and shapes that you like. All of these things are important to talk with any surgeon about. Also make sure you have the right amount of time off from work (about 7 days) and you can’t do any serious exercise for 6-8 weeks after the surgery.

The personality and style of the doctor is very important too. If you want a flashy look then you can go find a celebrity doctor like Dr Reye (or one of the other doctors of the stars) from Beverly Hills Doctor 90210 on E TV channel (LOL) who seems flamboyant and likes big implants. If you are conservative then go to a doctor who is more conservative. I say go conservative and not over the top. The style of the doctor and how that meshes with your style is really important. His style and finesse is going to be applied directly to your breasts believe it or not! If you have the same sense of aesthetics as him, you might be a close match and a good fit. You two will both be likely to admire the same set of boobs ha ha.

Don’t forget to look at the before after breast augmentation pictures and examples! Be sure to look at the book of before and after breast augmentation photos and any pictures that he has available at his office. Most plastic surgeons save pictures and have a book of before/after surgery results photographs on hand for his patients to check out. They should be the before and after results photos from his surgeries specifically and not from a generic pamphlet or his colleague or underling or mentor. You want to see specific work that he himself has done (or she).

Remember Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde? Not sure which one is which, but Mr Hyde is the doctor that gives you your first breast augmentation procedure. Then, when you have a complication and are unhappy, that same Dr Hyde turns into Dr. Jekyl. Dr Jekyl really doesn’t want to see you again and wants you to go away. I guess that’s a mean example but all I am saying is you need to choose a plastic surgeon wisely. Any surgeon is going to do all that he personally can because he doesn’t want you to return unhappy. His reputation is at stake too. Trust me, he doesn’t want to be Dr Jekyl either.

Types of breast implants

There are the saline breast implants and the newer silicone breast implants. In the 1990’s the saline implants were the Rolls Royce of breast implants. They eliminated the fear of silicon that many women had (you heard all these reports of women getting everything from malaise to lupus to systemic diseases from the early silicon breast implants in the 70’s and 80’s). The cool thing about the saline breast implants was that the top surgeons could get them into your body via an armpit incision, route them down to your breast, and inflate them remotely. Cool, no visible scars. The only problem with that is that it roughed up your chest a bit when they tunneled that implant down to your boob, and maybe less control in the placement.

Now in the 2000’s the new silicon implants have really taken over the trend. Because they are solid cohesive gel (saline feels like a water balloon, silicon is like a gummy bear) they can’t go in under the arm but instead they go directly into the breast. They usually make a half moon incision in the bottom part of your nipple to put the implant in, some put them in via an opening just under the breast in the fold. The nipple insertion is more popular I think. A bad scar can create disfigurement (I remember seeing Tara Reid’s disfigured nipple splashed all over gossip sites when she had a nipple slip at some event) however those areola insertion scars in the best cases heal up without big incident. Click on the next button below to read more on top considerations a women should know before deciding on breast augmentation. The breast augmentation tag below will lead you to all of my beauty articles about breast augmentation surgery, also known as boob job.