Standard Breast Reduction

Breast reduction is the perfect plastic surgery operation: it is a procedure that is medically necessary and also cosmetic.

Breast reduction patients can suffer from neck, shoulder, back, and breast pain. At the same time, their breasts may make them look overweight, may prohibit certain physical activities, attract unwelcome stares, or prevent them from wearing more fashionable clothing.

The drawback of a breast reduction is the scar. Unless a patient has little droopiness and is a candidate for reduction by liposuction alone, a scar is inevitable after breast reduction.

The photographs in this book will help you to visualize the spectrum of results that are possible with a breast reduction. Outcomes differ due to differences in patient requests and their preoperative condition such as size, droopiness, age, and skin quality.

Since all of these surgeries were performed by Dr. Teitelbaum using similar techniques, the differences in the scars is largely a result of each patient's individual biology. Breast reduction scars can range from the nearly invisible to the very obvious, and no surgeon can assure any patient beforehand what their scar will look like.

In order to decide to have a breast reduction, a patient must decide that their symptoms and appearance are worth the price of the scars.

The photographs are organized here to help you visualize the spectrum of results that can be achieved with a breast reduction. At the beginning, there is a group of photographs in which the preoperative breast is superimposed over the final result. Then there is a group of "split screen" photographs, in which carefully taken before and after photographs are spliced together to show the same breast before and after surgery. Finally, a large number of photos taken in standardized positions are presented.

A patient's before photo determines a lot about what kind of result she will be able to achieve with each method. Look at how large the breasts are, how low they sit on her body, the quality of her skin, and whether the nipples point down or up.

There are clearly patients whose breasts are so perky and high that it would seems senseless to have the scars of a standard reduction. But for many others, deciding on which procedure is a matter of determining whether the elevation of the breast with a standard reduction is worth the price of the scars.

Standard Breast Reduction Patient Photo Gallery >>

Swelling and Recovery

Understanding the recovery process is important for patients considering any surgery.

This is particularly important with breast reductions. Patients understandably have a high degree of anxiety about what something as personal and aesthetic as their breasts will look like after surgery.

They also want to know how long they will be swollen, and the time period over which the scars will fade.

They often ask how long it takes for breasts to settle into their final shape after surgery. After a breast reduction the breasts often look high and even squarish. This is important to realize ahead of time because the lower part of the breast always stretches and settles after a breast reduction. If it looked perfect right after surgery, it might look too low later.

These photographs were selected in order to demonstrate the spectrum of results that are often seen following a breast reduction. While the breasts are sore and uncomfortable right after surgery, most patients need no more than a few pain pills a day for a couple of days after surgery.

What's most remarkable about breast reduction patients is that so many of them come into the office the day after surgery smiling and ecstatic about how much better they feel after - literally - a weight has been removed from their chest!

View Swelling and Recovery Photos >>

"Scarless" Breast Reduction

Breast reduction by liposuction is often referred to as "scarless" breast reduction. In fact, there is always some scar. But the scar is extremely small and for all intents and purposes, is barely noticeable. Just look at the first photographs in this series of close-ups under a woman's breasts. Only with her arm raised and pulling up on her breast are two small little scars noticed along the crease under her breast following breast reduction by liposuction.

If you look through these before and after breast reduction photographs, you will see many excellent results. So why would anyone undergo a standard breast reduction that involved significant scars?

There are two reasons. The first is that we never know ahead of time just how much volume we will be able to remove with liposuction breast reduction. Some breasts are very fatty, and lots of volume can be removed by liposuction. But some breasts are more glandular, and in those cases less can be removed. Though a surgeon can make a prediction before surgery as to how much might be removed with scarless breast reduction, one can never know for sure.

The second reason is the more important one: it is that breast reduction by liposuction alone does not remove any skin. Any lifting that occurs is due to the skin recoiling upwards as some of the weight that is pulling the breasts downwards is reduced. Tighter, thicker, and more elastic skin will snap back better than loose, thinned, and stretch-marked skin. So if a patient is bothered by a significant degree by looseness or droopiness, then they should consider a standard reduction.

In addition to the nearly invisible scars, scarless breast reduction entails less pain and a faster recovery than a standard reduction.

If you are trying to decide what type of lift might work for you, look at the pictures in this book as well as the pictures in the standard reduction book. Pay careful attention to their size, skin type, and their final outcome to see which you might want for yourself.

"Scarless" Breast Reduction Patient Photo Gallery >>

Scarless Breast Reduction Swelling and Recovery

In addition to avoiding significant scars, the other reason women choose the scarless breast reduction is to have a quicker and easier recovery. These photographs show a number of women the day after surgery, as well as at various stages after the operation.

There are usually just one or two stitches under the breast that are removed about five days after surgery.

Some patients get significant swelling and bruising, while others get little. In either case, the swelling is usually resolved within several weeks.

The breasts are swollen and can feel sore and engorged, but this operation is not very painful and most patients need to take no more than a few pain pills to get comfortably through the recovery.

View Scarless Swelling and Recovery Photos >>

Superimposed Before and After Photographs

It has hard to appreciate the significance of the volume change with a scarless breast reduction when moving your eyes between two separate pictures. In these photos, before and after pictures of scarless breast reduction patients are shown superimposed upon one another. Many patients tell us that this is a very helpful way to visualize what breast reduction by liposuction can accomplish.

View Superimposed Before and After Photographs >>

Split Screen

Another helpful way to understand scarless breast reduction is to look at split screen images. In each of these cases, the after shot was flipped, so that the left became the right breast.

The photos were cut and fused with their before scarless breast reduction photographs, so what you are looking at is at a photo of two right breasts, with the before breast to your left and the after breast to your right. You can verify that these are accurately lined up by the position of birthmarks on these patients' bodies.

These images are an excellent way in a single glance to notice the power of breast reduction by liposuction. Note how much more upper stomach is visible; this makes the waist look longer and the stomach flatter. This view also gives one an appreciation in a single glance how much smaller, lighter, and thinner a woman can look after scarless breast reduction.

View Split Screen Patient Photo Gallery >>

Scars

Scars are visible on all the breast reduction photographs that have been shown on this website. But many patients want to look at the scars more closely.

So in this section are close-ups of the breast reduction scars themselves.

This section of this website been filled with photographs of nearly invisible scars or of very prominent pictures of breast reduction scars. In fact, your scar could be better than the best breast reduction scar you see here, or worse than the worst. In all likelihood, your breast reduction scare will be somewhere in the middle.

These photos are an honest portrayal of the spectrum of scars that occur following a breast reduction.

As you assess the scars, look at the degree of improvement the patient demonstrates both in terms of the reduction of volume and the lift that was achieved. Each patient must decide for herself whether these improvements would justify the scars personally for them.

There are breast reduction techniques that eliminate the horizontal scar under the breast. But these techniques limit the amount of skin that is removed and therefore do not allow the same degree of breast shaping as when the horizontal scar is used.

In addition, eliminating the horizontal scar often requires "bunching" of skin on the vertical scar, which can make that scar - the most visible scar - wider, more irregular, and often in need of a revision procedure.

While the scar seems like it is a big deal before surgery, it is something that does not bother most of these patients after surgery. What they enjoy is the lightness, the comfort, the fashion of a lighter and svelter figure. Most patients' friends do not even realize they had a breast reduction. Their friends usually think they only lost weight and are wearing prettier clothes!

View Scars Photos >>