Implants + plastic surgery

Anesthesia

general (anesthesia)

Duration

approx. 4 h

Stay in clinic

1 day

Recovery period

• Return to mental work and driving after approx. 1-2 weeks.
• Return to light physical work (without exposing breasts to injury) after approx. 1 month.
• Return to light physical exertion after 1 month.
• Return to strenuous physical exertion (e.g., horse riding, running, skiing) after 3 months.

Certain types of very strenuous physical exertion are not recommended at all after surgery (very high load on pectoral muscles, risk of breast injury).

Wearing special underwear:

Wearing special supportive underwear (bra) for 3 months non-stop.

Follow-up examinations

• The day after the procedure – local condition check, drain removal if inserted, discharge home.
• after 1 week (necessary) – local condition check, partial suture removal.
• after 2 weeks (necessary) – local condition check, removal of remaining sutures.
• After approx. 1 month from suture removal (optional) (scar condition check).
• after 12 months with breast ultrasound results – final assessment of the surgery outcome (essential).

Medication after the procedure

Over-the-counter painkillers;

Inevitable consequences of the operation (always occur)

swelling, bruising, scar, sensory disturbances in the scar area, palpable small thickenings along the scar – absorbable subcutaneous sutures; the palpability of implants is an unavoidable consequence of their insertion. Slight breast asymmetry is present before the procedure and usually remains afterwards.

Complications (may occur)

1. Complications: Early (rare): hematoma (requires surgical removal of blood), infection (requires implant removal and antibiotic administration), prolonged wound healing, nipple/areola complex necrosis (extremely rare), breast asymmetry always occurs before the procedure (it may decrease after the procedure, but it may also worsen), dissatisfaction with the aesthetic outcome of the procedure (subjective feeling of breasts being too small or too large).
2. Late complications (relatively common! – there are no reliable long-term statistics as for implant-only surgeries or breast reconstruction with implants; data from doctors considered world leaders in this surgery – every 3rd patient requires another procedure within 5 years): implant rupture, capsular contracture around implants, fluid around implants, implant visibility, unaesthetic scars, dissatisfaction with breast shape/size (breasts cup C and larger, when augmented with implants, become even larger and tend to sag; native breast tissue behaves differently over time than the implant – disharmony may occur), Lymphoma – cancer – associated with textured (rough) breast implants.

In repeat plastic surgeries with breast implants, the risk of all complications is 2x higher than in the primary surgery.