January 26th, 2009 Dr. Decherd
If you read my piece on Breast Implant Sizing, you can see that the volume is only half the story. When considering a breast augmentation, we need to look at the width of the chest as well. Wider chests require more volume to achieve similar looks to a narrower chest.
Here is another example–this is 700 cc at 4 months. This is a silicone breast implant, although I think saline breast implants look the same. (see Silicone Breast Implants for more about implants).
You can see how the implants have fallen into place a little more compared with the example in the last post. And again, I have no desire to make anyone larger than they wish–but if someone is going to go through breast enhancement, I certainly hope to get them to the size they want.
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January 17th, 2009 Dr. Decherd
Picking the right size implant is a tough thing for women seeking breast augmentation. The majority of women in my practice state that they do not want to go too big. But I have found that everyone has a different concept of what constitutes “too big”. My goal is to match a woman with her desired outcome. And certainly we hate to see a woman go through the procedure and wish she was bigger. So picking a breast implant is a process we spend a lot of time going over with the patient.
The final breast volume will be a sum of the native breast tissue plus the implant. And while everyone can look on the internet and see a result they like, knowing the volume of the implant is only half of the story.
The reason why is because I try to match the width of the implant to the width of the breast. And there are a variety of breast widths. So just because a person’s friend got so many cc’s, and looks great, that may not apply to that person, because comparing her to her friend may be like comparing apples to oranges if they have different widths (and different amounts of starting tissue).
And so narrower breasts will require less volume than wider breasts to get a similar look in different women.
For a given width, then, we try to determine if a woman wants low, medium, or high profile implants (they may have slightly different names). At a given width, the three different profiles have different projections but the same diameter. So the lowest profile is flatter, and the highest profile is more round. This is true in both saline implants and silicone implants.
Here is an example of a woman who got 800cc high profile silicone implants–the largest volume made.
While this may be larger than another individual may desire, it is certainly not overdone. For her frame they fit very nicely. But in another woman they might be too big. A woman with a narrower breast might get a similar look with a much smaller implant.
And this is only at 3 months…they ought to settle a little bit more over time, causing the upper pole to be less convex while the lower pole expands a little bit.
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January 15th, 2009 Dr. Decherd
Sometimes women ask me if they can still have a tummy tuck with previous scars from other older abdominal surgeries. For scars below the belly button, this skin is usually removed, and so it if often much better. Of course there is a new scar, but it can often be hidden under underwear.
This individual is 3 months out from a tummy tuck and a breast augmentation (also known as a Mommy Makeover, which sometimes includes liposuction and can fall under the larger umbrella of body contouring). She obviously had lower abdominal existing scars. These are now hidden under her underwear.
The scar that DOES cause concern is a large horizontal scar above the belly button. This is because it may interrupt the blood supply to the skin after a tummy tuck.
The classic one we see is from an open cholecystectomy. (This is less common with the wide introduction of laparoscopy.) Vertical scars may limit the result but are usually OK for healing.
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