On my first day back at work in the office, I wore a comfortable dress where I could hide my ACE wrap underneath.

After my breast augmentation, I took one week off performing surgery and just saw a few patients in the office.  The hardest day I had was actually self-inflected.  I had wrapped my chest so tightly with an ACE wrap, worried I would swell with increased activity.

Happy to be back in surgery at the start of the day, but felt tired and a little overwhelmed by day’s end…

Just that one day, I felt overwhelmed and sore, needing to unwrap and loosen the ACE between patients.  I probably didn’t need compression anymore at that point, but the wrap was a security blanket and I felt better with it on for the first few weeks over my bra and during sleep.

I wore my own soft bralettes rather than the postop bra I was given as they were most comfortable.  It doesn’t really matter what bra you wear after surgery, or if you wear a bra at all.  “All the work is done on the inside”, I reassure my patients.

I began breast implant massage a couple of days after surgery.  It is important to move the implant around in its space so that the implant pocket does not contract tightly around the breast implant.  This allows the implant to change shape subtly with a change in body position:  when you stand upright the implant assumes a teardrop shape, and when you lie down, it flattens out slightly like a natural breast does.

My nipple sensation woke up with a bang!  I experienced hypersensitivity around a month after surgery.  Compression with an ACE wrap helped with that, and it only lasted a couple of weeks.

My first run after surgery at 3 weeks was easy.  I wondered if it would feel tight, painful, bouncy or different, but it felt completely normal!  I was elated to return to Pure Barre and experienced tightness while stretching my arms up over my head.

Mondor’s bands are common after any type of breast surgery – they are visible if you have little subcutanous fat. See my blog post on this topic to learn more.

I developed a common phenomenon in thin women who have breast surgery, called “Mondor’s bands”.  These bands are unusual but self-limiting tiny cords that can form under the breast after a breast augmentation, mastopexy (breast lift) or breast reduction in women with little subcutaneous fat.  See my blog about Mondor’s bands here where I shared images of MY own condition!  It went away on its own in several weeks on the left, 3 months on the right (my dominant side).

I wondered if anyone noticed.  Other than the individuals at the hospital I told, my office team who all knew and my family and close friends, I don’t think anyone really did.  My sisters guessed when they saw me last summer, as I usually wear form-fitting tops, but I had to tell my mother “Mom, guess what – I had surgery”, to which she answered “Oh no, what’s wrong?”  She didn’t believe me!  I had to lift up my shirt and show her my natural and proportional results, which she agreed looked beautiful and perfect for my body.

I didn’t have an opportunity to record video while on my summer vacation (fun with my family!), so the next update was at 5 weeks months postop:

My final two blog posts will be about body image changes and my final results.  Sign up below to receive alerts to be the first to read them when they’re live!

I allowed Natrelle, the breast implant devision from Allergan, to share that I had a breast augmentation.  Practice what you preach!