Before and after bilateral breast implant removal in a 32-year-old woman with implants that she felt were too tall and too big for her body. She had “tried getting used to them” but just couldn’t. Explantation was a good option for her.
Removal of breast implants is offered to our patients as awake surgery, under local anesthesia. Most women are relieved that they do not need to go to sleep again and that they do not need drains. Surgery takes around one hour. Patients can shower in two days and resume exercise in two weeks.
If there is a scar under the breast, it can be re-used to access the implant pocket, in this case. If the implants were inserted through the armpit or belly button, this incision cannot be re-used for future surgery. They are considered “one-time” incisions. Peri-areolar incisions (around the bottom of the areola) are possible to be re-used for breast implant removal, but the healing takes a lot longer and there is distortion from swelling through all the layers of the breast after surgery that can persist for months.
Follow up photos are shown 3 months after surgery (please excuse any out-of-focus images). The breast naturally retracts and assumes its pre-augmentation form.
*All photos are actual patient photographs and are for illustrative purposes only. Individual results may vary.
