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Author: foreignhaus | Total views: 29 Comments: 0
Word Count: 781 Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:52 PM

Post Breast Augmentation Surgery Follow-up Vital To Your Health

Routine follow-up visit schedules vary among surgeons. Plasitic Surgeons like to check with their patients within the first two days following surgery, then at three weeks, three months, one year, and every two years thereafter.

Surgeons also instruct every patient to come in at any time they have any question or concern. One of the biggest problems with augmentation patients is failure to show up for follow-up visits. You think, "I'm doing great and don't have any problems, so I don't need to waste time and make a trip to see my surgeon."

Wrong! Even if the visit is routine, your surgeon will be able to take better care of you and identify potential problems sooner if you do your part and show up. A surgeon should never charge you for follow-up visits following augmentation because they are part of the original costs.

Take advantage of your surgeon's efforts to take the best possible care of you, no matter how well you think you're doing.

Your breasts are supported primarily by your breast skin. As you get older, your breast skin usually becomes thinner and does not provide as much support. The larger your implants or the larger an unaugmented breast, the more weight in the breast and the more gravity will pull and stretch the skin over time, allowing your breast to sag.

Breasts that are supported some of the time sag less than breasts that are supported none of the time. Sagging how much and when depends on your tissue characteristics, the size of your implants, your age, and how much you support your breasts.

Supporting your breasts, especially during activities that stress the skin and accelerate sagging, can decrease the amount of sagging and delay its onset. You can't totally escape the inevitable effects of gravity pulling on breast weight over time, but you can help.

What happens if you never wear a bra? Check out pictures in National Geographic of women who live in cultures where the breast is never supported. Aging is inevitable, but supporting the breast, at least some of the time, can delay the inevitable and reduce sagging.

If your breasts are bouncing, they are sagging faster than if they are not bouncing. Support your breasts during any activity that causes bouncing.

Whenever you are doing any activity that causes your breasts to bounce, wear a bra or even two jog bras, if necessary, to immobilize the breasts as much as possible. Bouncing puts more stress on the skin in your lower breast and causes it to stretch more rapidly and to a greater degree.

That stretch is what allows your breasts to sag. Bouncing is bad. Aside from activities that cause bouncing, wear a bra at least some of the time. At other times, enjoy your breasts. You don't need to wear a bra all the time.

Breast self-examination is an essential activity for every woman. One out of every ten or eleven women in the United States will develop breast cancer during her lifetime, and breast self-examination is one of the keys to early detection and cure.

Ask your gynecologist, family physician, or plastic surgeon to demonstrate optimal techniques. Perform breast self-examination every month about two weeks after the beginning of your menstrual period.

Your breast implants should not interfere with self-examination because the implants are behind, not within, the breast tissue. All of your breast tissue is in front of your implants and is totally accessible for examination by you or your physician.

In fact, provided you don't have excessive firmness from capsular contracture, many physicians feel that breast examination is easier with implants in place.

Your breasts will feel different after you have implants. If you are thin and can feel your ribs with your fingers, you will probably be able to feel at least some part of your implants behind your breast regardless of the type of implants that you have.

Wait until about three months after surgery to allow all swelling to resolve, and then ask your surgeon to demonstrate how to feel the edges of your implant in the lower or outer breast. Once you recognize the implant, you can distinguish it from anything else that is abnormal in either breast.

The larger your implants, the more you are likely to feel portions of the implant as you get older, because larger implants can cause more stretch and thinning that adds to the normal thinning most women experience as they age.

About the Author

Dave Stringham, the President of LookingYourBest.com writes about plastic surgery in Dallas, Texas and plastic surgery procedures like dallas breast augmentation, rhinoplasty, forehead lift, liposuction, abdominoplasty, and brachioplasty.