You have just gotten home from the clinic after breast reduction surgery in Liverpool. Your anaesthetic has worn off and you feel in a bit of discomfort. Was your surgery worth it? Definitely!
While you will experience some side effects from undergoing surgery at first, this will not last forever. Within a few weeks your lifestyle can mostly return to normal, and within a few months you will be fully healed and ready to enjoy life with your new, perfect breasts.
We know that you will want to hurry up and start enjoying life without the pain and discomfort that your breasts once caused you, but our advice would be instead to take it easy at first. You can still feel sore 4 weeks after breast reduction but it will fade soon. Prioritise your recovery now rather than jumping straight back on the horse so that in the future your results are the best they could possibly be.
And just how good will your new breasts look a year later? While this does depend on each individual, by the time you reach the anniversary of your surgery you should be noticeably happier with your appearance, experiencing less pain or discomfort, and have scars that have healed fully and are harder to notice.
Carry on reading for more information on how your breasts will look after you have followed all of our aftercare instructions regarding your breast reduction surgery.
Does breast reduction leave scars?
Even after recovering from breast reduction, it can still leave scars. This is because breast surgery relies on creating incisions, usually around the areola and the lower half of the breast, to access and remove breast tissue.
There are different techniques that surgeons may use when performing breast reduction surgery, and each one will create different incisions and therefore leave behind different levels of scarring once your breast reduction scars have healed.
For minor breast reductions, a surgeon will likely use what’s referred to as a lollipop incision. This involves creating a circular incision around the areola, and a vertical incision from the bottom of the areola to the bottom of the breast. When your scars have healed, they will resemble the shape of a lollipop – hence the name.
For more substantial breast reductions, a surgeon may have to use an anchor incision. This involves creating a lollipop incision as well, but then also creating a horizontal incision below the breast fold so that the scars created resemble an anchor. This type of incision allows a surgeon to remove more breast tissue, but it does mean that there will be more scarring as a result.
Healed breast reduction scars
The longest lasting side effect of surgery will be your scarring. Fortunately, there are techniques that you can use and advice that you should follow to help your scars recover faster, and breast reduction healed scars can often be hard to detect underneath clothing so you shouldn’t let your scarring hold you back from being confident in your new self.
Following surgery, your scars will be very raised and aggressive in colour. As time passes and your recovery progresses, your scar tissue will lower and become more neutral in colour, making them less noticeable compared to your skin tissue.
Healed scars will unfortunately be more noticeable on individuals with darker skin due to the pigment in the scar tissue, and they are also more at risk of hyperpigmentation in their scars which will make them even more noticeable.
You can see examples of healed breast reduction scars by looking at some of our breast reduction pictures. There we also discuss the importance of taking clear pictures before and after surgery so you can monitor your results, and that way you can compare your breast reduction scars after 8 months or so to see how you have recovered since your operation.
What’s the best scar treatment after breast surgery?
After breast surgery, your treatment provider will give you strict instructions that you must follow for your recovery. One of the most important elements of this will be compression of the breasts. Compression will help aid recovery and allow your breasts to settle in their desired position after surgery.
There are other important elements of your aftercare that you should abide by if you want the best results. This includes eating healthily, not smoking, and not soaking the treatment area for the first few weeks after surgery.
On top of this, there are also some alternative treatments that can be quite beneficial if performed properly. We touch on this in our article on should I massage my breast implants.
Breast reduction with an experienced surgeon in Liverpool
If you are experiencing pain or discomfort because of your breasts, or simply want them to be a smaller size, then get in touch with us at the New Birkdale Clinic and we can schedule a consultation between yourself and one of our top-class surgeons.
And if you are reading this for advice on your recovery, or for hope that you will be happy with your breasts after you have recovered, then we hope we have put you at ease! Now rest up, focus on your recovery, and look forward to a point in the future, perhaps in a year or so, when you realise that you have not thought about breast discomfort for a very long time.
