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Breast implant and augmentation - Best ways to prepare for surgery and the recovery period

Article Submitted by: Adrian Richards

Friday, 03 July 2009

Hello, my name's Adrian Richards, I'm consultant plastic surgeon and today I'm going to be talking a little about what actually happens when you have a breast augmentation. So what happens when you come in to hospital, what happens at the operation, what you remember, the recovery period and when you can get back to activities.

So the first thing is that normally you would have seen myself or one of the other surgeons who have discussed the sizes of the implants and the best option for you. Then you would have had an opportunity to look at the implants, that's about an hour appointment which we talk about in a separate video. We call it the sizing appointment where to get to sort of see how the implants look on you.

Once you've made the decision that you would like to go ahead with the procedure, what normally happens is about a week before the operation, you'll be contacted to let you know what the best time to come to hospital is. So there are certain things that are important; before you come in, you need to take it easy over the weekend, don't do anything too stressful, try to avoid alcohol over the weekend and certainly try and avoid smoking for two weeks before surgery. Don't take any medication like aspirin, Nurofen, Voltarol because they can increase the risk of bleeding so it's important not to take those. Other tablets which are more homeopathic we don't like you taking are Ginkgo, Vitamin E, and St John's Wort. Again, these have a potential risk of increasing the risk of bleeding so please don't take those before you come in. So essentially a restful weekend before you come in; take it easy, don't come in all stressed and tired.

When you come in, you'll be brought into the hospital, meet the nurses and then they'll admit you. So that means they're going to do lots of blood tests, listen to your heart, check your blood pressure, all those sort of issues and then get you into your gown. At that stage, I'll come and see you and again go over the sizes of the implant, nature of the operation and I'll draw on you. So it's important that the markings I make on you are really to help me inside, to make sure the breast implants are seated properly and everything is nice and symmetrical. Then normally my anaesthetist will come and see you as well. I have a lady anaesthetist normally who'll come and discuss from her side of the operation, check that you've not had problems with anaesthetic before, go through the questionnaire and make sure you're okay with the anaesthetic and answer any queries you may have.

Then you'll go down to the operating theatre, we do like you not to have eaten anything for six hours before the operation and you can drink what we call clear fluids up to about three hours before the operation. Clear fluids are basically watery fluids, not orange squash with any bits in so nothing with any bits in it. The reason for that is because we don't like anything in the stomach when you're having your operation, we like it to have all been cleared through.

So you go down to the operation, we normally remove any external jewellery or tape it so if you've got a belly button ring or tongue stud or earrings, we tend to generally tape those before the operation. We also don't like you to put any body oil on before the operation, two days before the operation because that can interfere with the antiseptic ointments that we put on. The other important thing is if you don't want to wear those horrible hospital underwear pants, bring in some pure cotton pants for you to wear because anything synthetic interferes with some of the machinery so you can't wear anything with synthetic fibres in it but cotton is fine.

So you go down, have your operation, you're put to sleep, we normally put numbing cream on the back of your hand before the operation, a little drip is put in there, it shouldn't hurt because of the numbing cream, then you gently go off to sleep. Often patients when they wake up, don't actually realise they've gone to sleep, they sort of say ‘when's it going to happen?' they don't realise it's happened. Then in the operation, I'll put local anaesthetic in around the breast tissue so it shouldn't be sore when you wake up, it's very important that when you wake up, you shouldn't be in pain. It's very rare now for any patients to feel sick after the operation because with old fashioned anaesthetics, people tended to feel sick, generally you shouldn't feel sick. When you wake up, we wake you up nice and slowly, if you had it in the morning, you should be having lunch at lunch time.

So that evening, it does tend to become slightly more tender and swollen because the local anaesthetics have worn off so we do give you pain killers. We normally give you IV paracetamol, we give you antibiotics to ward off infection. We also give you normally Celebrex which is a non steroidal which doesn't upset your tummy and we sometimes give you codeine so we really look after the tenderness in that first period. You normally stay overnight with us, you'll be in a bra, you'll be checked in the morning and if everything is okay, you'll go home and the rest of the week is really take it easy at home. So you can go around, go for gentle walks, don't just lie in bed, keep moving but nothing too strenuous. So certainly no hovering, no household chores and don't lift, if you've got young children, you won't be able to lift those, you won't be able to handle a car seat for the first week and no driving for the first week.

When you leave, you'll be making an appointment for approximately a week in the dressings clinic. If you've got any concerns in that week, all you need to do is contact us and someone will talk to you or if necessary, we can get you back in and check everything so please if you're worried, 90% of things are not a problem. It's very common to have one breast slightly more swollen than the other and if you ring us, we can give you reassurance on that.

At a week, we'll see you, remove the bra, remove the brown tape and just trim the ends of the absorbable stitch and reapply some tape and at that stage, it's important to have bought a C and D cup support bra. Normally we recommend Marks and Spencer total support bra which we'll swap you into at that stage. So one tip a patient mentioned is keep the labels on and then you can take it back if it doesn't fit perfectly. Then at that stage, you're normally okay to drive and then we encourage you just to resume normal activities slowly, aerobics or exercise, lower body exercise, you need to wait three or four weeks for.

Then we see you at six weeks, within which case all the swelling will have normally gone and that's when we take post operative photographs, we can give you a copy of those, we can give you copies of the before and after if you'd like. Then after that, we like to see you on a yearly basis, we like to see you every year for a check up but we have an open door policy so if you're at all worried in any way about any aspect at any time, all you need to do is ring up and we'll see you as soon as possible.

So I hope that's clarified some of the issues regarding the surgery, if you do have any more, please contact us either by email or phone and we'll be happy to answer them. Thank you.

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About The Author:

Adrian Richards is a consultant plastic surgeon works with Aurora Clinics. For more information on Breast Implants Milton Keynes and Breast Reduction Milton Keynes he recommends you to visit http://www.aurora-clinics.co.uk/

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