When it comes to changing the look, shape, or size of their breasts, some women can get a little confused as to what kind of procedure they should get.

Breast lift or breast augmentation – or a combination thereof?

Plastic surgeons often hear the question: “what’s the difference between a breast lift and breast augmentation?”

We’re going to look at both procedures, what they entail, possible outcomes, and general cost so that you can get a better idea of what to ask for when you sit down for a consultation.

Breast Augmentation

The purpose of a breast augmentation procedure is to enhance the size of the breasts. Augmentation involves breast implants and several important decisions on both the part of the surgeon and the patient. Some of the things that will need to be decided before undergoing the knife are:

Implant Placement and Incision – The exact spot where the surgeon places the breast implant will play a role in determining the shape of the breast. During the initial consultation, the surgeon will explain the various outcomes that will result from placement in different areas.

The patient and surgeon will also need to agree on where the incision should take place. The most common areas for incision are under the armpit, under the fold of the breast, or around the nipple. Each incision area has advantages and disadvantages that the surgeon will also explain during the consultation.

Implant Shape and Size – There are many options available for changing the shape and size of the breasts. Some of these options will need to be weighed against the body features of the prospective patient.

The chest wall shape, body form, lifestyle, and overall goals will all need to be taken into consideration with regards to choosing the final shape and size of the breasts. A good surgeon will have recommendations and can help guide the patient into making a decision in which she will be pleased with the outcome.

Type of Implant – Patients will also need to figure out if they want saline or silicone implants. Silicone is usually more expensive, requires a much larger incision, and can involve more work for the surgeon.

The trade off is that silicone implants have a more natural look and feel to them which is excellent for women who have little natural breast tissue.

Saline implants can add shape and volume without changing the overall feel of the breasts. They tend to work best for women who have ample natural breast tissue.

Breast Lift

When breasts lose volume, they tend to sag. This happens most often as women get older and their bodies start to change. Childbirth and weight loss or gain can also cause breasts to sag. Breast lifts completely avoid implants and instead focus on the surgical correction and lifting of saggy breasts.

There are three main types of breast lift procedures:

Periareolar – The incision approach from this procedure follows the natural areola shape and works best for women who have large areolas with minimal breast sagging.

Vertical breast reduction – This procedure is similar to the periareolar one, but it also extends downwards from the areola, thereby giving a slightly greater lift for women who have moderate sagging issues.

Inverted-T incisions – This is the most common procedure and produces relatively predictable results. It gives the maximum amount of breast lift possible.

Can You Combine Both?

At the end of the day, the work that will be done will be contingent upon the desires of the patient and the expertise of the surgeon.  Sometimes this means that a surgeon might recommend both a breast augmentation and breast lift. This is done to help restore the breasts to what they looked like when the patient was younger.

Which One is Right for You?

Changing the shape and size of your breasts is a very personal decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly or based solely on a picture you saw in a magazine or on the internet.

This is why it’s so important that you choose a qualified plastic surgeon who has the experience and know-how to help guide your decision and give you the results that you’re looking for.

Dr. Adams is not only an accomplished plastic surgeon and Associate Clinical Professor of Plastic Surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center, but he’s also an international authority on breast augmentation and enlargement. Women from all over the country fly into Dallas to have Dr. Adams perform their breast lifts and augmentations.      

Breast Lifts and Augmentations in Dallas

If you’re unhappy with the shape, size, or sagginess of your breasts, give the offices of Dr. Adams a call at (214) 965-9885 or contact us via our website. We’re conveniently located just a short ride from DFW airport.  Dr. Adams and his staff will help you regain lost confidence and a new outlook on life!

There have been several studies that looked at the potential risks that might be associated with ruptured silicone implants. Researchers concluded that an implant rupture is a “relatively harmless condition.” The main risk arises from the potential of the silicone to spread to other parts of the body such as the lymph nodes where it can cause serious medical complications if not removed.

Previous generation implants lasted only 10 years; however, current generation implants last much longer and there is no timepoint when they should be replaced. Patients are recommended to have annual follow-up on breast implants.

What are silicone breast implants?

Silicone implants are filled with a silicone gel substance and are generally considered to be more life-like than saline implants. They were developed in 1962, mainly for breast reconstructive surgery patients who have had a mastectomy. It wasn’t until the 1980’s did breast implants explode in popularity for cosmetic purposes.

During this period, several people claimed that implants were unsafe due to the alleged risks of silicone implants rupturing. Despite the scientific community being unable to correlate diseases that were brought on by ruptured silicone implants, the FDA restricted their use to women having reconstructive surgery in the early 1990’s.

Silicone vs. Saline – Which is better?

Both silicone and saline implants have their pros and cons. Some women feel that saline implants are inferior, and don’t look or feel as natural as silicone ones. They also claim that saline implants are more likely to cause rippling of the skin – a dead giveaway of an implant.

Saline implants are only filled once they’re inside the breast pocket, so a much smaller incision is required than a silicone implant would need.

What Causes Silicone Implants to Rupture?

From time to time, silicone implants can fail. Most people call this a rupture, but it is not really a rupture but a tear in the shell of the implant. The vast majority of ruptured implants are due to mammograms. The FDA has reported that around 62% of ruptured implants are thought to have occurred during a mammogram.

Other causes could include:

• End of the lifespan of the implant
• Damage was done accidentally to the implant during initial or secondary surgery
• Wrinkling or folding of the implant shell which weakens structural integrity
• Blunt force trauma to the chest area

Saline implants can rupture just as easily as a silicone one can, however, the saline solution that leaks out will be harmlessly absorbed by the body. The primary cause for concern with a ruptured silicone implant is the potential spread of the silicone gel to other parts of the body where the potential for complications can occur.

How to Tell If Your Implants Have Ruptured

The older the breast implant, the higher the risk of it rupturing. In some cases, it is easy to tell that your silicone implant has ruptured. There will be a visible deformity of the breast, and it won’t look or feel right.

In other cases, the only way for a patient or doctor to tell if an implant has ruptured is to have an MRI or ultrasound performed. Sometimes an implant will burst on its own without any noticeable signs or symptoms. This is why it’s recommended that women who have silicone implants get checked every few years – to be on the safe side.

Some other symptoms of a ruptured implant could include:

• Slow implant deflation over time
• Loss of breast size or shrinking of the implant
• Burning, numbness, swelling, or tingling of the breast
• Breast suddenly seems to “harden” and feel very unnatural
• Lumps or knots around the implant or armpit area

What to Do If a Rupture Occurs?

If only one breast implant has ruptured, it’s usually more cost effective to have them both replaced or removed. The cost of replacing or removing one implant is very similar to having both done. If one implant ruptured due to it nearing the end of its lifespan, it’s very likely that the other implant will rupture soon after.

The best thing to do is to see a surgeon and explain any out of the ordinary symptoms you might be experiencing. During surgery, the doctor will try to remove as much of the leaking silicone material as possible.

Ruptured Breast Implant Solutions in Dallas

If you have had or suspect a breast implant rupture, give our offices a call at (214) 965-9885 or schedule an appointment. Dr. Adams is a nationally-renowned breast implant expert and can help answer any additional questions you might have regarding saline or silicone implants rupturing. We accept patients from all over the country and are conveniently located within a 15-minute drive of Dallas Love Field Airport.

Every so often a news story comes to light about how a woman was shot in the chest by a handgun and her life was saved by her breast implants. The stories all have a similar theme: woman gets shot, breast implants prevent bullet from hitting vital organs.

You can chalk this story up to being “mostly untrue”. While breast implants can impede the forward momentum and progress of a bullet, it’s not enough to save your life in most scenarios.

The Experiment

Christopher Pannucci, a plastic surgeon out of Utah performed an experiment. He and his colleagues analyzed bullets that were shot through breast implants into ballistics gel – which is a gelatinous substance that is designed to mimic human tissue.

The handgun they used fired bullets at 300 meters per second into blocks of ballistics gel 2.5 meters away. They then measured how deep the bullet penetrated. Afterwards, they added a few large saline breast implants in front of the gel and shot it again. They found that the implant reduced the average distance the bullet traveled into the gel by about 20%.

Let’s say that the average human chest cavity is 6” deep. This means if you had breast implants and were shot with a handgun, the bullet would only go 5” deep into your chest cavity. That’s still a mortal wound no matter which way you look at it.

Pannucci performed the experiment after he treated a woman who survived a close-range gunshot. The bullet entered her body around the nipple area, went through the implant and exited her armpit. Seeing that the entrance and exit wounds were not in a straight line, he surmised that the implant played some role in at least slowing down the bullet.

There are a few caveats to this story and experiment. The woman who was shot had 390 cubic centimeter (volume) implants. The large implants that were used in the experiment had a volume of 750cc’s. The “20% reduction rate” of bullet travel that the experiment found is most likely due to the large size of the implant that was used. In other words, if your implants are smaller than 750cc’s, there is a good chance the penetration stoppage power of the implant will be less than 20%.

Medical Complications

If you have implants and are currently in the process of applying to be a body guard, you might want to hold off on the job application. Breast implants were not intended to stop projectiles such as bullets and knives. A knife and/or bullet can easily penetrate through an implant.

Simply put: if you have implants and work in a job where getting shot or stabbed is a potential job hazard, you should probably wear a bullet or stab-proof vest while at work. Having your implants get ruptured can lead to serious medical complications as the gel can literally go everywhere inside your chest cavity.

Can Implants Help?

So far, we’ve learned that implants cannot stop a bullet and there could be potentially life or limb threatening emergencies if they are ruptured while inside your body cavity.

But can implants help prevent a bullet from mortally injuring you – even a little bit?

There have been some reports in the media in which a woman’s life was saved by her implants. In 2010 a California woman was shot and wounded when a gunman opened fire in a dental office. A Beverly Hills plastic surgeon was quoted as saying “The bullet fragments were millimeters from her heart and her vital organs. Had she not had the implant, she might not be alive today.”

As with any news story, we need to dig deeper for the facts of the situation. The woman who was shot had size-D breast implants. The story does not say how many cc’s they were, but the fact that the implants were larger than normal seemed to agree with the results of the study performed by Dr. Pannucci.

Conclusion

It’s safe to say that breast implants cannot stop a bullet. If you have implants and get shot or stabbed, there is a very minute chance they could marginally protect you. However, bullets and knives are designed to destroy whatever they come in contact with. This means the implant in your breast will most likely rupture and can spill the contents inside your body cavity, which will result in severe medical complications.

Simply put: If you have implants and find yourself in a life-threatening situation, you shouldn’t stick your chest out like Superman and attempt to stop the bad guy.

If you’re looking to get breast augmentation surgery in Dallas, Texas, give Dr. Adams a call at 214-965-9885 or schedule a consultation online. The office of Dr. Adams is conveniently located 30 minutes from DFW airport and 15 minutes from Love Field Airport.

When most women get breast implants, they tend to go up a size or two. Generally speaking, they want their breasts to be noticeable, but not noticeable to the point where every man’s jaw drops to the ground like some sort of cartoon character.

There are a select group of women who (for multiple reasons) want to have massive breast implants. Instead of going up one or two sizes, they ask their doctor to give them breasts that are unnaturally and freakishly large. There are many reasons why some women opt for extra-large breast implants:

• Psychological reasons
• Career (eg: actress, Hollywood)
• Model
• Already had implant surgery and are very comfortable with the large breasts and want to go even bigger

Most doctors agree that having extra-large breast implants is the wrong thing to do. One of the biggest concerns amongst surgeons is “what will they look like in 10 years from now?”. As women age, things naturally tend to sag and the end result is a complete and total mess that’s going to require extra surgery to fix as time goes by.

Negative Health Risks

Extra-large breasts can also negatively impact your health. Here are just some of the health risks extra-large implants can cause:

• Back and neck pain due to the added weight of the implants
• Your bra strap could cut “grooves” into your shoulders as most standard bras are not built to support the extra weight of large implants
• Difficulty walking or jogging
• As implants get larger, the more the tissue has to stretch in order to accommodate. This might allow wrinkles/ripples to be seen or felt.
• Implants are not designed to last for more than 10-15 years. This means another surgery (to remove/replace) at some point in time. “How long” depends entirely upon your body and how it reacts to the implants over time.

Breast Implants – How Big is Too Big?

This question depends entirely upon your body. An implant over a certain size may look freakishly large on a woman who is 5’2” tall and 98 lbs., yet it may look really small for a woman who is 6’2” and 190 lbs. A general rule of thumb is that you should choose an implant size that is proportionate to your body.

This rule tends to lead to some confusion as what may be proportionate to one person, is not proportionate to another. It is generally thought that anything over 700cc’s is considered “extra-large” when it comes to breast implants.

Another thing you need to take into consideration is the amount of extra attention your extra-large breast implants will get you. If you’re the type of woman who hasn’t gotten much attention from many men in her life, the temptation to get extra-large implants can be very strong. While this may seem like the right thing to do….it gets old after a while. In fact, it could get downright annoying when you come to realize they’re only talking to you because of the size of your breasts.

Botched – The Biggest Breasts in Europe

“Botched” is a reality t.v. show that features Dr. Paul Nassif and Dr. Terry Dubrow (of “Real Housewives of Orange County” fame). In this E! television series, the doctors try to reverse the damages that patients have suffered from prior plastic surgery procedures. The recovery process is generally protracted and painful, and at the end of the program it shows the successfully completed transformation.

Botched recently featured a German citizen named Martina Big. She claims to have the largest breasts in Europe. She has 3,700cc’s in each breast, which translates to a 32 S bra size. Her extra-large breast implants are so big that they require “tissue expanders”. The problem with this is that they are only supposed to be inside the human body for a short period of time. She’s gambling with her health in order to achieve a certain look.

5 Warnings From Plastic Surgeons

There are 5 general warnings that most plastic surgeons give when it comes to oversized breast implants. These 5 warnings all stem from various complications that can occur when going above and beyond a normal implant size that is proportionate to your body

1. Back & Neck Pain – 454 cc’s of implants equates to about 1 lb. of weight. Two 700cc implants is roughly 3 lbs. of extra weight on your back and neck. Take a backpack and go find a 3 lb. barbell weight or something similar. Put the backpack on backwards, so that the actual backpack part is in the front of your body. Now go for a walk around the block, or try to walk up the stairs. 3 lbs. may not seem like much, but it feels like a ton when your neck and back have to carry the weight.

2. Firmer Breasts – One of the more common complaints from women who have had extra large implant surgery is that their breasts no longer feel natural. They have an extremely firm feel to them. Go to your local toy store and buy two volleyballs. Take them home and put them under a baggy shirt. That’s pretty much what they’re going to look and feel like.

3. Numbness in Nipples – Due to how the large implants protrude, there is a good chance that there will be a lot of pressure put on the nerves of the nipple, and the nipples themselves will become completely numb, thereby losing sensation.

4. Droopiness & Thinning Skin – Human skin is not meant to be stretched for a long period of time. When it does (especially in cases of extra large implants), the skin can become translucent and veins in your breasts can be readily and easily seen. Not to mention the implants themselves can sometimes be seen as well.

As you get older there is a good chance your breasts will droop. This means another trip to the plastic surgeon to get a breast lift. In some instances, if there is too much droop-age, the doctors might find it challenging if not impossible to reverse it.

5. Irreversible Stretch Marks – While the human skin is somewhat elastic, it’s not meant to be stretched very quickly over a short period of time. If it does (in cases of large implants), then stretch marks that are irreversible can occur. This is why doctors recommend you “stage” your implants by going to one size, then allowing your body time to readjust, then in a few weeks to a few months going up to another size.

If you’re thinking about getting extra-large breast implants, please do yourself a favor and think long and hard about the stress you are going to be putting on your body. If you have questions or concerns regarding breast implants or the size of your breast implants, feel free to contact us to setup a consultation to discuss your thoughts on your breast size. We will be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the procedure and quality of life after breast augmentation surgery.