Nothing to do about numbness

Hi,

Given your significant capsular contracture, your surgeon undoubtedly had to remove a thick layer of capsule from the undersurface of the skin.  This can be a relatively tedious dissection and there often times there is thermal injury to the sensory nerves to the breast skin and nipple from the electrocautery used during surgery.

Nerve recovery usually occurs in the weeks and months after surgery.  Recovery may be patchy or may be complete - it's impossible to know.  Unfortunately, there's really nothing you can do to hasten the recovery and to improve the long term outcome.

Best of luck. 

Helpful?

Contact the doctor

Your numbness is a direct result from the surgery.  Most likely you had a capsulectomy, which is a removal of the thick, hard, scar tissue suruounding the old implants, and resulted in the contracture.

During the procedure, the scar tissue is excised, and some tiny nerves that provide sensation to the skin are damaged, and this is unavoidable.

Over time, you should note the return of sensation that will be first manifest by tingling, pins and needle sensation, shooters, and other strange feelings.  The sooner they appear, generally, the better the prognosis for full return of the sensation.  Although I like to see signs at about 4 weeks, you chance for full return of sensation is still very good.  It may take a couple of years or more for you to appreciate all significant sensation return.

I am not aware that there is anything that you personally can do to help/hinder this healing process.

sek

Helpful?

Contact the doctor

Any time that your breasts are operated on, you are taking a risk of altering or loosing sensation to the breast skin or nipple.  Breast procedures that rearrange tissue or remove tissue are at higher risk for loosing sensation.  In your case, it sounds like you had a very firm scar capsule around your implant.  If your breast were "mostly implant" then there is a very small layer of tissue between the skin and the implant itself through which the nerves traveled to your nipple.  No matter how skillful your surgeon, when the capsule is removed from around the implant some nerves may get divided if they are adherent to the capsule.  In these cases, sensation may not return to the nipple.  For other breast surgeries such as primary augmentation, nipple sensory changes are more likely to be transient.  Here, sensory conduction can be decreased just by stretching the nerves (similar to how the breast skin is being stretched), and tends to return to normal as the nerves relax a bit.  I do recommend B vitamins to my patients who are having neuropraxia issues.

Dr.B

Helpful?

Contact the doctor