Will my Implants Look Bigger or Smaller After I Drop Some?

Two things happen and seem paradoxical. As as the swelling goes down there will be some shrinkage but at the same time as the muscle relaxes your breast projection grows. In general the breast shape and size proportionality improves..Breast implants initially after surgery when placed in a submuscular position often give superior fullness that corrects itself with time, the "fluff and drop" phenomena. In reality the pectoralis major muscle takes a while to adjust its size to accommodate the implant as well as occasional muscle spasm which keeps the implant projection higher than its final resting shape. Additional variables include:laxity of skin, size difference during prior pregnancies, position of implant,size of muscle, and size of implant.As the muscle relaxes the projection of the implant often increases and the breast shape improves. Massage and use of a superior placed elastic strap can often make this process go faster.

Thank you for your question. Drop and fluff refers to post-operative period in which the breasts begin to descend and fills out the lower half of the breast. It may take several months for this to happen and can be encouraged with breast massage and compression. It may appear that the breast enlarges as the lower aspect of the breast fills out (at the expense of the upper portion of the breast).  The size of the breasts don't change much during this process, but you will feel more fullness on the bottom of the breasts and this may affect your bra choices.  

You will not see your final breast augmentation size until the swelling comes down and the implants settle into place.  I would not expect that you would lose a full cup size.  I would not spend a ton of money on bras until you are 6 weeks post op however.  Good luck.

Postop swelling still needs to resolve if you are one week out from surgery.  You may still see some volume loss but you wont loose a whole cup size.  The shape of the breast may also change as the skin envelope stretches to fit the high profile implant, but this will involve more projection. 

Dear Suzzette,

Thank you for your question. On average at 1 week after breast augmentation, the breast has not settled yet and you might undergo some further changes. This depends on the tightness of the skin envelope you had initially.

The cleavage will improve further and so will the softness of the breast.

I usually advice my patients to wait until 4 to 5 weeks before starting buying new bras.

All the best and congratulations!

Andrea Marando
 

In my experience, the breast shape changes during the first 3 months after an augmentation. However, the breast volume only changes very slightly. There is confusion because patients can fall into 2 groups:
1. Some patients who have a lot of swelling postop will experience a slight decrease in breast volume over those 3 months.
2. And, some patients with minimal swelling with implants initially placed very high, as the implants drop into position, they may experience a slight increase in volume as the implant shifts from the high upper chest into the proper position behind the bra.

I hope this helps.

Congratulations on your recent breast augmentation!  Everyone is different but at one week post-op you may still have a little bit of swelling remaining. Once the implants drop, they your upper pole fullness may go down (though not much with HP implants) and the lower portion of your breasts will fill out changing the shape of your breasts, but volume should remain close to the same.  I'm sure you will love them either way! ac

It is hard to answer this without a photo. By a week most swelling, if there was any, would be gone, so volume should not change. If your implants are high riding, as many are, the upper poles may empty out, the lower pole will fill out just as much. 

All the best. 

AS the implants relax into the pocket the overall position changes, not the volume.  So I do not think you lose anything. What you will lose is the swelling associated with the surgery and therefore the volume may appear smaller.

Great to hear you are happy with your result.

At 1 week it is far too early to predict your final size, having said that if your swelling has decreased then this should be your final size. This is the beauty of form stable cohesive implants, they retain their shape more than saline and previous styles of silicone implants.

Whether the implant falls a little or not won't really effect your cup size.