What takes longer to heal from, a BA WITH LIFT OR A BBL?

Great question! It takes longer to recover from a BBL.   I recommend an in-office examination as well as a detailed discussion with a surgeon who you are comfortable with.   Finally, make sure your surgeon is a Double-Board Certified Plastic Surgeon certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery (ABPS), a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgery (ASPS) and the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS).Best,Dr. DesaiBeverly Hills Institute for Aesthetic Plastic SurgeryHarvard Educated, Beverly Hills & Miami Beach Trained, Double-Board Certified Plastic Surgeon

Hi there!No wonder you may be confused - lots of different perspectives on this.Here's mine:1. Breast augmentation with lift has incisions that need to heal and foreign bodies (implants) put in. For that reason, "recovery" (a loosely defined term) requires full incisional healing, which can take 3-4 weeks to get a closed incision that is unlikely to open, and 3 months before the scar is solid and the implants have done significant settling. I consider the 3-4 weeks of incision healing to be part of recovery and the activities that I restrict for patients (like heavy upper body exercise) are more significant for breast surgery than for lipo/BBL.2. BBL has a lot of swelling/garment use and some discomfort that can last several weeks to months depending on the situation and the surgeon's preferences. However, apart from this, the average patient can resume more significant activities faster without fear of wound separation and infection faster than for a breast aug with lift.3. I do not recommend combining breast surgery with BBL's since you  have to finish the BBL first and put the patient on their backside to do the breasts, which may put significant pressure on the fresh fat grafted sites. Whether that's really a problem or not is not well established - some surgeons don't believe that pressure matters. Many of us try to have the patient offload the buttocks as a matter of conservative postop care, but it has not been carefully studies nor are their specific guidelines about that. I also think BBL is a long enough surgery with fluid considerations, etc. that it may not make sense to combine a 3-3.5 hour BBL with a 2.5-3 hour breast aug+lift procedure in the same setting. Obviously, in some practices, the BBL may go faster if the surgeon has many assistants, or they prefer powered instrumentation (which some but not all surgeons prefer, etc.), or the patient is more slender, etc.

Both procedures take the same amount of time to heal from, but for my BBL patients, I ask that they do not put pressure on any of the grafted areas for at least 3 weeks and then limit how much sitting they do for up to 3 months. Therefore, I feel the BBL has a longer recovery time. Most patients with a BA and lift do not have any restrictions after 1 month. Hope this helps!Johnson C. Lee, MD Plastic Surgery