I’ve been considering and researching having a breast augmentation for several years now. I’ve done consults with 3 different surgeons and I finally pulled the trigger on it today and scheduled my surgery! I’m so excited and also super nervous and I can’t believe I’m actually doing it! What’s everyone’s best advice for preparing and recovering?
Updated on 6 Mar 2018:
I’m getting nervous, excited, scared. I had my pre op and decided on 335 CC extra high profile, I’m nervous about the extra high because I don’t want to look too fake or like they are just stuck in there ya know. But my dr recommend the XHP because my chest is very narrow but I want to have a full implant. So I’m putting my trust in her that these will be perfect on me. Any other petite girls have the extra high profiles? What do you think?
Updated on 9 Mar 2018:
So I was feeling a little in easy about my choice of implant so I spoke with my dr again. Idk where I it “ultra high” profile from, I think I was just confused but I’m going with 335 full projection cohesive gel. I feel better about that. Surgery is less then a week away now. I’m getting nervous about the anesthesia and the procedure, because I watch too much grays anatomy and nip/tuck. Haha. So I am just trying to keep myself busy and not think about it too much.
Updated on 15 Mar 2018:
I’m super anxious and I can’t sleep. It’s 3:30 am now, I planned on waking up at 5:00 to take a shower and wash with the antibacterial soap, and leave the house shortly after 6 to get to the surgery center by 7:30. It feels so unreal that this is really happening today!
Updated on 16 Mar 2018:
I made it to the other side! I attached a before picture and after with the compression bra. I haven’t seen myself without the bra yet but it FEELS like I will be the perfect size even knowing they will get a little smaller as the drop. And they aren’t sitting as high up as I was afraid they would right after. When I woke up I was in a lot of pain and my chest felt really heavy and I felt like I couldn’t breath, Wich I think was mostly panic and confusion from the anesthesia because after the pain meds and muscle relaxer kicked in I felt much better. The ride home was pretty easy, I made my boyfriend stop at star bucks I i alternated between coffee and a bottle of water lol. My mouth was really, really dry. But other then that I was was pretty drowsy on the way home so I felt pretty relaxed lol. . My back hurts a little bit, I think from the compression strap squeezing my shoulder blades together so I’ve got ice on the boobs and heat on my backs lol. Like I said I haven’t seen my naked boobs yet but I think I am really going to love the outcome I’m not going to peek until I go to my check up tomorrow morning though because I feel like trying to get my bra on and off will hurt too much. Lol
Updated on 17 Mar 2018:
Maybe I’m just a wimp but the pain has been pretty brutal and much worse then I anticipated it being. But I am pretty small and they did have to stretch me quite a lot. They sent me home with hydrocodone and Valium on surgery day, (yesterday) and even staying on top of it, 2 pain pills every 4 hours and 1 Valium every 6, and Ice as much as I can stand it, the pain was still so awful. I’m talkin getting almost NO relief from the pain meds, not being able to sleep, crying, shaking pain. I asked my doctor at my check up today for the next strength up on my pain meds and she gave me some Percocet instead. I didn’t like having to ask for something stronger but I couldn’t handle the pain. I don’t know how some people get by with only Advil after their surgery! Maybe I just have a low pain tolerance. Anyways the Percocet has been working much, much better. Im getting relief from the pain and it’s lasting longer and I’ve got an appetite back I finally got some good sleep after taking it. I haven’t been able to sleep in my bed yet though, I’ve been sleeping sitting up in my recliner with a couple pillows behind me. Ive been making sure to get up and walk around the house a little bit every hour or so, unless I’m sleeping, then I just get up for a few every time I wake up. If I sit still too long then it gets hard and painful to get moving again, it’s better to just get up and move around a bit.
Updated on 17 Mar 2018:
I was in too much pain yesterday at my one day checkup to even get up and look in the mirror at my results, but today I got to shower and get my first full look at them and I absolutely love them! 3 days post op and I’m so surprised at how amazing they are already looking! Today has been the best day for my pain so far too. I was able to get out and go to Walmart (did not drive myself of course) but I got a few things I needed and was able to walk around the store okay. I took a nap and slept past the time that I needed pain meds so I was hurting pretty bad then, but as long as I stay on top of the pain meds I’m doing okay! Also gaining my appetite back it seems. I’ve been feeling pretty medicated so sorry if I’ve repeated myself in these updates lol
Updated on 19 Mar 2018:
Last night I took my pain medicine around 7:30 pm, and the muscle relaxer at about 10:30 and fell asleep. I woke up at at about 3:30 in pain but I had gone 8 hours without the pain meds which is the longest I’ve been able to go yet. I got out of bed and took my pain killer then sat up in the recliner and fell back asleep until around 6:00, which is when I get up to get the kids ready for school anyways. Since then I’ve been feeling pretty good! I was able to lift the coffee pot with no pain, which was the first time since surgery. I was also able to make the kids breakfast without help and also lift a jug of orange juice. It’s the little things that count! Lol. I can feel more mobility in my arms today and my chest muscles don’t feel so tight and sore, I had been having troubles opening our glass sliding door and i just did that with no help.. I’d say today is deff my best day yet... but that’s what I thought yesterday too and I think I got too excited about being able to move around and do some things for myself and maybe over did it because by last night I was really hurting. I’m still using ice pretty much for as long as I can stand or until the ice packs thaw out. My boobs really itch, especially in between them. The compression bra is so tight that it hurts under my arms but I tried loosening the strap one notch and felt like it wasn’t supportive enough in my breasts so I guess I’ll just deal with the under arm discomfort. My right nipple has been completely numb since surgery and i think I’m starting to get a little feeling back, it kind of stings. My boyfriend went back to work today so Its my first day on my own. I am getting very bored and stir crazy though and I really want to get out of the house. Physically I’m sure I could drive by now, but I’m still on the medications so I can’t yet.
Updated on 20 Mar 2018:
I’m really loving the way my boobs look already. I can already see a difference in just a couple days. I don’t know if anyone else can or if it’s just me. Looks like they have already dropped a little bit. I started off with such small breasts to begin with I wondering how much more they would drop. It seems like they wouldn’t really have anywhere to go lol. But honestly I’m really happy with how they look right now and wouldn’t mind if they didn’t change anymore but I know they will lol. At the same time boob greed is a real thing! Lol. At times I wish I wold have gone a little bigger but at other times I’m really glad that I didn’t because I like that I definitely have boobs now but not so much that I won’t be able to hide the fact that I had plastic surgery. Sometimes they feel small with the compression bra on but then when i take it off to shower my boobs are like BAM! lol. My pain hasn’t been as bad the last day or so, I can move my arms above my head, straight out in front, and out to the side. Most of the pain I have is on the side of my left breast, But other then that I’ve felt a lot better! I have been using I’ve almost constantly and I feel like that has really helped keep my swelling and pain down. Today is my last day off work and I go back tomorrow so I’m going to try to get lots of rest and sleep today because I still haven’t been sleeping very well. I woke up at 1:30 am and it’s now 3:30 am. I guess my biggest complaint at this point is I am So, SO bloated in my mid section. I’m prone to constipation and bloating on a normal day so I knew that would be an issue after surgery but it’s starting to get uncomfortable. I’ve been taking stool softeners, and I was already drinking 2 glasses of Metamucil daily before surgery, and a couple fiber one bars a day but I’ve only had very small bowl movements since surgery. Normally I take a probiotic supplement to help all of that too and it really seems to help the most out of everything, but I was told to stop taking that before surgery and I’m not sure if I can start it again yet but I go back to the dr tomorrow and will ask then, hopefully i can because I have this nice rack now with a big stomach and it just doesn’t go together! Lol
Updated on 21 Mar 2018:
I still have not gotten a full nights sleep. :( the last couple nights I started out in my bed, woke up in the middle of the night in pain, got up and took medication and went back to sleep in my recliner. However I am feeling much better through out the day pain wise. The first days were much more painful then I expected but the last couple of days it’s seems like I’ve gone up hill fast. Each day is a huge improvement from the day before.
I go back to work today and I’m a little nervous about that because I’m a hair stylist so I use my arms a lot. But I scheduled myself short days this week and tomorrow I only have my clients with short hair scheduled so I won’t need to do much work with my blow dryer. I am a little worried about leaving over the shampoo bowl though. I am excited to get out of the house and around people and put some real clothes and makeup on though!
Side note: IDK if there is a time stamp in these updates but I swear I have typed all of these in the middle of the night when I’m unable to sleep. It’s 2:30 am right now!!
Updated on 22 Mar 2018:
I hope that all of my updates will help other people who are either thinking of a breast augmentation or already had one. I went back to work yesterday, I had originally planned on going back even a day earlier but pushed it off an extra day after all the pain I had been in over the weekend. So I went back to work at 6 days post op. I just wanted to share some of the things I did to make it through the day and some things that were hard to do that I didn’t even think of being an issue! Obviously I use my arms a lot at work, I knew no matter what it was going to be kinda rough going back to work but I probably should have pushed off going back for an extra few days but my week was completely booked up and I didn’t want to have to move all those clients and when I scheduled my time off I really thought I would be ready by then. Anyways it was rough but I made it through. I was very sore and tired when I got home & I defiantly feel like the pain I was in effected the quality of my hair cuts and I wasn’t 100% pleased with my work. I worked a 5 hour day and didn’t have any of my long hair clients so I didn’t have to do much with my blow dryer, which was a big thing I was worried about. I’m sure holding my dryer up with one arm and pulling hair tight on the brush with my other arm is going to be hard. Luckily I won’t have to do that today either. Bottom line is, if you’re a hair stylist you should try to take more then a week off if possible, but if it’s not possible I wanted to say that work was painful and uncomfortable, but It wasn’t excruciating and I was able to push though it. If you have to go back earlier Try to work things out so you don’t have to do things like blow outs or full foils, or really any color services more then a root touch up the first few days. I did a root touch up yesterday and that was fine. Make sure you are adjusting your chair up and down so you can try to minimize how much you’re lifting your arm. The higher your chair pumped up, the lower you can keep your arms. Shampooing was hard because my shampoo bowl is designed for me to stand on the side of it but if I had one that I stood behind it might have been easier. Another thing I didn’t think about being hard was pushing down the pumps on the shampoo and conditioner bottles! I normally set them on the back bar Wich is about at chest level, and pushing the Pump down was too hard. I had to set them down in the chair next to me so I could use my whole body to push the pump down instead of just my arms. I guess you just don’t realize how much you use your chest muscles for everything until you can’t use them!
Also I booth rent at my salon so I have full control of my schedule and can make sure I have time blocked off for extra breaks through out the day and can also make sure I only take the clients I can handle right at the moment, but I know not all hair stylists will be able to do that. So if you can’t control how many breaks you can take or Wich clients you can take or how many hours you work when you come back you should definitely plan for more time off. I think if I had a desk job or any job that was less physically demanding I would have been totally fine to be back at work yesterday. I also have a 30 minute drive to work and driving was still a little uncomfortable. I couldn’t comfortably turn my body to look behind me to pass on the interstate, and also turning was kind of hard.
Well hopefully this update will help some other stylists out there make it through their first days back, or help them plan on how much time they need off!
Updated on 24 Mar 2018:
My next couple days back to work weren’t nearly as bad as the first. I was obviously still very sore during the work day but it wasn’t pain like the first day. I have short day at work today, only working 2 hours, and then I have 2 days off. I think I’ll feel much better after a couple days of rest and doing nothing! I still need the pain medicine and Valium pretty much as soon as I get home from work, and for sleep, and I will be out of the hydrocodone today and I am worried about pain management after that. I still get enough pain sometimes that i just don’t feel like Tylenol is going To cut it but I’m ready to be off of all the meds too.
Slept a full night last night for the first time since surgery so that’s great! I feel much more well rested, and i was even able to sleep in my bed all night instead of the recliner. But it was hard to sit up this morning when I woke up. When I fell asleep I was sitting up on some pillows and when I woke up I was laying down almost flat.i had to swing my legs to pull myself forward without using my chest so much and as soon as I saw up I felt soooo much “boob throb”
I feel like I shouldn’t still be feeling this much discomfort and pain by now but I do have a very low pain tolerance and I’m kind of a sissy when it comes to pain.
Updated on 24 Mar 2018:
Maybe it’s just me but I feel like as my breast get softer and drop a little bit they get bigger. Or they seem bigger anyways. I always heard that once they drop and fluff and swelling goes away they will be smaller. I definitely don’t feel like that, and I feel like you can even see it in the pictures. Wich is totally with me! Lol i was really hoping they wouldn’t get any smaller & I was a little upset thinking about how much I liked the size the first couple of days and didn’t want them to get smaller, but they really seem bigger. I wonder if it’s because my skin was so tight around the implants the first few days and now it’s loosening up. Idk, whatever it is I don’t mind it! Lol.
I haven’t officially been measured as it’s still very early, but the other night both my compression bras needed washed so I slipped on a 32 D sports bra I had bought just in case, and it was too tight! Idk if that’s because I was still just very sore and it wasn’t as soft as my compression bras or what it was, but it was definitely tight. I might have some Double D’s over here! Lol. That would be crazy! But if not double D’s I’m definitely a D. Just something about being able to fit into a D cup just makes you happy. Idk what it is, must just be a subconscious thing, because cup size doesn’t matter, it’s how you feel and how you look, but being able to fill out a D, not a C, not a B and definitely not an A, just made me so happy.
When I went back to work a co worker mentioned that my boobs didn’t look that big, I don’t want to hear that lol. Plus they are all smushed down in the compression bra and the strap and the bra doesn’t really give your breasts the most flattering look. Lol. I can’t wait to get rid of this compression strap and bra and get some real bras!!
My brother is getting married in May, and it will be the first big event I’ll be going to since getting my boobs. I will be exactly 8 weeks post op by then so I should definitely be back into a regular bra, and I seriously can not wait to go shopping and pick out a dress that can show these babies off a little bit! Lol. Obviously most of my family will be there and it’s my brothers wedding so it would be weird for me to buy some sexy low cut dress lol but I’m excited that certain dresses that were never even an option for me before will be now! I used to hate shopping for clothes and always felt so self conscious how I would try on a cute top and even in a small I was “swimming” in it. When I saved money for my boobs I also saved enough money to be able to go on a new clothes shopping spree as well. I can’t wait!!!
One more thing before I end this post, I weighed myself the day before surgery. I was 109, I weighed myself a couple days after surgery, a little experiment just out of curiosity’s wanted to see how much my boobs weigh ????. I was 115 a couple days after surgery. But I was also super bloated in the tummy area. So I weighed myself again yesterday because the bloating has gone down, and I was 114. So the boobs added 5 pounds to me. Lol it’s funny because Pre surgery I was trying to gain a little weight, I thought maybe surgery and healing wood go better if I could get some healthy fat and muscle on my body before hand. I was only able to gain a couple pounds lol. Does this count as cheating on trying to gain weight ???? lol.
Updated on 28 Mar 2018:
Work has still been uncomfortable but not unbearable. I am worried that I am over doing it, so i haven’t been filling in any cancelation spots like I normally would, I’ve just been taking that time to be able to take a break and rest. I definitely think I over did it yesterday, I worked 7 hours and did a couple of things I probably shouldn’t have done, but how am I supposed to tell a client, “hey I can’t blow your hair out straight today because I got a boob job and that’s just too hard for me to do right now” lol sooo i deff still think I should have taken more time off. I went home yesterday feeling very sore, in pain, tired, and my right breast (I guess because I’m right handed) felt more stiff then it had been. I hope it was just my muscle being sore and I didn’t mess anything up. I real paranoid about that.
Also, I just noticed I can’t really feel anything below my nipple on the right breast, I don’t remember it being like that last week but maybe I just didn’t notice. It’s not completely numb but definitely can NOT feel much sensation there. I’ve read sometimes it comes back and sometimes it doesn’t. Hopefully it does.... but if it doesn’t I guess that trading a slight loss of feeling for the perfect boobs is a small price to pay & im okay with it. I’m still so happy with my outcome, they are dropping more and getting softer every day. Pain/soreness gets better every day too, if I hadn’t gone back to work so soon I think that I would almost feel back to normal pain wise. The dr said I can just wear the compression band 50% if the time now. It’s funny, when I’m not wearing it and I walk around I can feel a little jiggle in my wiggle! Lol. Since I was so flat to begin with I have literally NEVER felt my boobs jiggle before. Lol. Sooo that’s new and cool. Lol I’ll update with pictures again soon, they have changed quite a bit!
Updated on 30 Mar 2018:
I know it’s still kind of early to get an accurate measurement and I haven’t been release to stop wearing the surgical bra full time yet, but we are having family pictures done this weekend for Easter and my surgical granny bra really limits my clothing options. Lol so I figured It would be okay to wear a real for a couple hours during pictures. I made sure there’s no underwire and it’s super soft and Comfy. Way more comfortable then this granny bra!
I had the lady at VS measure me, 32D! I tried one on and it felt great! Maybe even a little tight actually so I almost tried on a DD but decided I should get the D for now. So exciting! It’ll be interesting to see if my size changes later as I heal. I was also wearing the compression bra when she measured me and it pushes my boobs down quite a bit. I told myself I was only going to buy one bra until I’m a little further down the recovery road but I couldn’t help it and I I bought 2! Lol so when I’m released to wear a real bra I’ll have some ready! it was so exciting to buy a bra with no padding and no underwrites and no “push up”, I had always bought the VS bombshell bras before this because they “add 2 cup sizes”.
When I got home I tried on my new bra with a shirt and OMG! My boobs look SO different in a regular bra then in the compression bra. They looked huge! So, so different then with the compression bra. Once I’m able to do so I need to get back to working out and work on my booty! Lol. I was working out every day up until surgery and I was starting to develop a nice booty and some abs and I can already see that going away from not being able to exercise.
Buying a bra today confirmed 2 things for me. #1, I picked the perfect size implants, not too big and not too Small. Once I saw myself in a regular bra and shirt & saw how different that looks I couldn’t believe I ever had any doubts about thinking I should have gone bigger because any bigger would look funny on me. & #2, I absolutely LOVE my new body and I don’t feel self conscious about it anymore. Before today I always hated bra shopping. It was so disappointing to have to buy such padded bras in the smallest size they make. And everyone knows those huge padded bras aren’t the most comfortable either. This is the first time I ever felt happy and excited about going bra shopping. I was like a preteen gel going to buy her first bra! Lol
Also, my dr said I could take my steri strips off today, I was really scared to see my incisions and stitches. I imagined them looking really gross, but they don’t! They just look like little scrapes. It made me even more impressed with my dr’s work. She did a ability’s job closing me up and I think the scars will fade beautifully! I have a stitch on each side that needs to come out still, that’ll happen next week.
Updated on 2 Apr 2018:
I’m so glad I have been taking pictures and documenting my journey, I thought my boobs looked great from day one, but now almost 3 weeks out they look even better!
I’m still pretty sore, if I cold go back and redo all of this I definitely would have taken more time off work before going back. I think work is definitely slowing down my healing, I’m just so sore when I get home and it takes me 2 whole days off to rest and feel better and then I’m right back at work again getting sore. Nothing I can do about it now except take as many of breaks as I can and and tough it out.
Incisions are still healing nicely, a little discomfort around them and some times a little sting or a burn but I think that’s normal. I did notice a “Mondors cord” under my incision down my first couple of ribs, good thing I did my research on what to expect or this probably would have freaked me out