Excellent and often asked question. The pictures you have shown are that of a normal 3-day post breast lift/augmentation. It is difficult to give you an absolute diagnosis on a 2-dimensional picture. That being said, some of the really dark areas at the suture line are just dried blood which can be easily removed, more than likely showing normal tissue below. Some of the dusky areas are due to venous congestion secondary to the movement of the nipple areolar complex with interruption of some of the venous drainage. For this particular problem, if you were my patient, I would use nitroglycerine paste to open up some of the redundant venous channels that are present in all tissue. In my practice, we also use DMSO to cut with an emollient in order to be non-irritating to human tissue.The fact that the nipple itself in the middle of the areola shows a great blood flow would indicate to me that you have an excellent chance of getting a completely healed nipple areolar complex, once all the swelling is down and mildly ischemic areas are revascularized. All the above mumbo jumbo means your nipple areolar complex looks fine to me.
