4 months post butt implants - what can I do to correct visibility, pain, and scarring? (photo)

Allow me to answer your question as best i can based upon your single photo. However, please keep in mind that an in-person, or at least a virtual, consultation with physical exam is first necessary before any legitimate evaluation or final surgical recommendations can be made.

The photo is very limited in its exposure, so based purely upon your history, it sounds as though your implants were possibly placed above/on top of the muscle, instead of the within the muscle (i.e. intramuscular pocket). If this is indeed the case, they should be removed and replaced into the intramuscular tissue plane. Additionally, if your implants are round shape, this is not the most anatomically correct shape of the buttock muscles, then I would also strongly advise switching them to Stanton Anatomic™️ shaped buttock implants. Please keep in mind that extremely few number of board certified plastic surgeons specialize in buttock implant so you may have to travel far and away from your local area to seek treatment by one of these particular plastic surgeons. Glad to help.

Hello and thank you for posting. Sorry to hear you are experiencing these issues. Unfortunately these issues are not super uncommon, especially when placing large implants. I understand that most patients want to go big, but over doing it can lead to problems.

The implants should be placed inside the muscles of the butt. When using large implants though, it is increasingly more difficult to place them completely inside the muscles. Sometimes they find their way out. Sometimes you can feel them or even see them if the layer of muscle covering them is too thin. I feel this might be the root of your problems.

Some doctores prefer to place the implants above the muscle, between the muscle and it’s fascia, but this is usually not enough tissue to hide the implants and they will eventually sag. I do not think this is your case.

I believe you might need a pocket revision too make sure there is enough muscle covering your implants and maybe even use smaller implants. This will make your butt to look as nice as possible without visible implants.

Best of luck,
Dr. Miguel Mota

Dear Eva14,
I understand your concern. However, without a proper assessment, it would be difficult to determine what went wrong. It is best that you visit your plastic surgeon for further assessment or ask for a second opinion. Only after a thorough examination, you can get proper recommendations and advice.
Daniel Barrett, MD
Certified, American Board of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

The great majority of the plastic surgeons in the United States do not offer gluteal implants.
There are good reasons why most plastic surgeons don’t offer this procedure.
It is an inherently bad operation that has an unfortunate high complication and a high patient to satisfaction rate.
There are a handful of plastic surgeons who specialize exclusively in doing gluteal implants and in the hands of someone who really knows this procedure well it is possible to have improved outcomes with reduced complications and undesirable side effects.
The preferred method is a generally intramuscular placement of implants that are of appropriate size to adequately fit within the gluteus muscle.
Implants placed on top of the muscle will inevitably shift position and not look natural.
Simply choosing to have gluteal implants was not a good choice.
If you ask 10 plastic surgeons what their opinion is of this procedure you’ll get 10 different answers. most likely the majority would recommend against having gluteal implants placed.
At this point you have three choices.
You can either leave me in plants as they are and accept everything that comes with having gluteal implants placed above the muscle. The second option is to have the implants removed. Recognize that the process of placing an implant above the gluteus muscle creates a separation between the muscle and skin and fat layer. This allows the skin and the fat layer to have a sense of mobility that was previously not possible due to connective tissue holding the skin in place. The process of removing implants can cause the skin to drop into a different anatomic position. For that reason the choice of provider for explantation or removing gluteal implants is important. The skin and the fat layer needs to be held in place in the correct anatomical location with suture fixation to minimize the chance of the skin sliding down due to gravity and healing in an anatomic incorrect position.
The third option is to convert the procedure to an intramuscular placement of the implants.
There are usually a couple of plastic surgeons who respond to patients questions regarding gluteal implants who seem to have a lot of experience on this topic. realself does not promote providers referring to other providers by name in our responses.
You can read through some of the other questions patient has posted regarding issues with video implants and may be able to find some of the providers who seem to excel at this procedure to get more expert advice.
I do recommend patients have in person consultations whenever possible and generally recommend patients have multiple in person consultations before committing to any procedure.
I also generally recommend people avoid traveling long distances for elective surgical procedures though there are times for local talent may simply not be available.
Good luck,
Mats Hagstrom MD