Which Do You Think is Harder on the Body, Abdominoplasty or Breast Reduction with Anchor Scars?

Breast reduction patients on a scale of 1 to 10 rate their pain in the 1-3 range. They typically describe it as a burning sensation. Interesting, is they have more discomfort when I perform liposuction on the sides of the chest!

abdominoplasty patients rate their pain in the 4-5 range describing a tightness more than pain. Some women compare the discomfort to Braxton Hicks contractions they experienced during pregnancy.

due to the abdominal wall repair, the abdominoplasty takes about a week longer to be up and around as normally as a breast reduction patient.

combining the two procedures is safe and surgery should average 3-4 hours for both procedures

Breast reductions are not particularly painful in easy to get over. In abdominoplasty when repair the fascia is involved can be painful and certainly requires longer convalescence.

Both surgeries are very well tolerated with minimal pain and downtime.  However, a tummy tuck will probably be associated with tightness of the belly as well as some incisional pain.

Thanks for your question. No question the abdominoplasty has more of a recovery. The muscle plication that is done is the part that illicits the pain. It is common to perform these procedures together (TT and BR). Most of my patients say that they didn't even have pain in their  breasts while recovering from the two procedures. Best of Luck!

A breast reductions recovery is 7 - 10 days until patients can return to a sedentary job, slightly longer if more vigorous activities are involved in the job, while an abdominoplasty recovery is 2 - 3 weeks especially if the muscles need repairing before patients can expect to begin feeling like they want to begin progressing toward normal activity. If muscle repair has been done, it's a full 6 weeks until patients are cleared to return to normal activities.