Hello, Using a silicone implant inside your bra, or bags of rice for that matter, has absolutely ZERO correlation as to what size breast implant (in cc’s) will fill out your bra in the same way post operatively. Think about this for a moment: an implant will go UNDER your pre-existing breast tissue and even you pectoralis muscle. There are different profiles to implants so that a 285cc high profile silicone implant will act on an individual’s overlying breast tissue and muscle very differently than a similar volume low profile breast implant. A patient who has never had a pregnancy, who has very dense, glandular breast tissue, and a tight skin envelope will respond very differently to an implant of the same size and profile as a woman who has breast fed a couple of children, whose breast tissue has atrophied, and their breasts are very soft, with lax and “stretchable” skin. If you place a bag of rice , or a silicone implant over either one of these breasts, the change in perceived breast size within the patient’s bra will be quite similar. You place the same volume implant with similar profiles in each of these theoretical patients, and the post operative outcomeWill be vastly different. Using the aforementioned pre operative “sizing” techniques is a way if making a patient feel like they are more involved in the pre operative decision making, when in reality, the patient’s surgeon should be taking the time pre operatively to thoroughly examine the patient’s breasts, and taking into consideration the many variables which affect post operative outcome and also very much impacts the volume , profile, and even the shape of the breast implant chosen for each particular patient and her desires. I tell my patients that when done correctly (meaning the pre operative examination and taking into account the myriad of variables each patient presents) that the patient’s breast selects the implant, not the patient or surgeon. Performing a breast augmentation surgery is not at all a difficult procedure in the grand scheme of things within a board certified plastic surgeon’s armamentarium, knowing how to properly determine the best breast implant to meet each patient’s particular outcome desires is another story.
