Can an implant move from under the muscle to over the muscle on its own without surgery?

Thank you for your question!  No - it would not be possible to change positions with circumstances such as that which you describe.  The pocket must be surgically created for the implant to be placed, or moved, into a new pocket.  Often, the muscle is divided for implant placement during submuscular breast augmentation, creating truly, a partial submuscular pocket. If divided too much, the muscle may potentially "window shade" upwards creating an appearance of a subglandular position, especially on imaging studies. Hope that this helps. Best wishes!

Unless you have had a previous breast surgery with a pocket created in a different plane, it is not possible for the implant to move from under to over the muscle. I have seen instances where I have reoperated on a patient who had one implant under the muscle and one over the muscle because they were originally placed by an inexperienced surgeon, but again, since there is only one pocket created, the implant cannot change positions.

In a primary breast augmentation one pocket is created either over or under the muscle. This is where the implant will stay. If it is a redo breast augmentation and there is an existing pocket- that pocket must be closed before a new pocket is created. If this is not done- then i have seen the implant leave the new pocket and reoccupy the old. Hope that helps

The implants do not move from under to over the muscle on their own or with massage.  There needs to be a space created surgically to allow for that.  So it may happen if you had an implant over the muscle and then switched to another implant under the muscle.  If the old pocket was not closed, the new implant can slip out of the new pocket and end up in the old pocket over the muscle. 

Breast implants are often placed under the muscle but sometimes a different pocket is used, such in the case of a dual plane breast augmentation.  In any case, the pocket that is used is a usually a defined space, and the implant itself could not move into a different space without further surgery.  Patients who have had trauma to their breasts or have massaged them often may have this concern, but in reality it is not something to be worried about

Unless the surgeon created a space between the muscle and the overlying breast, or that space was there already and the surgeon was moving the implant from above the muscle to over the muscle, it would be very unlikely that the implant could move on its own, or even be forced with massage, from the submuscular to the subglandular position.  One possibility along these lines is if the surgeon split or detached the muscle too high on the chest, leaving the upper part of the muscle too short to fully cover the implant, or if there was too much disconnection of the muscle from the breast, the lower edge of the muscle could migrate above the implant entirely, like a window shade (in fact, we call this "window shading" in the business), and that can give somewhat of an appearance of the implant switching planes, although it is not technically the same.  If you have a concern about something like this happening it would be best to pay a visit to your surgeon so that he or she can examine you and figure out what it is that is going on.  That way everyone's mind will be at ease.  Good luck.

In most cases, implants will stay in the desired pocket. However, I have seen cases where the implant has migrated from below the muscle to above the muscle. This usually occurs after revision surgery where the original pocket was created above the muscle. 

A submuscular implant remains submuscular unless a large portion of the fibers were divided allowing the muscle to retract superiorly and thus ending up with an essentially submammary implant but this does not occur with message or movementDr, Corbin