Does a total breast lift seem necessary/the only option? (Photo)

You could just try and have the pocket shape corrected internally. You might need to go down a little in size and use mesh for better support.

Your breasts are wider than the chest wall. For that reason, smaller implants may be more beneficial. The areolas appear large and need to be reduced. A circumareola approach can be used to decrease the size of the areolas and replace the implant with smaller ones. There seems to be a crease in the left breasts that represents the old inframammary fold that need to be corrected as well.

Best Wishes,

Gary Horndeski, M.D.

There are different approaches to doing breast lift, depending on how much of a lift is indicated. The simplest version leave a circular scar around the areola. This type of breast lift is often called a Benelli lift, or a donut lift. It’s generally acceptable for lifting 1 cm or about half an inch. There are some definite drawbacks to this procedure, especially if attempting to lift the breast more than a centimeter or if it’s not technically done correctly. If the more aggressive lift is needed that a lollipop incision may be better. This will leave the circular incision around the areola and also a vertical scar from the areola to the inframammary fold.
When a more aggressive, lift is needed then the full anchor or wise pattern is used.
I suggest patient have multiple in person consultation before scheduling surgery.. It is important to recognize that each patient has a certain candidacy for each procedure. Some people have the potential for better outcomes than other individuals. In the end provider selection is probably equally as important as understanding your candidacy for the procedure.
A patient who is an excellent candidate, has the potential to have excellent outcomes of the right provider. The same patient can also have less than optimal outcomes in the hands of a less talented or less experienced surgeon.
A patient who is not an ideal candidate, does not have the potential for getting ideal outcome, regardless of who does the procedure.
Here are some guidelines for helping to choose the best provider for your needs.
To find the best provider, I suggest patient schedule multiple in person consultations with experienced plastic surgeons in their community. During each consultation, ask each provider to open up their portfolio and show you their entire collection of before and after pictures of previous patients who have similar body or facial characteristics to your own. An experienced plastic surgeon should have no difficulty showing you the before and after pictures of at least 50 previous patients. An experienced provider should in fact have hundreds or preferably thousands of before and after pictures to choose from for commonly performed procedures.
Being shown a handful of preselected images, representing the best results of a provider’s career is insufficient to get a clear understanding of what average results will look like in the hands of each provider.
There is no correct number of consultations needed to find the best provider. The more consultations you scheduled the more likely you are to find the best provider for your needs.
Take careful notes during each consultation, especially regarding the quantity and quality of before and after pictures. It’s not a bad idea to bring pictures of your own body/face to use as reference when reviewing before and after pictures.
The biggest mistake patients make is scheduling only one consultation without properly vetting or comparing providers before scheduling surgery.
Best,
Mats Hagstrom, MD