Breast lift after rib graft rhinoplasty ideal timeline?

In general, it's best to wait until the swelling and bruising from the rhinoplasty procedure have subsided before undergoing a breast lift surgery. This can take several weeks to several months, depending on the extent of the rhinoplasty procedure.Additionally, it's important to give your body enough time to heal and recover from the rhinoplasty surgery before undergoing any additional procedures. This can help ensure that your body is healthy and strong enough to undergo another surgery and that you achieve the best possible results.

I would recommend waiting 3-6 months depending on the location of your scar, skin and soft tissue quality, and whether or not you had any complications with either your rib donor site or your rhinoplasty.

Generally, I recommend waiting at least 3 months between procedures just to ensure everything is healing appropriately and you are recovered from the prior operation. Different surgeons will do things differently, but for revision rhinoplasties, I almost always use fresh frozen rib cartilage so there is no healing rib donor site to worry about. Find a surgeon and work with them to develop a plan and timeline!

Dear fruitbythefoot,
you should be fully healed before you can get another elective procedure. If you are considering surgery, I would suggest you consult a board-certified plastic surgeon. Only after a thorough examination, you will get more information and recommendations.
Daniel Barrett, MD
Certified, American Board of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Plastic Surgery
Member, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

It is best to ask your rhinoplasty surgeon how long to wait between the two cases. The surgical sites are far enough that you don't need to wait long. However, during anesthesia, the nose is manipulated, which can affect your rhinoplasty results.

Depending on where the incision is made by your ENT surgeon to harvest the rib cartilage, this may not significantly impact the timing of your breast lift. In my experience, the incision can often be in or around the inframammary fold for the cartilage harvest. Therefore, this incision will be either excised or used for part of the breast lift. I don’t think that there is a specific timeframe that you need to be concerned about other than the fact that you will be healing from one operation. It is always good to at least allow around six weeks for scars to mature, and a total of 3 to 6 months before any revisionary surgery, however, have a conversation with your ENT surgeon as to how in-depth the scar will be for harvesting your cartilage. Sounds like you have a great options ahead of you. Have a conversation about your goals with a board-certified plastic surgeon. We are happy to help in any way we can.

both surgeries could be done in same session, or breast lifting could be done three months after the rib cartilage harvesting.

Typically, you would want a minimum of 6 weeks to let the first surgery heal. If you want implants, you may need to wait 8-12 weeks.