How Painful Can Breast Lift with Implant Be?

I place a large amount of long acting, local anesthetic in the wound after virtually all of my operations and thus 95% of my patients never take pain medicine. Instead, we recommend Valium, with or without Tylenol.

While you will be sore for 1 to 2 days, it's tolerable and most patients return to an office job in 3 to 5 days.

It’s not unusual
for patients to experience pain following combination breast
augmentation/breast lift surgery. This
pain is usually related to elevation of the muscles during sub-muscular breast
pocket formation. In addition, spasm of
these muscles can contribute to postoperative discomfort, as well.The pain associated with this
combination procedure is severe in the first 24 hours following surgery, but
rapidly diminishes with time. We
typically use a synthetic Codeine derivative called Hydrocodone, which has a decreased
incidence of nausea compared to Codeine.We replace narcotic pain relievers with Tylenol as soon as possible
following surgery, to avoid the potential for drug problems.We also use muscle relaxants in the immediate
postoperative period.Pain tolerance varies from patient
to patient following surgery.If you’re
considering this procedure, it’s important to discuss pain management with your
surgeon prior to surgery.

Use of Exparel, a local anesthetic injected or placed into your implant pocket greatly diminishes your discomfort for the first 3-4 days, By then you should be in minimal pain. See the below link for more inforation:

My colleagues have done an excellent job of discussing the many considerations that relate to pain following breast augmentation. In addition, it is important to note that pocket placement can make a mjor difference, Lastly the use of post operative exercises has been usef ul to minimize pain following the surgery.

Certainly, you would be the one to make the decision. Breast implant and lift is very common procedure. As far as pain goes, it is very patient dependant. Most of my patients take pain medications for 1-2 days. There are some that dont take anything but tylenol and some that need it for 4-5 days. But the majority are using pain medications for 1-2 days.
As far as complications go, the risk of capsular contracture in general is around 5-7 % nationwide. So the risks are low. As fas as scarring the ultimate scar is depend on the patient and how you take care of it, i.e. minimize sun exposure, scar massage.
Hope that helps.