What kind of lift do I need? (Photo)

During your initial consultation and pre-surgery planning phase, surgeons generally provide their patients with more details about the surgical technique that is to be performed. You may want to consider reaching out to your surgeon to find out what they’ll be doing for you.

Based on your photo, there is a good chance that you will get a full breast lift since your nipples are located below your breast fold.

Hello,

And thank you for the question.

Based on the pictures you provided, you appear to be a good candidate for breast lift with implants procedure. Breast lift (lollipop vs. full anchor scar) will put your nipples into the correct position, make the areola smaller and allow excess skin to be taken away, giving you a more youthful, firmer and lifted breast appearance.

Some people are a little apprehensive about the full breast lift due to the scars (lollipop or anchor), but typically they do very well and scars fade over time.

Adding a breast implant to the breast lift would add more upper pole fullness and breast volume that you desire.

I suggest that you seek an in person consultation with a Board-Certified Plastic Surgeon specializing in Breast surgeries to further discuss your options, specific techniques, concerns and expectations. Make sure you specifically look at before and after pictures of real patients who have had this surgery performed by your surgeon and evaluate their results.

I hope this helps.
Good luck!

Dr. Irena Karanetz
Breast Fellowship-Trained
Board Certified Plastic Surgeon

After I measure and discuss goals with my patients, we then look at pictures of women (my patients) with similar measurements with different size and style breast implants. They also get to see what they would look like when the breasts have fully dropped and fluffed and in clothes. You get to see actual results and the surgeon's experience and not a virtual idea of what can be achieved. Women tell me that this process is very helpful in determining what size and style breast implant is right for them. Mildly Sagging Breasts: If your breasts are mildly droopy, a saline or silicone gel implant placed behind the pectoral muscle might help create the illusion of perkiness. That’s because as the implant fills out the top of the breast, it also fills out the bottom, making it look as if the nipple has moved higher. It hasn’t. You can always get a lift later if you feel you are not perky enough when fully settled and healed. Dr. Ted Eisenberg, Board Certified Plastic Surgeon and Author. RealSelf Distinguished Hall of Fame Inductee. Philadelphia, Pa., USA

The technique I recommend is The Bellesoma Method. This will reshape your breast tissue creating upper pole fullness without implants, elevate them higher on the chest wall and more medial to increase your cleavage. Vertical scars are avoided, nipple sensation (in 95%) and the ability to breast feed are maintained. Later, fat transfers or small implants can be placed if additional volume is desired.

Best Wishes,

Gary Horndeski, M.D.

In my experience, it is difficult for outstanding results with nipple only or lollipop lift in cases such as your photos. Smaller scar only addresses nipple position and not lower sagging.

For best 3D results, a full T lift, likely with short scar along fold for implants. This will best restore upper fullness, perkier breasts.

I usually have several consults with my patients pre op to best evaluate degree of ptosis, size of implants, incisions, etc as well as discuss best options before scheduling surgery.

It all depends on how perky you want your breasts. The perkier the breast , the more time it takes in the OR, the more scars. I would recommend a doughnut mastopexy vs a keyhole mastopexy with implants depending on the degree of lift you are looking for.

In my hands, a vertical lift would work very nicely. However, some surgeons do anchor lifts and no vertical lifts at all.

Minimizing skin removal during mastopexy surgery can be a big mistake.
The choice of technique for breast lift surgery is based on how much of a lift you need.
It’s generally better to air on a more definitive lifting technique. A doughnut lift is probably going to be insufficient and will leave you with secondary undesirable side effects, and a high need for revision surgery.
I generally do not recommend people travel long distances for elective surgical procedures.
There are generally three variables that determine breast augmentation outcomes. The first is the patient candidacy for the procedure. The second is the choice of implants in regards to size shape, and type.
The third is the surgeons ability to place the implant in the anatomic correct position, and in your case to do the breast lift correctly using the ideal technique.
There’s a lot of information to review, and the importance of properly vetting providers cannot be overstated.
The process of implant selection by itself is a lengthy discussion and different providers do this differently. Some do it better than others.
to maximize high-quality long-term outcomes I recommend patients have multiple in person consultations, while in advance of choosing a provider and scheduling surgery.
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 had similar body characteristics to your own.
And experience provider should have no difficulty showing you the before and after pictures of at least 50 previous patients.
Being shown a handful of pre-selected images, representing only the best results of a providers career is insufficient to get a clear understanding of what average results look like in the hands of each provider, what your results are likely to look like or how many of these procedures they’ve actually done.
Highly experienced surgeons should in fact have access to hundreds or preferably thousands of before and after pictures.
Take careful notes during each consultation, especially regarding the quantity and quality of before and after pictures.
Ask each provider what the most common reason for revision surgery is, what their revision rate is.
And what their revision policy is.
People often do not appreciate how many patients have real concerns after surgery, the importance of in person, follow-up care, the number of patients end up needing revision surgery or that complications actually do happen.
The biggest mistake patients make is having only one consultation which basically eliminates the ability to choose the better provider.
Personally, I don’t think you can select providers well without meeting them in person.
Being bored, certified in plastic surgery with years of experience in an overall good reputation does not mean that somebody has mastered any single procedure.
Finally, using excessively large implants, increases the rate of having undesirable secondary side effects, complication rates, and the need for revision surgery.
Implant selection is a very important part of the process, and each provider has a different way of doing this.
Best,
Mats Hagstrom, MD