Silcone Implants Removed After 25 Years After Infection, Scarring, Capsular Contracture - Thousand Oaks, CA

Here are some photos from 8 weeks post op. Right breast is still a bit deformed. I have been wearing an underwire at my doctor's recommendation in the hope it might help righty "re-learn" its inframammary fold, but not sure it's helping much. I think that because I have had two different procedures where the PS went in to remove silicone nodules from the actual breast tissue, the breast doesn't have the same underlying tissue and support that the left one does. I'm not surprised given all the crap that right breast had going on over the years. I'm bummed about the new scars from the drains, especially the left one since it's so low on my body that a bikini top won't cover it up. Glad it's winter and hopefully it will fade a LOT by summer. I'm using Mederma so hopefully that will help.

I'm still very happy that I explanted. A few of my health issues, such as ongoing and persistent canker sores in my mouth, have disappeared, so I do believe getting that silicone out has been beneficial. It's also great to have WARM breasts, and to be able to lie on my tummy without cantaloupes on my chest, lol! I occasionally use the silicone cutlets to plump up my bra if I want to wear something where I need a little more up top, and that works great. I actually had them in last weekend and went to remove my bra, forgot I had them in, and the whole contraption of bra and cutlets dropped to the floor with a thud. I cracked up! Nice to leave the silicone in the drawer! Still trying to determine what tops I can wear. Many of the ones that fit for the most part are kind of stretched out in the chest, so guess I will be doing some shopping for myself over the holidays. Oh darn. :D

Accidentally posted before I wrote my summary!

Just saw the doctor yesterday for my one month follow up and he has released me until my next follow up in 3 months. He is happy with my progress in healing but in his words, "I'm not happy with the lack of symmetry." I laughed and said, "You're a plastic surgeon. Of course you're not happy with the lack of symmetry!" We both had a chuckle over that. He is a pretty serious guy but I appreciate that he can laugh with me. He discussed doing a minimal fat gratfing procedure down the road to plump up the areas where I've lost tissue in righty and to increase the volume of the upper pole area, and possibly the lower pole to help smooth out the disparity between the left side and right side inframmamary folds. I told him I wasn't going to do anything for a minimum of 6 months as I know from reading all the helpful info on this site that full healing and final results are still months away. He agreed that it was best to wait, just wanted me to be aware of the options. I think it must drive a PS crazy to see something imperfect. Ha ha!

One bit of info he shared with me is that if you do a fat grafting procedure, apparently they have found that more fat cells survive the grafting if you are only under local anesthesia rather than general. He said that general puts the body in a stress condition, which somehow stresses the transferred cells and they have a lower rate of survival. Something to consider!

Anyway, he told me to start wearing an underwire to try and help righty get its fold back, so took another trip to Target and got a couple of cute Warners bras that are the super soft underwires. They look cute and aren't too uncomfortable. I've always hated underwires. I had to wear them after my last implant replacement on that side, because my implant was bottoming out, so my original PS had me wear underwires for several weeks and it really did help. Hoping the same holds true here. My PS said my fluid is probably 95% gone, but I think there is still some in there and that area is weak, so it is still pooling there. Just need more time and patience for it to finish itself up!

Notice the last photo with my arms raised - they look pretty good like that! Kind of like a manual lift, huh? :)