If you’ve had large implants in place for several years and your skin doesn’t have great elasticity, you may have sagging after the implants have been removed. This can be corrected with a buttock lift.Â
Dr. Ryan Stanton, a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, California who specializes in buttock augmentation, says that many patients have little or no sagging after buttock implant removal, especially if the placement of their implants was intramuscular (under the muscle). “Sagging is more likely when the patient has had relatively large implants placed on top of, instead of under, the gluteus maximus muscle, the patient has had implants in for more than five years, and the patient is more than 50 years old.”Â
If your implants were in for only a few years and your skin still has good elasticity, your buttocks should return to near their normal size and shape within a few weeks, says Chicago plastic surgeon Dr. Gregory Wiener in a RealSelf Q&A. “There will be a period where the skin and soft tissues contract, so it may not be immediate. Over a few weeks to several months—depending on how long the implants were in and your natural tissue elasticity—things will improve.”Â
In other good news for your bottom line (so to speak), Dr. Wiener says that “if the implants were in for six months or more, there’s usually a permanent expansion of the tissues, with some permanent increase in buttock size despite the implants being removed.”Â
Another plus for not removing the scar tissue that naturally encased the implants: “Leaving it behind often leaves the patient with a larger natural size than before putting them in and usually doesn’t affect the comfort of the patient,” says NYC plastic surgeon Dr. Dougas Senderoff in a RealSelf Q&A.
One RealSelf member who had her implants removed after eight years feels like her butt looks a bit droopy, but she’s still pleased with the result. “I’m so glad I decided to remove them, despite my fears of how my butt may look after removal. I kept picturing a deflated basketball and skin flapping down to my legs, but it’s not like that at all,” reported Forevabeautiful_12.
