What to Expect After Breast Implant Removal

Today, more women than ever are choosing to remove their breast implants. For those still on the fence, the surgical results of explantation are very important. This blog will discuss the explantation recovery period, expected results, and popular combination procedures. 

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What Will My Breasts Look Like After I Remove My Implants?

For many women, the idea of removing their breast implants is less than appealing–why would you go through a secondary procedure to undo the results of another?

Well, it turns out there are plenty of reasons. More women than ever are turning towards explantation, or breast implant removal, for a wide range of motivations. Some reasons a woman may decide to remove her implants include:

• Her tastes have changed
• Her lifestyle has changed
• She is experiencing pain or discomfort due to her implants
• She is experiencing implant-related complications like capsular contracture or ruptures
• She no longer wants a foreign object in her body
• She does not want to deal with the implant upkeep or financial obligations

No matter the reason, explantation undoubtedly does what it’s supposed to: breast implants are removed. But what will the patient’s breasts look like after? To answer that question, we’ll first discuss the procedure.

The Explantation Procedure

Like other aesthetic procedures, explantation is tailored to the patient’s needs. Generally, your aesthetic surgeon will create a treatment plan that reflects your goals, so if you have capsular contracture, for example, they will adjust it accordingly. While the main priority of breast implant removal is to remove the breast implants, your aesthetic surgeon will also reshape the breasts to a more pleasing shape after the implants are removed.

Explantation is usually performed as an outpatient procedure under general anesthesia for your comfort. Your aesthetic surgeon may remove the implants as one unit or in pieces, depending on the quality of the implants, the breast skin and tissue, and the scar tissue, also known as the breast capsule. Removing the entire implant and breast capsule as one piece (called an en bloc removal) is particularly important for patients experiencing breast-implant-related illness  (BII) symptoms, as this ensures no contamination of the healthy breast tissue.

What Happens After My Breast Implants Are Removed?

Explantation recovery is very similar to breast augmentation recovery. However, it is generally shorter and less painful since your breasts will not need to adjust to the size of the implants.

You will likely be sent home with a lightweight compression wrap, just like before, which works to keep swelling down, protect your healing breasts, and support the skin so it can retract back into place. Your aesthetic surgeon will provide you with specific instructions for caring for your breasts and incisions and information on how soon you can return to normal activities.

Will I Have Scars After Explantation?

It depends. Most aesthetic surgeons will try to place your new explantation incisions on top of the same breast augmentation incision sites to limit the risk of visible scarring.

Explantation incision locations are similar to those of breast augmentation. Your surgeon may recommend:

• Inframammary incision: a horizontal incision that runs along the bottom of the breast
• Periareolar incision: a small incision runs around the nipple-areolar complex

Each incision type has benefits and limitations, depending on how much revision it allows your surgeon. For example, periareolar incisions are best for smaller, saline implants, while inframammary incisions give your surgeon much more visibility and control.

Will My Breasts Look Saggy After Explantation?

Again, this depends. Consider this: when breast implants are placed in the body, all of your muscles, tissues, and skin around them have to adjust by expanding and relaxing into place. This inevitably stretches the skin, tissues, and muscles.

When we remove those implants, the skin, tissues, and muscles have to contract back into their original shape, but if those implants have been in the body for decades, or the aging process has reduced your skin elasticity, or your implants are quite large, or you have gained weight in your breasts, this can result in your breasts having some degree of ptosis (sagging).

So, it is quite common for explantation patients to have some degree of breast ptosis after their procedure, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get the result you want.

Combining Your Explantation with Other Breast Enhancement Procedures

Aging, hormone fluctuations, weight fluctuations, pregnancies, breastfeeding, large implants, and even gravity–these are all reasons why your breasts might begin to sag or lose their shape.

Combining your explantation procedure with another breast enhancement procedure, like a breast lift, can help improve the shape of the breasts, as this procedure is designed to remove redundant tissue and skin, lift the breasts higher on the chest, and even reposition the nipples.

Some patients run into complications with their breast augmentations when they gain an unexpected amount of weight–especially when that increases their bust size. This can pose a problem, as implants already augment the breasts; extra volume can be too much!

In this case, patients may benefit from an explantation with a breast reduction combination procedure. Like a breast lift, a breast reduction allows your aesthetic surgeon to remove excess fat, skin, and breast (glandular) tissue and reshape and reposition the breasts and nipples to a more aesthetically pleasing, youthful result.

Interested in Breast Implant Removal in Southern California?

Breast implant removal does not mean you have to sacrifice your feminine figure or personal aesthetic. If you want to learn more about your breast implant removal options in Southern California, call AesthetiCare Cosmetic Surgery Institute today at (800) 662-1055 or fill out our online contact form to schedule a consultation with one of our aesthetic surgeons.