I was recently in a forum where a young woman asked this question. She was in her early 20s, had silicone gel implants for a few years, and wanted them out. The question was: WILL SHE NEED TO DO A LIFT?
It is a tricky question, and as almost all things plastic surgical, has many factors which contribute to the answer.
So if you are in this boat, and want your implants out, here are some things to help you figure it out.
- What is your age? The older you are, the less likely your skin can bounce back after removing the implant. If the skin doesn’t bounce back, then it will droop.
- What has happened to you since you got the breast implants placed? Big weight changes, pregnancy, and breastfeeding all affect your skin tone. Again, it makes it so after the removal the skin won’t “bounce back.”
- How long have you had the implants? This is simple, but the longer you have had the implants, the less likely your skin will be able to bounce back.
- How big are the implants? This would be the cc’s. The bigger, the more it stretches the skin, the more they weighed, the less likely to bounce back.
- What degree of “droop” are you okay with?
- How big are you without implants? The more natural tissue you have, the more “fill” you will keep in your breast after surgery.
- Are you already droopy with the implants in? If so, then you will droop with the implants out, as volume helps lift you (so removing volume does the opposite).
- Do you have a capsular contracture? If you do, it is likely distorting how droopy you really are. If I have a patient with a hard capsule, the contracture is like an internal bra. It keeps the implant from stretching the skin and drooping. When you remove the capsule and everything becomes soft and stretchy again, you may droop.
With saline implants I have deflated implants pre surgery, so we can see what things would look like. I do this in the office with a sterile procedure. You cannot pre surgery deflate the implant with silicone gel breast implants. I have found this helpful to let people see “what is the droop going to look like” and “what part of my breast is me versus what part is implant.”
For more information, see my page on breast implant revision here.