What usually happens the day of your breast Reduction?
I don’t need to tell patients with big breasts that they suffer from a whole range of problems including neck and shoulder pain, heaviness, sweaty rashes and difficulty in finding clothes that fit. Medicare and private health funds acknowledge the impact of big breasts on physical health, and support breast reduction with an item number.
There have been many studies that clearly show the benefits of reducing breast size on these problems and it doesn’t seem to matter how much breasts are reduced – all patients benefit. This probably relates to the lifting of the breast that occurs during a reduction – elevating the centre of gravity means there’s much less pressure on your bra straps.
It is a common misconception that loosing weight will always make breasts smaller. Breasts are made up of two types of tissue: gland and fat. Whilst the fat in a breast will certainly reduce by loosing overall body weight, the gland tissue will not. Younger women tend to have a greater proportion of gland relative to fat, so often loosing body weight will have very little effect on their breast size. The opposite is true in post-menopausal women, whose breast size usually does reduce as their body fat goes down. That’s not to say their symptoms will improve, because invariably as their breasts deflate, their centre of gravity becomes lower.
Breast reduction is a great operation for most women who suffer significant symptoms associated with large breasts. The most common post-operative comment I hear is, “I wish I’d done this years ago”.