How a Breast Implant Changes Over Time After Breast Augmentation Surgery

Added on 4th March 2020

It can be common for patients to feel a sense of discomfort in the chest after breast augmentation. This is because breast implant changes over time can occur after the procedure. Considering this, it’s important to understand how and why these changes happen. This vlog will help to outline this in further detail.

Why would I feel discomfort from the implant?

Patients will often feel discomfort in the middle of the chest or underneath the breasts where the stitches are. There can also be some form of stretching pain on the outside of the breasts. This will naturally occur after surgery because the implants will be expanding the natural skin tissue. 

Breast implant changes over time – Case study 1

The first case study provides images of how a patient’s breast implant changes over time after surgery. The second image shows the patients results after a week. As you can see, the patients’ breasts have significantly swollen. The implants initially appear very high on the chest, shaped extremely round and generally very tense in appearance.

This is relatively common for patients around 2 weeks after surgery. If patients choose to have larger implants or naturally have high skin pockets, they can feel stiff.

What happens to the implants after this period?

After a longer time has passed, the implants will ‘fluff and drop’. This is a technical term for when the implants begin to soften and stretch the lower part of the skin. This is how the breasts begin to take the anatomical shape that patients wish to have after breast augmentation. 

Case study 2

The next set of case studies are an example of 3 different patients and how their breast implant changes over time.

In the first patient we can see that they have results that are expected post operatively in 6 weeks. Once the patient has had their children, the results are again of what we expect in terms of differences that can occur. The patient has lost weight which can impact the appearance of the breasts, but generally she’s been provided with good results.

Case study 3

The next patient initially wished to have a breast augmentation. However, her nipples were placed rather low on her breasts and were generally low on the on the footprint of the breasts. This begged the question of whether the patient required a breast lift and augmentation at the same time. As she hadn’t started a family yet, she opted to just have breast augmentation surgery.

We can see in her postoperative photo after a year that she has achieved a lift of the nipple areola complex. The results still show her nipple still being lower than what is classed as ideal aesthetically.

The last image shows how the patient’s breast implant changes over 7 years. She’s maintained positive results despite the nipples still sitting lower on the breasts. 

Case study 4

Preoperatively, the final patient has aesthetically shaped breasts. They are smaller in size and therefore opted for breast augmentation surgery. After a year, we can see the results of the breasts are pretty symmetrical with a slight over projection of the nipple on the left breast.

In the final photo, the patient has completed her family and after 7 years we can see some notable differences that have occurred. The breasts remain soft but we can see that the left implant has dropped slightly whilst the right implant has risen. This has caused a slight asymmetry of the chest wall over time. The patient was still happy with her results at this period but we can see how the implants can change over time.

Breast implant changes over time can happen differently with each patient

How the breast implants change can differ with each patient. Generally, patients will find that their results appear swollen after 2 weeks. This requires some time before the results begin to settle for around 6 weeks. Patients should expect final results to appear around 6-12 months where there would have been more noticable changes to the skin and implants. 

If you have any further queries about this, feel free to contact us directly. You can also browse our breast augmentation surgery page for other patients before and after photos.

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