At The Kole Plastic Surgery Center we want you to be completely informed both about the short term and the long term complications of breast augmentation surgery.
“Hard scar” or capsular contracture is a known complication of breast augmentation surgery.
Other major complications of breast surgery include:
- Infection
- Rippling in the skin
- Blood clots in your legs
- Numbness or nipple sensitivity
- Poor scarring
- Displacement of the implant
- Rupture or breakage of the implant
Breast implants are foreign bodies placed into your body
All foreign bodies develop scar around them. This is a normal process of how your body heals. This scar in the breast enhancement surgery is called a capsule. If this scar capsule remains soft and pliable, the implants and the breasts will feel soft. If this scar capsule becomes contracted and hard, the breast implants will also become hard. This can lead to your breast feeling:
- Distorted
- Hard
- Minor discomfort to significant pain
Breast hardness is rated on a scale of 1-4 (Bakers scale)
A 1 on the Bakers scale is minor hardening where a 4 on the scale is severe hardening with obvious displacement and deformity of the breast.
How to prevent hard breast scarring.
- Place the implants underneath the muscle (submuscular).
This has bee proven to lower the hard scar rate as the pectoralis (chest) muscle has been shown to massage the implant, lowering the chance of developing hard scar capsules. In my opinion, placing the implants under the muscle gives a better aesthetic result and a more natural feel.
- Avoiding infections
Infection is rare after a breast augmentation surgery. The implants can become infected by external factors as the wound opening up due to stress on the incision or internal infections by having bacteria attack the implants: for example a urinary infection or a blood stream infection.
- Massage
Dr Kole will instruct you on how to correctly massage your implants. This will keep the capsule soft and pliable and limit the hard scarring by stretching the capsules.
- Avoiding blood around the implants.
Blood around the implants can occur during surgery when blood can accumulate around the implant and cause hard scarring later on in the course of healing. A hematoma (collection of blood) under the skin and around the implants can occur after the surgery from taking motrin, aspirin products or other anti-inflammatory medications prior to or after your surgery.
To learn more about the treatment of hard breast after augmentation or prevention of hard breast prior to your augmentation, contact Kole Plastic Surgery of The Kole Plastic Surgery Center Center for a private complimentary consultation at 215-315-7655 .
