Synmastia occurs when a breast implant begins to cross the midline towards the sternum. This is often upsetting to the patient and is often even more accentuated when wearing a bra or low cut shirt. Correction of synmastia can be challenging for both the patient and surgeon.
Appropriate steps in synmastia correction require accurate diagnosis of the problem. Synmastia can occur from either an overly large pocket medially above or below the pectoralis muscle. Quite commonly this can be more obvious by an implant with too large a base diameter for the rib cage or thorax. It is also common for the patient to have a capsular contracture at the same time.
Patients often ask me what they will look like post-operatively from capsular contracure surgery in terms of bruising. I often tell patents that swelling is normal and can be expected for quite some time following capsular contracture and synmastia surgery. I tell patients that early post-operatively the implants and breasts take on a globular shape which improves in almost regular intervals at one month, two months, four months, six months, and then finally at one-year.
Capsular contracture surgery is commonly performed either because the capsules are causing a significant amount of pain to the patient or the capsules are starting to distort the breast shape or size. Typically capsular contracture surgery tends to restore a normal contour to the breast.
I often tell patients that they may require drains post-operatively to removed fluid from the breast pockets. The drains typically exit just lateral to the breast. Drains can be left in place from one to 5 days post-operatively. The patient in the photo above is an early (5 days) post-operative result.
Leave a reply