What Is The Recovery Time After Breast Reduction Surgery?

Breast reduction surgery is one of the most popular procedures we perform at Cosmetic Surgery Partners, and part of the reason for this is due to the fact we developed and introduced widely used techniques such as the glandular slide-vertical scar procedure.

While recovery may be the furthest thing from your mind if you are considering undergoing breast reduction, it is just as important to consider this as the surgeon you choose or the cost of the surgery as you need to factor in time away from work and other obligations. This ensures that your recovery period is as calm and relaxed as possible with little to no physical activity.

Smoking and Medicating

One of the major factors that can impact recovery time is whether you smoke or not. A little known fact is that nicotine causes blood vessels to shrink and essentially lowers the oxygen levels in the blood, as well as restricting the ability of white blood cells to fight bacteria and keep infection at bay.

While we understand that quitting smoking is easier said than done, we encourage everyone who is undergoing any form of surgery to stop at least three months before your surgery date and try to keep that momentum going until after the recovery period.

Another factor that can affect recovery is any medication you are currently on. While they provide benefits for what they are treating they can complicate breast reduction surgery and impact on the recovery period – this is why we intensively review all medications our patients are taking and ask them to cease their intake for the surgery and recovery period. Your chosen surgeon will be able to advise you during your initial consultation.

Post-op

Post-operatively we encourage women to take between one and two weeks off-work to recover safely. During this period we will arrange follow-up appointments in order to remove bandages and stitches and check on the progress of your recovery. While we don’t expect you to be bed-bound it is important that you do no strenuous physical activity such as house-work and exercise for up to a month.

It’s important that if you notice irritation or suffer a fever to get in touch with your surgery immediately – this could be a sign of infection and will need to be checked by your surgeon as soon as possible. Fortunately, our friendly support staff are only a phone call away. All patients at our clinic are offered the benefit of a 24 hour patient hotline number should any issues arise.