Breast reduction surgery is a popular plastic surgery procedure in the US. Women with overly large breasts often undergo this intervention to reduce the size of their overly developed breasts that look aesthetically unpleasant and even create physical pain for the patient. After the surgery, your breasts will reduce in size and you will no longer feel the pain associated with having large breasts, such as shoulder pain, backache, and neck pain.
The surgery is invasive and involves incisions. The plastic surgeon makes the incisions on the breasts and then removes the excess fat, skin, and glandular tissue. The doctor then sutures and closes the incisions. After breast reduction, some patients may feel like the incisions are not healing or are healing very slowly. What is causing this condition? Well, there are many reasons why you might be experiencing this problem.
Normally, breast reduction incisions should start to heal right after the surgery and completely heal within the first six weeks after the surgery. However, many factors can cause the incisions to heal slowly or impair healing of the incisions. The condition is common after breast reduction. The risks factors that can cause this condition include smoking, diabetes, cancer treatment, carelessness during the recovery period, and infection.
If you are a smoker, there is a risk you may notice your incisions are not healing after the breast reduction procedure. Smoking stops or slows down the flow of blood, nutrients, and oxygen to the incisions, which are critical for a normal incision healing. Hence, the incision may not heal or heal slowly. If you are a smoker, you must stop smoking at least two weeks before the surgery and remain a non-smoker for six weeks after the surgery.
If you have diabetes or are taking blood-thinning medications, your incisions may fail to heal after the breast reduction procedure. You must share your complete health history and medical information with the plastic surgeon during the pre-operative consultation. Patients who are undergoing treatment for cancer may also experience slow or poor wound healing. For example, if you are getting chemotherapy or radiation therapy, your risk of slow and poor wound healing after breast reduction is greater. You should avoid the surgery in such a case.
Carelessness by the patient during the recovery period is yet another major factor that can trigger wound opening, re-opening, bleeding, and poor and slow wound healing. After the breast reduction surgery, the patient must avoid physically strenuous activities like workouts, stretching, jumping, weight lifting, and sleeping on the front. Doing so will reduce the risk of incisions that don’t heal or poor or slow incision healing. If an infection occurs after breast reduction surgery, it can also lead to slow and poor incision healing. In all cases, be sure to contact your surgeon if you notice that the incision is not healing or is healing slowly.