The sagginess of the breasts is a condition that most women will be confronted with sooner or later in their lives. Certain lifestyle choices, genetic inheritance, the aging process, and gravity can alter the firmness of the breasts. Women with larger breasts know that sagginess can occur sooner when the volume of the breasts is more impressive. However, small breasts also sag in time.
So what treatment options are available to correct saggy breasts? Physical exercises to tone the pectoral muscle? Massages to make the skin look firmer? Pills to eliminate the sagginess? Unfortunately, none of these methods are not real treatment options for saggy breasts. Physical exercises and massages will help with the tonus and appearance of the skin; however, if the sagginess is severe, it can be corrected only with the help of plastic surgery.
Plastic surgery offers the only effective treatment for saggy breasts. The procedure is called breast lift or mastopexy and is often performed with the patient under general anesthesia. Despite what people might think, breast augmentation surgery is not an option to treat saggy breasts. Inserting large implants in breasts that are affected by severe ptosis won’t correct the ptosis but more likely accentuate it due to the sheer volume of the implants. In other words, your breasts will sag even more after getting implants to correct the sagginess.
The breast lift surgery entails the surgical removal of excess skin from the breasts. This means the plastic surgeon will make incisions, re-center the mammary gland, and excise the surplus skin and fat tissue to create a firmer and more elevated appearance of the breasts. After the procedure, the patient will enjoy having firmer, youthful looking breasts. However, this benefit comes at a cost: permanent scars.
To minimize the length of the scars, it is important to treat the sagginess in its early stages before it gets too severe. A minor or moderate ptosis can be corrected with a periareolar incision. This is an incision performed in a circular motion around the areola’s edges. Due to the natural color of the area, the scars are barely noticeable if the scarring is normal. For more severe ptosis, there will be up to three incisions performed to correct the shape and elevate the breasts.
For patients with small breasts or who also desire an improvement in terms of the volume of the breasts, the breast lift can be performed in combination with implant surgery. When this option is preferred, the plastic surgeon will start with a breast lift to remove the excess skin and then insert implants to add volume to the breasts.
Keep in mind that the volume of the breasts can be slightly influenced after a breast lift surgery due to the excision of skin and fat tissue. This means that the breasts might look smaller than before.