Risks of Fat Transfer Breast Augmentation/Enlargement

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Fat transfer breast augmentation surgery is relatively pain free and has a faster recovery time than many surgeries. As with any surgery, however, there are a few risks involved with the surgery. Your surgeon will take you through these before your surgery to make sure that you fully understand everything that may occur. Depending on your health and lifestyle, you may be more susceptible to some risks than others. A number of factors can affect this such as your diet, whether or not you smoke, alcohol consumption, medical conditions and any medication that you may be taking. There are certain steps you can take prior to your surgery to reduce the chances of these occurring. If you are worried about these risks, be sure to bring it up with your nurse or surgeon. They will reassure you and provide you with any guidance that might be helpful. For example, quitting smoking, having a healthier diet and removing some medication from your daily routine may be helpful in the run up to your surgery.

Infection

As with any surgery, there is a risk of infection occurring. This can happen around the breasts where the fat is transferred to or on the part of your body that the fat is taken from. In order to minimise this risk, you could bathe before the surgery, using an antibacterial soap. The nurse will also disinfect the equipment used as well as your skin prior to the procedure so as to reduce the chances of any infection. The risk of infection from fat transfer breast augmentation is very slim. The incisions made from the injections are very small and so there is little exposure during the procedure. However, it is still something to be aware of before undergoing fat transfer breast augmentation.


Fat necrosis

Fat necrosis is when the fat cells that have been injected into your breasts die. This can happen with any fat grafting surgery. The fat cells will only die if they do not have access to enough oxygenated blood during the process when the fat is transfered. There are a number of symptoms for fat necrosis including bubbling, painful lumps, painful lumps, hard calcification lumps, oily cystic lumps, redness around the lumps, bruising around the lumps, scar tissue, pain in the surrounding tissue, uneven skin, skin discoloration, changes to breast shape and appearance. If this happens after your breast augmentation, be sure to bring this up with your doctor. The lumps may resemble a cancerous tumour and so it is important that you get yourself checked. In many cases, the lumps aren't painful and don't appear red so many women just leave them. In other cases, the symptoms just resolve on their own. Scarring and redness often subsides with time and lumps are often not even noticeable. Any numbness can also fade.

If you are still unhappy with the lumps or other symptoms, the lumps can always be removed. In order to remove the lumps, the surgeon will use local anaesthetic and an ultrasound to pinpoint each lump. They will then use a needle to dissolve the lump and the recovery time for this is several weeks. Therefore, if you experience fat necrosis, it is not something to worry about. It can be resolved relatively simply and in many cases it isn't visible.

Fat reabsorption

This is when the fat transferred to your breasts is treated as normal body fat. This means that your body will reabsorb some of the fat that has been injected into your breasts. This is normal for fat transfer breast augmentation but is more prominent in some cases. You may, therefore, end up with a smaller increase in breast size than you'd hoped or results that don't last (this is because your body will absorb the fat over time). To resolve this, you may opt to have additional fat transfers in the future. This will maintain a fuller shape. However, the more fat you have injected into your breasts, the higher the chance of the fat cells dying. This can leave you with fat necrosis where parts of your breasts become swollen and red.

Anaesthesia-related risks

For this procedure, you will most likely be put under local anaesthesia (although in some cases general anaesthesia is necessary). This is much weaker than general anaesthetic and means that you will be awake during the operation. Whilst the risks associated with local anaesthesia are relatively low, you should still be aware of them so that you can prepare accordingly and know what to expect. You could experience blurry vision, muscle weakness, dizziness, headaches and numbness whilst the anaesthetic remains in your system. Therefore, it is important to be careful after your procedure and if you feel uncomfortable, have a friend or family member assist you home.

Guide to Breast Augmentation/Enlargement using a Transfer of Fat




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