I had breast augmentation with saline implants last year and now I can feel the wrinkles in the implant “bag”. What can be done?
Being able to feel the implant is fairly common, particularly in the lower and outer aspect of the breast. If the implant was well covered by breast tissue and fat, and now it is more palpable, this may be due to a signficant weight change or decrease in overall body fat. A simple solution would be to gain weight back to the same level as twhen the original augmentation was performed.
Why do I have rippling and my friend who has the same implants does not?
Being able to see or feel implant wrinkles (also called “rippling”) is dependent on how much breast tissue, fat or muscle tissue is between the surface of the implant and the skin. The thinner the layer, the more likely the implant wrinkles may be seen.
The amount of tissue in a given breast is variable between different women and even between the two breasts of the same woman.
I heard that to fix rippling I have to change to silicone filled implants. Is that true?
Not necessarily. Rippling is more common with saline implants and silicone filled implants have a much lower rate of visible lines or wrinkles. However, if the breast tissue is very thin, rippling may be seen even with silicone filled implants. The most important aspect of decreasing rippling is to increase the aamount of tissue covering the implant. Fat transfer is very effective in decreasing rippling without replacing or exchanging implants to silicone.
I was told that if I gain weight the rippling will go away. I have a really hard time gaining weight.
Another option to gaining weight is to transfer fat tissue to the breast from another area of the body. The effect on the breast will be the same and the rippling will be corrected without gaining weight overall.
I had two pregnancies and now I can feel and see the breast implants.
This is likely due to thinning of the breast tissue with pregnancy, particularly with the growth that happens with breast feeding and shrinking of the tissue afterwards. Options to improve this rippling after pregnancy include replacing the implants with silicone filled implants and fat transfer to the breast around the implant itself to increase the amount of tissue padding.
My breast implants look really unnatural, particularly up top. Can that be changed?
If the implants were placed in front of the pectoralis muscle, a solution to upper pole wrkinling is to change the position of the implant to behind the pec muscle. This will increase the amount of padding and usually eliminate the wrinkling in the upper breast pole.
I see lines in my cleavage but otherwise my implants look fine. What can I do?
The best option to decrease rippling in the cleavage area without replacing the implant or doing more extensive implant revision procedures is to transfer fat to the area. The increased thickness and padding will eliminate the visible rippling and improve the appearance and width of the cleavage area.
