Will My High Riding Breast Implant On My Left Side After Breast Augmentation Need A Revisional Surgery?

Q:  Please I need a second opinion.  I have breast implants (saline) since August of last year and the left is still resting high. A few hours after surgery, my left breast implant moved all the way up close to my clavicle. It was a crazy experience.  It seems like only after a month it stopped moving downward to settle in its right place.  It feels and look stuck like if implant is glued or my skin is too tight to allow it to move naturally on its own.  I fear and strongly believe that another surgery in my case is necessary.  Please is there a non surgical way or is it mandatory for another surgery? Please need advice and thanks for your time.

A: What you have is a classic case of a highly-positioned implant that is reflective of an implant pocket that was not made low enough on that side or one that scarred down on the bottom too quickly. I suspect that your saline implants were placed through an armpit incision since you describe the pocket on the left side as being as high as your clavicle. It is not that the implant or skin is glued, there is just no pocket for it to settle down lower into. It is being restricted by tissue attachments from being lower.

There is no non-surgical solution. You will need a fairly simple surgery to make the pocket lower so the implant can settle down to match the other one. This can be done either through a nipple incision or a small incision in the lower breast fold. The implant pocket has now healed so additional time will not change its position. If you don’t make this implant adjustment, then the left-sided breast implant will always be where it is right now with an asymmetrical breast augmentation result.

Dr. Barry Eppley

Indianapolis Indiana