Hi, this is Dr. Salemy and I’m speaking today from our office in Seattle. A patient on Realself had asked the question about what the recovery is like after a breast augmentation. This a great question and something you should be fully aware of before you decide to have the procedure.
Now, the short answer is that there’s a whole range of recovery times for patients. Some patients feel really good within a day or two, have very little discomfort; don’t really need too much pain medication. Others, it takes some several days maybe even a week to start to really recover from it. I typically tell my patients to give themselves about a week off from work, about four to six weeks off from any sort of heavy activities or lifting, and to be really patient with their bodies, make sure that the people taking care of them know that they’ve had surgery and are able to help them with some daily activities around the house.
The degree of discomfort is different for every patient. Most patients say they feel okay but they feel like they’ve done a hard workout, they feel a lot of pressure on their chest and that gets better with time. The first 24 or 48 hours is usually the worst of it and it starts to slow down and get better and better over time.
So just be patient with it, make sure to talk to your doc about their plan for your pain control and I’m sure you’re going to have a great result if you do that.
Thanks.
