Are you considering breast reduction?
By Dr. Weber
Watch Dr. Weber’s vlog to learn more about the procedure.
Breast reduction is surgery that’s done typically for women who are having symptoms such as upper back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, rash underneath of breast to make the breast smaller to help alleviate those symptoms.
The best candidate for breast reduction surgery is a woman who’s completed her pubertal breast growth, is having symptoms, such as back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, and who’s close to ideal body weight. All breast reduction candidates must be non-smokers.
Smoking is a risk factor for breast reduction. So we’d prefer that women who are considering that quit smoking beforehand and then for several weeks afterwards.
There are different techniques, the skin excision is generally the same. The difference would be where the breast tissue is excised from, and those will vary based on a patient’s preoperative appearance, which would decide to do. Scarring after breast reduction typically has an anchor appearance or kind of a lollipop appearance, where there’s a scar that goes around the outside border of the areola right at the color difference scar that runs underneath the breast. So it’s hard to see because it’s at the junction between the breast in the upper abdomen, and then there’s a vertical scar that connects the two from the bottom part of the areola towards where the breast and chest join.
The vast majority of breast reductions are covered by insurance. We do have to go through a pre authorization process to make sure that the insurance agrees to pay for it. There are occasional women who don’t meet the insurance criteria or prefer not to have as much breast tissue removed as the insurance would require. That would be performed for cosmetic reasons and therefore paid out of their own expenses. Breast reduction surgery for men would be typically for gynecomastia, which is the name for breast and men technique is a little bit different, oftentimes, not as extensive as scarring, adds liposuction to that but probably the most common cosmetic procedure performed in men. Typically, it will not be paid by insurance. I’d say anybody who’s considering having a breast reduction, obviously if they smoke, I’d recommend that they discontinue smoking. Some of them may benefit from from physical therapy ahead of time and I definitely recommend that they seek evaluation from a board certified plastic surgeon.