Hello,
I’ve had the lipofilling twice this year. I had l.d. reconstruction almost 4 years ago, and afterwards was very skinny for a long time due to chemo weight loss, so my breasts were about the same size.
After chemo I started on Tamoxifen, and have gained weight everywhere except in the recon of course. So I have become more and more lopsided over time. Like many women, I did not want to have surgery/uplift on the healthy breast, even though it is much bigger and quite droopy. So by spring of this year I was ready to try the lipo on the recon.
It’s done under general anaesthetic - if it weren’t, it would have to be considered torture! Small punctures are made here and there around the stomach (or wherever fat is being harvested) so the vacuum/suction device can be inserted into the abdomen through very small wounds. Two surgeons do the work to get it done quickly. They scrape and suction out the fat, which is then run through a centrifuge in the operating theatre, to ‘purify’ it/remove water and blood etc. Then it’s put into syringes, then the surgeon squirts the fat into the recon, building up a nice new shape.
It took about an hour, they work fast. Stayed one night in hospital, then sent home on painkillers. Two weeks off work. Bruised and swollen. Had to wear tight, high-waisted control pants for 6 weeks afterwards, to compress the abdomen. That was uncomfortable, but when I didn’t wear them it was even more uncomfortable. For me the first lipo op was painful but manageable, and it was really great to put on a bra and see that both cups were filled!
What’s unpredictable is whether or not the transplanted fat cells will stay alive. It’s expected that 25 percent will die off, maybe more. In my case, unfortunately after a couple of months, my recon had shrunk back to its original size - pretty much all the fat cells died. I’ve since learned that taking brufin can kill off the fat cells, so maybe some women have been prescribed brufin as a painkiller after this op, by mistake?
It also wasn’t long before my abdomen was chubby again - I’m not sure if that’s due to eating, or Tamoxifen, or both.
I had the lipo procedure again a couple of weeks ago. This time I’m in much, much more pain, much more bruised and frighteningly swollen. I think this is because they did more liposuctioning, over a larger area, to harvest more fat. I was put on stronger codeine-based painkillers because tramadol (small green and yellow capsule) made me throw up. Also I was put on anti-biotics, in case the swelling could lead to infection. Signed off work for 4 weeks this time, which is a good thing because there is no way I could go back to work after two weeks being this sore. Gradually the swelling is going away, and I’m catching up on sleep with the stronger painkillers.
The good news is my boobs now match again in a bra, although I am still being encouraged to consider uplift on the healthy breast. I am worn out by procedures and stress though, so I doubt that I will agree to that. Over the next few months I’ll see if the transplanted fat cells live this time. If they don’t, I have already decided that I will not go through lipo a third time - it’s just too painful physically and emotionally to keep repeating it without a guarantee of success.
I don’t want to put anyone off, but I agree with the nurse who said to put it on the back burner for a while. There has to be room for enjoying life without looking forward anxiously to extra or unnecessary procedures. I’ve been reconsidering my attitude to my appearance, and whether or not I should care about being lopsided. All of it has been done to try to feel and look normal, but I’m beginning to accept that, for me, it may be futile to keep pursuing normality.
That is my experience of trying to use lipo to build up a recon - but for women who are just looking to get a small dent filled, or to even out a smaller difference in size, the whole procedure will be far less painful because less fat will need to be harvested.
It is great that the procedure is available. But for me, having gone through it twice, and experienced considerable pain and not much success, I can’t recommend it to anyone with a similar big difference in breast size as me, I’m sorry. I guess it depends on your tolerance for pain, and your employer’s tolerance for sick leave!