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Bras have never been the most comfortable of garments, and it can sometimes be difficult after a procedure like a breast augmentation surgery to know if a feeling of uncomfortability in a bra after the treatment is a symptom of the healing process or just the regular irritation of wearing a bra. Luckily, there’s a more or less standardized step by step process that can help you adjust to your new bust size and feel. The first step in the process is to start by not wearing a bra at all. It’s a simple adjustment, but one which is the beginning of getting used to your new body. Avoid wearing a bra- or any variation thereof- for about a month, maybe a month and a half if it’s a particularly intensive surgery.
Undergoing breast augmentation surgery, unsurprisingly, often changes the cup size of the breast in question. As a result, one of the first steps that you should take after receiving it is to speak to your surgeon or else get measured by a tailor in order to determine what your new cup size is. This way, you can be able to find a bra that properly suits your new breasts once it’s time for you to begin wearing undergarments again. It’s going to be difficult for you to adjust to your new body, and being mindful of your new measurements is an important step in the healing process, and should be treated with the same level of care as the rest of the procedure.
One of the more common misconceptions about procedures like Breast Augmentation or even most other forms of plastic surgery is that the change tends to be gradual- your breast size won’t be immediately reduced or enlarged immediately following the surgery, it will change over the course of the next few months. As a result, staying updated on the continually changing nature of your breasts are important, so get them measured every week or two during the period of the recovery process. Additionally, if the size changes too quickly or some other deformation occurs during the process at any point after the surgery, you should contact your primary care physician and your surgeon as soon as possible.
The entire process is going to be long, arduous, and painful. You may be feeling extreme uncomfortability, pains in the breast and chest, infection, and an increase in the sensitivity in your nipples and areola. These may all occur at some point in the process, and it’s going to be a painful process full of trepidation and concern for your body. The important thing is that you need to give yourself time to heal. Breast augmentation is a procedure that the body may need months to fully recover from, so giving yourself the rehabilitation time that’s wholly necessary for the process is a crucial element of keeping your body healthy post-surgery.
Buying a bra online during your recovery period is often considered inadvisable by a most medical professional because size can vary greatly depending on the retailer of the garments in question, and it’s difficult to say whether or not the bra can not only support your new bust size but also whether or not it will be able to adapt to the changes in cup size that will naturally occur as your breasts continue to change over the months following the surgery. Buying online can be a risky endeavor, especially when the size of your bust exists in a state of flux, so consider waiting until you’ve fully completed the recovery process to buy undergarments online.
In the same way that buying a bra online can be a risky prospect, buying expensive lingerie of any kind is an equally difficult and expensive gamble. Because of the changes your body will undergo in this time, it’s highly probable that any undergarments that you’ve owned prior to the operation or even during the recovery process itself will no longer fit you. Buying expensive lingerie or undergarments should be postponed until you’re absolutely certain that your body has settled into the natural size and shape that will be the norm for it after the surgery. It would be a wise decision to wait for the suggested period of two months before you consider buying new undergarments.
While still in the rehabilitation phase following breast augmentation surgery, your breasts are going to continue changing. As a result, none of your old bras are going to fit properly following the treatment, and simply throwing them out would be a complete waste. As a more conscientious alternative, donating your bras to a garment charity, or giving them to friends and family who can make use of them is a better use of the old undergarments.
Finding a new bra for your can be a nebulous and daunting experience facing a recent patient of breast augmentation surgery. The right levels of comfort, balance, and support are all variable in leading bra brands, and testing different brands and styles for your new body isn’t an experience most look forward to. There are three primary bras to consider once your breasts have finally settled following the recovery process, as underwire bras are out of the question for recently healed breasts. A wire-free compression bra, a front-closure bra, and a sports bra are all worthy of due consideration, and each has their own merits when weighing the pros and cons of post-surgery undergarments. Balance these carefully when considering which bra is right for you following the breast augmentation surgery.
Because you’re going to require a form of bra without an underwire immediately following the surgery, one of your only real options is a wire-free compression bra. Typically, these are often used for medicinal purposes anyway, to treat muscular and tissue defects sometimes found in the breasts and chest. They are the recommended choice for women who have just undergone breast augmentation surgery, as they stabilize the turbulent newly-repaired chest, and greatly reduce the risk of infection. If you’re absolutely unsure of which bra is best following a surgery, the answer is likely to be a compression bra.
One of the chief benefits of another potential option for a post-surgery bra choice, the front closure bra, is their use in keeping the breasts healthy and supported without the use of an underwire. They also distribute weight evenly across the breasts, making sure that no particular point in the breast structure is too strained. As one might imagine, this is highly beneficial to the recovering breast augmentation patient who is trying to recover from heavy work on the chest. Front closure bras also have the fortunate, though not unique, distinction of still being able to support light to moderate physical stress without worry about damaging a newly refurbished bust. For a recently rehabilitated breast augmentation patient, this is a major plus in favor of the front closure bra as an option for their new undergarment of choice.
Sports Bras are another serious contender for the bra of choice for someone whose breasts are still recovering from a recent breast augmentation surgery. Sports bras are for those who want to exercise as soon as possible following their breast augmentation procedure- though as mentioned, it is advisable to wait sometime after the procedure before you engage in extreme physical stress, especially to the chestal region. Sports bras are the best support for physical exercise, and minimize breast movement from active pursuits, stabilizing them in order for them to fully embrace the healing process that’s so necessary after a breast augmentation treatment. So if you lead a particularly active lifestyle and can’t afford to lose it, or else want to maintain such a lifestyle after your surgery, a sports bra may be the right choice for you.
There are many women, of course, who favor an underwire bra, and for good reason, and would be dismayed to hear that they have to go without an underwire bra for any considerable length of time. As a result, one of the most common questions surgeons who perform breast augmentation surgery receive is “How long after the surgery do I have to wait before I can wear an underwire bra again?”. Thankfully, that’s easily answered- no less than 6 weeks, in almost all cases. Generally speaking, the ability to wear an underwire bra again is more or less the benchmark for when the recovery period has completely ended, so 6 weeks is usually a safe bet to make when it comes to being able to resume normal undergarment habits again.
That said, this is by no means an endorsement that 6 weeks is necessarily the right time span for you. Some patients, depending on the anatomy of the patient in question and the size of the procedure that had to be done, need to wait even longer, so you should always wait for your surgeon to give you official leeway to make the switch back to your old bras before you consider deciding for yourself when the right time is. There are all sorts of possible medical complications which need to be accounted for. For instance, underwire bras can sometimes irritate the incision that was made during the procedure, especially if said incision was made in the inframammary fold just under the breast, which may increase the waiting period before you can wear an underwire bra again for a week or two. It’s vital that you speak to a medical professional- ideally the surgeon which performed the procedure in question- to give you clearance to wear underwire bras again before you decide to wear them again yourself.
Contact us today to schedule your appointment with the renowned plastic surgeon and breast & body specialist Dr. Mark Schusterman. Take your first steps to a more beautiful you.
3355 W Alabama St Suite 450, Houston, TX 77098
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