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Tips for Selecting the Best Implant Size
For Your Breast Augmentation
Dr. Loftus has found that many women are torn between two seemingly opposing desires:
1.
They don’t want to be so large that others suspect they had surgery, that men stare at their breasts, or that they are uncomfortable with their new size.
2. They don’t want to have gone through the operation regretting that they did not go large enough.
These issues are not truly opposing, and both desires are natural and common. To strike a balance between these goals, Dr. Loftus recommends that women choose the very largest implant size that they like. Women who do so are often very pleased with their results, provided that they are honest with themselves while using sizers.
Using sizers to get the results you want:
Sizers are extremely useful in determining your final breast size and help eliminate uncertainty and anxiety. Dr. Loftus recommends bringing two tight sports bras to your breast augmentation consultation so that you can use implant sizers to determine the volume of breast implants that will give you your desired results. Your plastic surgeon should offer guidance on breast augmentation implant size, but you should make the final decision. Beware surgeons who decide upon your implant size with little or no input from you. And be wary of surgeons who state they can confidently select implant size based on your desired cup size.
Additional Tips in Size Selection
It might be useful to discuss proportion with your surgeon. Many women seek augmentation to make their breasts proportionate to the rest of their bodies, in which case your surgeon may measure your breast diameter and select an implant size that will provide a proportionate augmentation. Others might want their final size to be either larger or smaller than that. This strategy is reliant upon your breast diameter being proportionate to the rest of your body, which is usually (but not always) the case.
If your plastic surgeon has sizers, be sure to wear a tight sports bra (preferably two), as doing so makes the sizers more accurate. Incidentally, plastic bags filled with rice tend to be less useful for sizing as they do not easily conform to the shape of the breast. You may also use water balloons that are filled to various volumes (a more arduous task, and not as reliable as the shape of a water balloon is round).
If you seek large breasts, do not hesitate to say so. The only way your surgeon can provide you with your desired result is if you are open about your goals. Now is not the time to be modest.
Although 30 ml sounds like a lot, it is not. It is merely a fluid ounce or two tablespoons. So, if you are struggling between a 360 ml implant and a 390 ml implant (for example), you should stop torturing yourself. They are so similar that if you like one, you will also like the other. Conversely, if you end up deciding (after surgery) that the 360 was too small, then the 390 would have been too small and vice-versa. Once you have narrowed your selection down to two or three sizes, Dr. Loftus simply recommends you choose the largest among them, as this is associated with greatest satisfaction in the end.
Following is an extremely rough guideline for the volume required to change a single cup size. Multiply by two or three for multiple cup size changes. Based on variation among bra manufacturers and women, please do not hold Dr. Loftus or your plastic surgeon accountable if these volumes are not accurate in your case.
Bra Circumference Volume Needed to Increase By One Cup Size
32 100-200 ml
34 150-250 ml
36 200-300 ml
38 250-350 ml
Traps to Avoid in Size Selection
The following are not necessarily useful ways to select implant size:
• Avoid relying on photos of other women: this can be very misleading, especially when height, weight, and chest diameter are different than your own.
• Avoid lingerie ads: there is no way to tell which size implant will give the size proportionate to that seen in an ad.
• Do not request the same size implant as a friend whose implanted breasts appear aesthetic to you: this simply does not work unless you are identical twins.
• Do not select a smaller implant than you desire with the hope that “no one will notice.” Those who do often later complain, “But no one noticed!”
• Do not select a size larger than you like because “everyone on the internet said they wished they had gone larger.” Be honest with yourself while trying sizers, and you will most likely select an appropriate size.
Don’t forget to visit general information on implant size.
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