The commonly reported physical symptoms leading to women deciding to have breast reduction surgery are back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, rashes underneath the breasts and deep grooving of the shoulders and shoulder pain. In addition to all these physical symptoms it is not uncommon for women presenting for breast reduction to complain of chronic headaches and / or migraines.
Could overlying large breasts be one contributing factor in the chronic headaches in some of these women?
In 2010 a research study looking at this issue was published (1). The study looked at a group of women who had breast reduction between 2003 and 2008. Sixty nine per cent of women had chronic headaches before their surgery. Of these women 53% ( just over half) reported a greater than 50 % reduction in headache frequency and severity of their headaches after surgery. Twenty one percent of the women reported their headaches had resolved completely following surgery.
Headaches and migraines can...
This seems to be a common misconception about breast reduction.
During a breast reduction procedure your nipples are never disconnected from the supporting breast tissue.
Your nipples will be repositioned and if you choose they can be reduced in size to match the reduced size of your new breasts but they are never detached from your body during the procedure.
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In lots of ways when we discuss breast reduction it is all about the weight of your breasts.
It is the weight of your breasts which cause the neck, back, and shoulder pain and therefore if this excess weight is removed then the symptoms can be expected to improve or resolve.
This is why breast reduction has such high satisfaction rates following surgery.
It is very simply that if the person who performs the procedure removes the excess weight from the front of your chest the dragging pain uphill on your shoulders, neck and back is reduced or resolves completely.
Sometimes a woman will ask me why her symptoms of shoulder, neck and back pain have increased over the years.
This can be due to one or several factor all occurring together.
In many women it is simply the size of their breasts have increased (in response to childbirth and breast feeding ,due to weight gain, or sometimes it is not clear why but their breasts have just got bigger). The breasts now w...
So you made it through Christmas and New Year.
You have toughed it out through another school holidays wearing a t-shirt to the pool with the kids.
Now the kids are back at school it seems even busier (books, school uniforms, homework, new activities, sport training). Was it just a month ago you promised yourself you were going to get to next Christmas without doing something about your breasts?
Let's face it unless you set aside some time to gather the information and think about whether you really want to have a breast reduction the busy flow of life is going to get in the way and it will be Christmas again before you know it.
If you are ever going to access the information you need about breast reduction and make your decision you are going to have to plan this.
One of the main motivations in establishing The Breast Reduction Clinic website was to try and make this a little easier for you and for other women like you.
We hope a lot of the infor...
The concept of having a breast reduction performed by liposuction alone is an immediately attractive idea. Having only a scars of a few millimeters long and therefore potentially less healing time sounds great and for some women it is an appropriate option but for a lot of women when their individual situation is assessed liposuction by itself will not reliably address all their concerns.
So how do we decide if liposuction by itself can achieve your desired result from a breast reduction procedure?
There are 2 critical factors in assessing your suitability for a liposuction alone breast reduction.
The first factor and the most common reason why women ultimately decide against liposuction alone procedures is the extent of droopiness of their breasts. ( The medical term for breast droopiness is breast ptosis). If you have a breast reduction performed using liposuction alone your nipples are not surgically repositioned on your breasts. This may be suffi...
I think there is a large misperception in the broader community that breast reduction is a cosmetic procedure. Whilst there is no doubt breast reduction will alter your appearance it is absolutely not a cosmetic procedure.
In my experience women considering breast reduction are very sensible, they have usually done a large amount of homework over many years before they even come along to talk about breast reduction. It is something that has been on their mind often since puberty.
Women who decide to have a breast reduction are exclusively motivated to proceed with the procedure due to physical symptoms. These symptoms are neck pain , back pain , shoulder pain, postural difficulties. In more extreme cases women will be dealing with rashes and infections in the fold underneath the breasts.
I have never performed a breast reduction for cosmetics ( or appearance based concerns). Once women start investigating breast reduction procedures they would quickly understand the r...
