Fat Grafting, pros and cons
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ndgrrl,
When is your procedure? Please keep us posted!
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ndgrrl,
Have you thought about making an appt with your breast surgeon
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Haven't been here in awhile so I missed the opportunity to welcome some of the newcomers. I'm nearly 7 months out from extensive fat grafting. I had the tumescent procedure and heartily recommend it. (Virtually NO BRUISING on donor sites or injection sites.) After injecting epinephrine and lidocaine into the 5 donor sites on my abdomen, they remove it along with the accompanying fat in those areas. They spin out all the fluids in a centrifuge and in my case, were left with 1,000 cc's of useable fat. It was injected into 6 places on my upper chest and 2 places on my side, under my arm. The grafted sites were very small but were each closed with one tiny dissolveable stitch. The donor sites were not stitched. There was a bit of drainage for the first couple of days.I wore an abdominal compression band (from ribs to hips) for over six weeks, removing it for showers only.
The results were perfect. I did not have it for contouring. I had it because the breast surgeon had taken everything on my chest up to my clavicle, including the fachia on the muscles, and I was left with painful skin over bone all across my upper chest. Switching to tall gummy bear implants helped cover up much of it, but fat grafting was the only solution for the rest. The majority of the fat has been retained. I was prepared to lose a great deal of it, but thankfully that didn't happen on my chest.
On my side, fat grafting was needed to fill in areas lost to infection after my first surgery. (I had a total of 6 surgeries - 5 were repairs from the infection.) I lost portions of three muscles on my side and up into my shoulder as well as most of the soft tissue on my side. I would say I've reabsorbed about 50% of those grafts but it still looks a hell of a lot better than it did.
I am deathly allergic to all types of pain meds and have actually flat lined 5 times in my life from drugs most people don't think twice about. I can take plain Tylenol, thank goodness, but reserve it for when I really need it. I really needed it after fat grafting surgery! The donor sites were much more painful than I expected for the first week. As long as I was sitting still, I was perfectly fine. Getting up from the recliner was another story. WOW. But it only lasted about 10 seconds before fading off. It was 100 times worse without the compression garment.
By the second week I had turned the corner and although it took about a month for the soreness to go away, life was much better. You do get tired of wearing the compression garment, but it's worth it for the relief of discomfort in my opinion.
In spite of my uneven results, I won't be having more surgeries. It's not that fat grafting is such an awful surgery, it's just that after 15 months of surgeries and recoveries, I've had enough. My left side is a bit scary but with all the scars there anyway, it was never going to look right again so it doesn't much matter.
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Hi,
I will be having the lump in my breast removed on July 28th- We are moving on July 17th so I will have to travel back 4 hours to see the PS and have this done. I have not seen my breast surgeon- I actually didn't have a regular breast surgeon- he does multiple surgeries including fixing my I had up my abdomen called swiss cheese hernias. They were found when I was opened up when they removed my Ovaries.
I am wondering if the PS who removed fat from my tummy could have caused those hernias. My belly button hurt so bad after that procedure and never did quit hurting and it turned out I had one of those many hernias right there. My poor tummy ..This plastic surgeon seems so much better than the first one I had, I am really happy to have that lump removed and tested. Not sure about the fixing it yet as that is what was supposed to happen in the first place.
I was a bit surprised that the PS didn't refer me to a surgeon but I guess he feels he can handle it. I sure hope so, if nothing else I should have a decent scar after all this.
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hello my ladies. I'm really sorry that so much thongs can happen to us just by trying to look"the same". Had my surgery on June 30. Still feel sleepy tired not wanting to do nothing more like a slog, it's 5 am wide awake..... But just a quick question my donor side has lumps my PS recommend a therapies to remove those Lumps. $100 per session 60 minutes. I can't afford that any help how I can do it myself I tried massaging it but it hurts soooooo bad.
Hope everyone's stay healthy and strong
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I read on this site that someone used a rolling pin to massage out those donor site lumps. Does everyone get lumps at their donor sites? Should I even try FG to fix my foobs? My incision is sunk in on the left side. Right bottom needs filled in. Top half looks great. What do u guys think?
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I am wondering if anyone has had fat grafting for total reconstruction and if so did they use a Brava bra system or some such device after surgery. The PS told me it will help with the shaping As well as increasing how well the fat takes. I am also concerned on the shape.
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swim - this thread mainly deals with fat grafting added to implants or autologous reconstruction. There are a couple of other threads that are more involved with using fat for recon or Brava. Here they are - hope you get the info you are seeking:
https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/70/topic/...
https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/44/topic/...
https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/44/topic/...
https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/44/topic/...
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Welcome Swim23 and thanks SpecialK for the great answer!
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Happy to help! Sometimes when you are new it is hard to know where to look!
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I don't know how common fat necrosis happens. (death of fat cells) I've read that docs hope you will keep 80% of the fat they've grafted, but not any percentages on those "lumps" of dead fat you are talking about, Patricia. I had none but then didn't expect any.
Although some people do a massage afterwards, my surgeon said absolutely no massage. He said the grafted cells had to find their own blood supply and I shouldn't even do anything to compress the areas even a little in order to decrease the risk of graft failure. He said to not allow anything to even make a red mark on my chest. No compression. No massage.
Didn't massage the donor sites either. Absolutely couldn't have. Way too painful.
Before my procedure, the plastic surgeon ordered an MRI of my abdomen to make sure there were no surprises in there. (I'd had several abdominal surgeries in years past.) He told me I had a hernia above the umbellicus, but he'd remove it during the surgery. That particular incision took forever (about 2+ months) to heal and the scar is STILL dark after 7 months. You can't see any of the donor site or chest scars at all and haven't for the longest time.
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Well I received a call today saying that my fat grafting surgery has been scheduled for next Wednesday. A bit sooner than I expected, so now I really have to make a quick decision as to whether to go through with it! Think it might be a sleepless night lol
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I felt a lump a few weeks back and dr ultra sounded it and said it appeared to be fat necrosis. She wanted to be on the safe side and biopsied it and it was fat necrosis. The dr said I had quite a bit and there was quite a bit of fluid in there as well. Some of the fat grafting did take- this is evident because the large dip in the upper pole isn't so obvious now but I can tell that some of it didn't take. 80% would probably be a good guess
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thank you for the feed back. I only want them to massage the donor side not on my chest. Which is on my abdomen side. Is that ok. It's call the lymphatic drainage. So I got her to start doing it today. But on my chest. I don't let anyone touchme less it's my Doctor.
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Ndgrrl, I will say that your experience had make me reconsider the fat grafting to maybe plump things up after my Lx, which I was originally considering. The PS I consulted seemed pretty cautious about recommending it because of exactly what you've been experiencing, suspicious lumps showing up that are probably fat lumps but that need to be checked out, causing additional tests and possibly surgeries. I hope you have a really good outcome this time!
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Do fat necrosis lumps reabsorb on their own after a while? Do you ladies think the pain experienced with fat grafting is worth the benefits? I have FG scheduled for October.
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I did not have any fat necrosis so I can't offer any advice on that. I did have fat reabsorb - about 20% overall, almost all on my side where an awful infection had destroyed muscles and soft tissue. The grafts on my chest look fine.
I am allergic to any kind of pain drugs and had nothing but Tylenol in the hospital and afterward, so my view will be different than someone who gets morphine pump or Norco, etc. If you do what you can do to minimize pain and bruising (i.e. find a doc who does the tumescent procedure), get a good compression garment designed for post-surgical recovery (Dale makes a great abdominal binder and you can get it in many sizes on Amazon) and wear it religiously for several weeks, and be prepared for the donor sites to hurt pretty significantly when you get up and down the first week, you'll be fine. If you have a weak pain tolerance, you might have a harder time.
I probably wouldn't do it again, but then I had a large donor area which produced the 1,000 cc's of fat that was grafted - so if you are only having a couple hundred cc's of fat taken, you'll be ok.
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Thanks Sandra. How long was your procedure? Was it general anesthesia? I want my chest shape on the lower half to improve, but do not want to be any larger. Is that possible? Was your chest larger after FG? 80 percent is really good.
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I'm having my second go at fat grafting tomorrow, the first being 18 months ago. My PS wanted to do it last year but after already having six surgeries in 2 years I wasn't ready for another. I was and will be under general anesthetic (the last time was about1 1/2 hours). There is no doubt about it, it hurts! There is only so much you can do to minimize it, but of course different people also handle things differently. I didn't find nor do I expect that it will increase the size of my foob, just fill out an area that is a bit 'empty'. I had one area of fat necrosis that disappeared after a period of massaging it
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Suzy, thanks for your input! Let me know how it goes. Best wishes for you tomorrow. I know how you feel about taking a break from recon. I am taking the summer off:) Last summer was rough to say the least.
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Hi, I'm lounging on the couch with my cat, a magazine and my trusty iPad. Surgery went well (I guess lol) and I'm feeling like I got run over by a truck, as I expected. My PS decided to do a couple of extra things while I was under and I thought he may as well since I will be in pain anyway. I'm glad I did it, looking forward to getting back on my feet and very sure that I will not have any more surgery no matter what the eventual outcome of this one
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Kingster, all 6 of my surgeries were under general anesthesia including the fat grafting. My foobs were not bigger after the procedure even though about a 1,000 cc's of fat was put in during the procedure. It was put all across my chest above the implants and more on my left side where it was sunken in due to loss of tissue & muscle.
I'm sure no expert, but I know that Brava uses lots of very tiny injections of fat to create a breast (since they don't have an implant) or make it larger by increments. From what I've read, most people who get traditional fat grafting don't get the fat placed over the implants unless it's a smaller area that is sunken in and needs to be puffed back up. Many get it on their chests above the implants like I did. To get enough fat grafted to increase the size of your breasts, there would have to be a LOT of injection sites and quite a bit of fat. It's not like they only use a few injection sites and have the fat just run across below the skin and fill in wherever it's low. It has to be carefully placed in a particular spot...at least that's how my PS did it. Most people seem to only get 100-200 cc's grafted which is not a big amount. I don't know how it would be done in a way that would actually increase the overall size of the breast.
My fat grafting surgery took about 2 hours. I went home the next day.
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SuzyBlue, hope you are continuing to do well. It sure does hurt those first couple of weeks.
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Thanks Sandra, every day feels a bit better, mainly just stiff and sore when I stand from sitting or trying to get comfortable in bed. The things we have to go through just to get back to a semblance of where we started from
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I am lounging around in my brava waiting for my fat grafting procedure in about two days.
The brava fat grafting appears to be a layering kind of thing. The PS made about six little holes where the breast fold is suppose to be. He used these on the first procedure along with a bunch of needle sticks around the scar to pull skin and scar away from muscle. Including evening out my upper chest (UMX )
On the second he used same to fill up my arm pit and put another layer between skin an muscle. The third is coming, based on expansion I hope to have CLEAVAGE!!!!!
Will have to do it at least 2 more times to match otherside with no implant.
It's a process.
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I had fat grafting about 4 weeks ago to fill in some divots and to correct some minor symmetry issues. Today is the first day I am out without compression and the donor sites (love handles) are still slightly painful. I told my PS that the pain from the lipo was nearly as bad as the pain from DIEP surgery. He found that hard to beieve. I typically have a pretty high pain threshhold but for me, lipo was tough. I do have some areas that are fighting back with a couple hard areas. I go back next month but whether this takes or not, I am definitely done.
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Aff, unless the surgeons have had lipo themselves, they won't understand the pain! I remember a midwife I had for my second baby telling me it was the easiest birth she had ever seen, and I said, she should have tried it from my end! I don't think you can fully understand any experience from second hand observation or study, you have to have walked in the same shoes. That midwife did tell me after having her own baby a year or so later, that she finally felt qualified to give advice haha.
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Thank you ladies for all the input😃 I guess I will see what things look like in September and go from there. I have to just prepare for the pain. Oh boy!
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Hi everyone! I had my implants placed along with fat grafting last Wednesday...and ouch! While I seem to have gotten to a turning point with the soreness, FG definitely hurt more than anticipated. PS took from my belly - not much, as he said there really was barely anything to take, but the worst part is that I can only lie down for a few hours at a time. My stomach and back get so incredibly sore that it's painful for me to lay at a 45 degree angle. I've tried sleeping sitting up, but that's not going so well ;-) I've tried Arnica gel...can I use a heating pad on my back? Is there anything that anyone has used to help? I feel awful complaining based on what some through, but am in need of suggestions! Thanks ladies!
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ual0307...I'm "lounging" in my Brava domes too right now! I'm heading in for large volume fat grafting tomorrow morning. I'm so anxious to just get this done and move on!!!! Good luck to you!
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