How to reduce pain after breast augmentation surgery

There are many who are concerned about the pain after the breast augmentation surgery and therefore do not want to get it.

There are many around who suffer from the pain so the patients get scared about the breast augmentation surgery.

There are many internet advertisements that read “no pain breast augmentation surgery” or “no pain surgery” but this will not help you relax and stop thinking about such concerns.




First, let’s find out why the pain is caused.

Pain can be felt if you irritate the pain receptor.
If there is much pain after the surgery, then this means that much of the pain receptors have been irritated during the procedure, and vice versa.

The parts of the body with much pain receptors are skin tissue, fascia, and periosteum.
You cannot feel pain in the subcutaneous fat. Also in the muscle itself and the bones. If you break and bone and it hurts a lot, the pain does not come from the bone but the skin that surrounds the bone.




When you have breast surgery, the pain is caused when the implant and the periosteum interact with one another.

So the best method of avoiding this pain is to avoid going into the periosteum area.

We need to make the pocket at the position higher than the pectoral muscle.
If we do the surgery above a certain muscle, the pain is minimized. You can move about freely as you want without any pain. Normally, if you have a surgery on the belly button, there is no pain. This is because one uses the upper layer of the muscle for the procedure.



But, why is this method, putting the implant from the upper muscle area, not used widely?

This is due to the fact that a lot of patients who want breast correction are thin.
The patients do not have much fat and the original breasts are small therefore, if you put the implant from the top, you can feel that the implant is too close to the skin.
If you touch the breast, it will feel artificial. You might be able to see the re-filling or that the implant is there.

If your original breasts are comparatively big then you would not have any problems with this method. The breasts will look more natural and larger without any pain.

But there are many problems of those in 20’s and 30’s in Korea because many of the patients are thin.



Most of the breast surgeries are done under the muscle when the implant covers the pectoral muscle.

So in such case where you cannot avoid the pain, the homework would be on how to minimize the pain.

- If the implant is relatively big compared to the body, then there is much pain. The larger the implant is, there would be more pressure on the skin.

- There will be more pain if your skin is less elastic but tight. As the implant goes in, the skin needs to stretch but those with tight skin, especially those women before pregnancy, would have skin that press against the implant causing pain.

So in order to minimize the pain, it is important that you select an appropriate size of the implant. Mid aged women after pregnancy have relatively elastic skin therefore they feel less pain.

- There is less pain with less inflammation and less bleeding. Although the surgery is same, there are some patients with more bleeding than others. Also, there is much bleeding the inflammation if the surgeon destructs more skin and fat.
There are patients with much bleeding more so than others without any reason or cause. If there is an inflammation, the breasts swell and the swelling leads to continuous pain.

- If the surgeon is more careful during the surgery, there would be less pain. If the surgeon is aggressive, there would be much pain. The aggressiveness leads to much movement therefore, the pain will be caused from the surgery tools used. So there are some patients who say that they do not feel pain because of a certain surgeon and those who fell pain because of a certain surgeon as well.

- Pain comes from sensitivity.
There are some people with developed pain receptors, and those with less developed ones. If we eat same type of food, some might find it hot or spicy, and some who do not. This is all personal sensitivity issue.


Below is the summary on how to minimize the pain with doing the surgery underneath the muscle.
1. Choose an implant with an appropriate size
2. If your skin is tight, use a smaller sized implant
3. A surgeon must be careful and minimize the bleeding

Above are important as well as,

If the surgeon is much experienced and the surgery planning is perfect, then the pain that the patient feels can be decrease by 90%.


Thank you. Have a great day.