Breast lift without implants? The internal bra surgery explained [Bob Basu, MD, Houston]

Eva Sheie (00:00):
You're listening to Where Before Meets After. What about breast surgery when you've lost a lot of weight? And specifically, what if you need a breast lift, but you're absolutely not interested in breast implants? How do you do that?

Dr. Basu (00:13):
Very common. I typically tell patients, if you take your hands and lift your breasts up to where you want them to be, and if you're happy with the volume, there is absolutely no need to talk about breast implants. Now, if you want a little bit more volume, then you might be a good candidate for a breast lift, auto augmentation of cleavage technique, and maybe a little fat grafting. If you have a little extra fat, maybe in your medial thighs or your flanks, we could lipo that, put to good use and do a little grafting into the breast just to give you kind of like a half cup size, maybe a cup size full or very conservative augmentation, maybe filling in maybe any gap between your breasts. For patients that have really weak tissue with a breast lift, I can also add in the internal bra technique.

(00:59):
Now, many of the listeners have heard me talk about the internal bra techning. I'm very passionate about it. So what is it? So the internal bra technique in a breast lift, let's go back to why we're even talking about it. So when we do any breast procedure, whether we're talking about an augmentation, an augmentation with a lift or a lift by itself, whenever we do these procedures, what holds these procedures up to where you want the breast to be? And the answer to that question, it's your tissue quality, right? It's your tissue quality. It's always your tissue quality. So what do we do for patients that want their breast to sit a lot higher on their chest wall, but they're either born with weak tissue, they have a weight loss history, maybe the weight loss came from the post-pregnancy changes or they're just born with weak tissue.

(01:42):
We have to do something else besides depending on their tissue to help give them the result that they want. And that's something else is the internal bra technique where I'm using something else besides your tissue that something else is a resorbable mesh. And when I say the word mesh, I always clarify, this is not that mesh that you see late night TV commercials are creating problems, right? This is made out of suture material that's been around for a long, long time, decades. But the company that made this resorbable or dissolvable mesh was very, very clever. They took the sutures to been around for decades and they weaved it into what looks like a mesh. And we can place that mesh strategically to give a little bit more support. Now that mesh sticks around for two to three years and as it dissolves, your type three collagen replaces it naturally giving long-term support.

(02:32):
So that's one way that we can give you a little bit more support. What the internal bra technique does is recreate the effect of your favorite supportive or pushup bra without having to eat that bra. It's internalizing it.

Eva Sheie (02:45):
Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Eva Sheie. Follow the show and submit questions for our experts at wearbeforemeetsafter.com. Where Before Meets After is a production of The Axis.