Seattle Plastic Surgeon blogs about the realities of cleavage.
This patient has wide cleavage before and after surgery. God made her that way!
The term “refund gap” has recently come to my attention. This term is out there in the blogosphere and refers to the idea that a patient who does not end up with bodacious cleavage after breast augmentation is entitled to a refund from her plastic surgeon.
So here is a reply to all those disgruntled cleavage challenged patients out there. Take it up with God, Yahweh, Supreme Being, Higher Power, Allah, Mother Nature or your birth parents.
Plastic surgeons actually have very little control over cleavage. Cleavage is mostly determined by how your pectoralis muscles are inserted onto your sternum. Most breast implants should be placed under the pectoralis muscle and it is very, very unwise to disinsert (is that aword?) the pectoralis muscle from the sternum. Doing so can create a step-off deformity or uni-boob that can be very difficult to correct.
This patient has tight cleavage before and after surgery. God made her that way. BTW, her extensive scars were from an overdone breast reduction done by another surgeron.
I try really hard to educate my patients preoperatively about the cleavage issue by showing them a lot of photos which demonstrate the similarity of a patients pre and post operative cleave. The same goes for nipple position. Breast implants make the breasts bigger and really don’t do much else for a patients inherent anatomy.
Fat transfer to the cleavage area may be a way to enhance this area. I have done quite a few cases of fat transfer to the breast but want to wait an entire year before I pass judgement on my results. This could be the treatment of choice for the cleavage challenged. I’ll keep you posted!
Thanks for reading. Dr. Lisa Lynn Sowder
@lisalynnsowder
