Straight Talk about Cosmetic Surgery

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Too small, too large, too droopy, asymmetric…who doesn’t have one of these issues? 

Truthfully, asymmetry is the rule, not the exception.  Your breasts are not a matching set, just like one of your hands and one of your feet is larger than the other.  And look carefully, one of your ears sticks out more than the other and one corner of your mouth is higher than the other. 

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Plastic surgeons never see patients who are satisfied by their appearance.  That’s why people come to see us.  And so they have devised procedures that are designed to make you…and your breasts…larger…or smaller…or more perky…or more symmetric.  Those procedures have become so safe and predictable that hundreds of thousands of women have them each year.

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The procedure that gets the most media attention is breast enlargement.  Also called breast augmentations—or even “boob jobs” (though I hate that term)—there were over 300,000 last year in the U.S. according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.  That’s a 50 percent increase over the last decade.  Part of that increase is because silicone gel implants are back on the market.  For over a decade, the only ones that were available were salt water (saline) filled implants.  While these implants fill the breasts, they feel like…well… water balloons.  And ones made of gel feel like…breasts.