Wake Up to a Pain Free Recovery Following Breast Augmentation

Modern breast augmentation involves a whole host of techniques and technologies aimed at making this popular surgery one of the best in terms of satisfaction and ease of recovery. Dr. Stafford Broumand, a board certified plastic surgeon from New York City, talks about the fantastic results he routinely creates and how a new drug has made the pain during recovery essentially zero.

By: Stafford R. Broumand, MD
and Adam McMillon
ThePlasticSurgeryChannel.com

Decreasing the Complications after Breast Augmentation

Breast augmentation is a very controlled procedure, aimed at patients looking to improve the shape and size of their breasts. Advances to modern breast augmentation have helped to reduce scarring, drastically decrease the rate of complications and make the recovery easy. With so many improvements, including a procedure that takes less than an hour, breast augmentation continues to be one of the most popular plastic surgery procedures.

Of special importance is the recovery period. “The recuperation today is much faster with our long acting numbing medicines,” says Dr. Broumand. “The new medications have resulted in overwhelmingly positive reactions from our patients. They’ve been saying this was easier than they could have ever imagined, and they don’t know why they waited so long.”

Managing the Pain

We have seen it in the news and we see it all around us, prescription drugs are a problem. The ability to eliminate prescription drugs is not only better for patients and their recovery, it is safer for them as well.

To combat post surgical pain, plastic surgeons are utilizing a new drug called EXPAREL®. “We administer EXPAREL® at the time of surgery and it’s effects last for three days, around the amount of time it takes for a patient to be well on their way to recovery,” says Broumand. EXPAREL® is not a narcotic; it simply blocks the pain during the window of time where it is at it’s greatest.  “We inject EXPAREL® at the time of surgery, and when patients wake up they say, ‘the surgery is done? I don’t have any pain; this is great!’” The medication is slowly released to the required area over the course of about seventy-two hours.  It’s intended to counteract potential discomfort you may feel after your surgery, so by the end of the three days, the vast majority of the pain has come and gone.

EXPAREL® is also being utilized to manage post-surgical discomfort for a variety of cosmetic surgery procedures, including tummy tucks, breast reductions, face, breast and arm lifts.  It’s one of the longest-lasting, most-effective pain management medications available to plastic surgeons, and has drastically cut down the reliance on habit-forming pain medication, says Broumand.

“We want to make sure that patients are physically and psychologically in great shape following their surgery, ” says Broumand. “By severely reducing (if not outright eliminating) post-surgical pain and discomfort, we’ve succeeded in creating a transformation that meets patient’s goals and gets them back to their life. My goal for breast augmentation is to make sure my patients are happy. If they’re happy, I’m happy. That’s why we do this surgery, and new techniques have made it much easier to achieve this goal.”