How To Avoid Infection After Breast Augmentation
When it comes to breast augmentation, there’s a lot you need to know, including how to avoid infection after surgery. This guide will help you learn more about the risk of infection after breast augmentation and how best to protect yourself by using antibiotic ointments and other medications.
In this guide, we review How To Avoid Infection After Breast Augmentation, breast implant infection rate, antibiotic after breast augmentation, and how long after breast augmentation can you get infection.
If you’re considering breast augmentation surgery, you’re in good company. This procedure remains the most popular cosmetic surgery in the US, with about a half-million American women enlarging their breasts surgically every year.
Board-certified surgeon, Christopher Brooks, MD, specializes in cosmetic and reconstructive breast surgeries, like breast augmentation, at Brooks Plastic Surgery in Hollywood, Florida. Dr. Brooks also knows that once your surgery is complete, you want to get back on your feet as soon as possible.
Our team put our heads together to create a list of our top tips to ensure a smooth recovery after breast augmentation surgery. Keep reading to learn what you need to know.
1. Follow your surgeon’s instructions
Dr. Brooks and the members of your care team at Brooks Plastic Surgery provide you with specific, customized instructions before and after your breast augmentation surgery. These directions ensure you have the best experience possible.
To ensure a smooth recovery, carefully follow your surgeon’s instructions. Plan to give yourself extra care after your surgery, including following instructions about rest, cleaning, and issues that may arise.
If you need help or have questions about your recovery, your care team is only a phone call away.
2. Stay away from underwire
Chances are the last thing you want to do after breast augmentation surgery is wear an uncomfortable bra. However, it’s also medically necessary to avoid underwire bras after your procedure.
Not only can underwire bras cause pain when they press against your tender breasts, the friction from the wire against your sutures increases your risk of infection and can slow your recovery.
Talk to Dr. Brooks about the right post-op bra, but generally, sports bras or bras that provide light support without any pressure points are the best choice as your body heals. It’s best to wait until your skin fully recovers, around 10 weeks post surgery, before wearing underwire again.
3. Avoid alcohol and tobacco
Before your surgery, you’re advised to avoid alcohol and stop smoking so you’re in top shape for general anesthesia. It’s best to continue avoiding alcohol and nicotine to ensure a smooth, full recovery after your breast augmentation surgery.
This is because smoking and tobacco products slow the delivery of oxygen-rich blood to your surgical incisions. This slows healing, making your recovery take longer and increasing the risk of infection.
Alcohol also causes issues after surgery, dehydrating your body and increasing your chances of having complications, like bleeding, infections, and drug interactions. Talk to Dr. Brooks if you need help with smoking or alcohol cessation.
4. Take showers, not baths
After your surgery, it’s important not to submerge your incisions in a bathtub (or swimming pool or hot tub). It’s best to wait until your wounds are fully healed, and you get the all-clear from your surgeon.
The water in your bath or pool introduces bacteria to your skin, and when it reaches your sutures and healing skin, these bacteria increase your risk of infection, which can lead to serious complications and slow the healing process.
Instead of taking a bath, opt for a warm shower. You’ll still enjoy the relaxing effects of the water on your sore chest muscles without the increased risk of infection.
5. Change your sleeping position
If possible, it’s best to sleep on your back after breast augmentation surgery. This is because side sleeping or lying on your stomach before you’re fully healed can cause your implants to move.
In addition, your breasts and nipples will be tender and sore following surgery. Sleeping on your back eases this discomfort, and it allows your incisions to stay irritation-free instead of rubbing against the sheets or your nightclothes.
6. Take a break from strenuous exercise
It’s important that in the weeks following your breast augmentation surgery, you take it easy and give your body a break. Dr. Brooks gives you specific instructions regarding exercise and lifting.
Generally, you’ll need to stay away from vigorous exercise, which can increase bleeding and cause the formation of hematomas, blood vessels that leak into your surrounding tissue. You’ll also need to avoid picking up anything that weighs over 20 pounds—including pets or children.
How To Avoid Infection After Breast Augmentation
Let’s face it, plastic surgery can be a bit scary. While we may be excited for the stunning results that will finally give us the look and feel we desire, along with improved confidence and comfort in our bodies, the idea of anesthesia, incisions, and complications from the surgery can make us feel nervous.
One of the scariest complications with cosmetic surgery is infection after your procedure. Though rare, with 0.79 percent of plastic surgery patients having infection after their surgery, infection is still the most common complication associated with cosmetic surgery procedures. And it goes without saying that preventing infection is really important.
Not only can infection cause health risks, but it can also negatively affect your aesthetic results. However, the good news is that there are ways to prevent the risk of infection.
Additionally, there are signs to be on the lookout for to make sure that you catch any infection before it becomes a real issue.
What Plastic Surgery Procedures Have an Increased Risk of Post-op Infection?
Any invasive surgery procedure comes with the risk of infection. It makes sense, since you are exposing the inside of your body to the outside world.
Since your plastic surgeon will make sure that your procedure is completed in a sterile and safe environment, many infections occur outside of the operating room.
While minimally invasive procedures, such as injectables, can cause infection, breast and body contouring surgery, such as tummy tuck surgery (abdominoplasty), breast augmentation surgery, breast lift surgery (mastopexy), liposuction surgery, and Mommy Makeover surgery, all have higher risks of infection.
But even with these high risks, there are plenty of ways to reduce your chances of infection.
What Can I Do to Reduce My Chances of Infection?
While there is no fool-proof way of preventing infection after your plastic surgery procedure, there are many precautions you can take, such as:
Following All of Your Post-op Instructions
After your plastic surgery procedure, your plastic surgeon will give you a list of do’s and don’ts for your recovery. It is important to follow these instructions to the letter. This includes going to your follow-up appointments, bathing and showering correctly (so that your incisions are not directly upset by the water), and taking any prescribed antibiotics.
Also, you will want to make sure to rest your body while it recovers; don’t push yourself to do too much, though short walks can be helpful for speeding up your recovery process.
Keeping Your Incisions Clean and Dry
Your incisions heal quicker when they are kept dry, and you want to make sure that your incisions heal as quickly and safely as possible. Keeping your incisions clean will also prevent any bacterial or viral infections from forming inside the closing wound. Additionally, it is important that you do not use any ointments, lotions, creams, peroxide, or alcohol on your healing incisions.
You want to let your body heal itself as naturally as possible, without any outside interference.
Changing Your Bandages and Dressings Regularly
It is important that you consistently change your bandages and dressings to prevent any moisture from affecting the healing wound, which can slow down the healing process and increase the chance of infection. The purpose of these bandages and dressings is to sop up any blood after the procedure as well as keep the incision clean and safe from any outside elements that may cause infections to set in.
Putting Only Good in Your Body
You’ve heard about the importance of drinking water for the health of your body, and after your plastic surgery, this is even truer. Drinking plenty of water helps speed up the recovery process and keep infections from settling into your surgery area.
You also want to make sure to eat healthy foods that will boost your immune system and keep you physically healthy and energized.
Additionally, it is important that you stop smoking after your plastic surgery procedure, and make sure not to drink any alcohol, as alcohol thins your blood and can slow down your body’s healing process.
What Should I Look for After My Plastic Surgery?
Knowing what to do after your plastic surgery to help reduce the risk of infection is important. But equally important is knowing the signs of infection.
If you experience any of these symptoms, it is important to contact your plastic surgeon as soon as you can:
antibiotic after breast augmentation
One of the common causes of a “capsular contracture” which is a hardening of the implant which could become visible and or painful, is a Biofilm. When we go to the dentist to have our teeth cleaned, the Tartar that is removed is a Biofilm, a wall of sorts built by bacteria to protect it from your body’s defense mechanisms.
People who have a heart murmur or a medical device such as a pace-maker or a hip replacement are advised to take antibiotics before dental cleaning or gum surgery. The reason is that work around the gums can allow the bacteria that reside in our mouths to enter the bloodstream. Once there, they can go anywhere, and can sometimes cause an infection. If this infection were to start around a medical device it might have to be removed.
If this happened around your breast implant and a significant capsular contracture developed or even an actual infection, it might need to be removed.
The chance of this happening is rare, but does happen. Not all dentists or even plastic surgeons agree, but many, including myself, think that it may make good sense to take antibiotics in these situations. A single dose taken one hour before the dentist is probably enough, so one does not have to worry about a yeast infection occurring. This may seem to be excessively precautionary, but I would want the same done if it were me. I put my seatbelt on every time I get in my car.
So we have to balance the risk of taking a single dose of antibiotics one hour before a dental procedure, against the risk of developing an infection or capsular contracture around an implant.
The typical recommendation if someone is not allergic to penicillin is to take 4 500mg capsules of Amoxicillin one hour before a dental procedure or cleaning. In patients that are allergic to penicillin then either 2 gms of cephalexin or 600mg of Clindamycin is used instead.
This prophylaxis is recommended for any manipulation of the gum tissue, base of the tooth or perforation of the oral mucosa, but is not thought to be needed for routine injections, dental xrays or adjustment of orthodontic appliances.
So, is it worth taking a single dose of antibiotics to prevent something that may only happen rarely? You need to decide for yourself. There is no set answer, and intelligent and educated people can disagree. For myself, if a single dose of antibiotics can decrease the chance of needing to return to surgery, I would recommend it, and wo
how long after breast augmentation can you get infection
Breast implants are commonly used in breast augmentation surgery. Made from either silicone or saline, they are used to reshape breasts into a fuller, firmer, and rounder form. But with all the beauty and confidence that implants can bring, it is still very important to know of any possible breast implant complications and risks.
This is not to scare you from getting breast implants. As a plastic surgeon, it is important for me to walk you through every step of the procedure. The goal of this article is to give you a gentle reminder that taking care of your body is still the number one priority when achieving your goals.
Breast Implants Infection Statistics
One Google search of this topic will probably send you away from plastic surgery forever. The cases that you may find online could be horrendous but in reality, infected breast implants are very rare. Less than 2% of cosmetic augmentations result in infection and more often than not, the situation can be addressed by an antibiotic.
Why Do Breast Implants Get Infected?
These silicone implants are foreign to your body which means that it is different from your own body tissues. Naturally, antibodies are delivered throughout your body. However, it only reaches the surface of the implant. This means that your breast implants, unlike the rest of your body, do not have an immune system that can fight infection naturally. This is the reason why implants can be prone to infection.
How to Prevent Breast Implant Infection
Once you notice any symptoms on your body, do not hesitate to schedule a consultation with your board-certified plastic surgeon. Antibiotics may be used as an initial treatment, but also keep in mind that the infection can lead to the removal of your implant.
It is never wrong to educate yourself about the potential risks and complications that may arise from your breast augmentation. I hope that this will make you more diligent with your body and more proactive when it comes to your overall healthcare.