Are breast implants the only real way to have larger breasts? [David Levens, MD, Coral Springs]

Dr. Levens (00:00):
Hi, I'm Dr. David J. Levens. I'm a board certified plastic surgeon in Coral Springs, Florida.

Eva Sheie (00:06):
Some women want to either get a lift or be slightly larger but don't want implants. What can you do to help those?

Dr. Levens (00:16):
That's one of my favorite procedures because you don't have to worry about implants, changing them, what's going to happen, et cetera. And actually the combination of an implant and a lift or so-called augmentation mastopexy is by some articles, plastic surgeons that presented meetings, considered to be a relatively complicated and potentially high revision rate surgery. I've experienced a little bit it myself because if you think about it conceptually, you're reducing and lifting the breasts at the same time you're adding this thing, this weight. So it's kind of, it can be challenging to get it just right. However, if a woman has a reasonable amount of volume, but there's droopiness, so say they're a C Cup or a D cup, there's droopiness and they really prefer not to have an implant, you can do what's called a breast lift or a mastopexy. And the older techniques just counted on using the skin to hold the breast in place, but much more modern techniques last 10 or 15 years do something called parenchymal suturing or parenchymal shaping where the sutures are placed to shape the breast, move it up higher internally without counting on the skin.

Dr. Levens (01:39):
So there's some skin removal, there's moving the nipple and areolar complex and then literally using the breast tissue itself to shape and maintain volume. And then one more thing that's done is there's a material called GalaFLEX, which is a dissolvable mesh made of suture material, very well tolerated. And I and other plastic surgeons have been using it a lot to help shape the breast and perhaps maintain a little bit more support for, especially patients that have had maybe massive weight loss and their tissues are not as strong. And that's a nice adjunctive treatment for a breast lift. I enjoy when a patient comes in and says, look, I didn't really want an implant. But then I have patients that come in, they're just so flat, they usually understand that they need an implant to get some volume, or they say, I don't care. Just make them perkier higher and I don't care if they're small.

Eva Sheie (02:39):
Where can we find you?

Dr. Levens (02:41):
My office is at 1725 University Drive, suite 300, Coral Springs, Florida 33071. My phone number is (954) 752-1020. And then DrLevens@drLevens.com is my email. Website is DrLevens.com. I do have three Instagram pages, one with at Dr David J Levens. One is Plastic Surgery Talks and one is Levens Med Spa.

Eva Sheie (03:15):
On this podcast, we bring you directly to the doctors who are, where before meets after. Links to our guest's website and contact info are in your show notes. Follow us on Instagram @wherebeforemeetsafter. If you're a board certified plastic surgeon and would like to be a guest or a sponsor of the show, go to wherebeforemeetsafter.com for more information. Where Before Meets After is a production of The Axis, the podcast agency for aesthetics, theaxisio.