Posted: February 20, 2014
Complete Rest: 2 Days
You don’t require strict bed rest after breast augmentation. In fact, it’s important for you to get up and walk around to help blood circulation and expand your lungs. Our patients generally feel better than they’d expected in the first few days: still, it’s important to not overdo your activities, even if you are feeling like you could. Your body needs the time to recover from surgery, so plan to relax with no responsibilities at all (other than your good recovery) for the first 2 days!
Pain Medication: About 5 Days
Most women will take their prescription pain medication for about five days after surgery. With our use of the local anesthetic pain pump, we have many patients who take little or no narcotic pain medication by the second day after breast augmentation. Some patients may still be using the narcotic pain medicine a week after breast implant surgery. While taking narcotic pain medication you must be diligent about the usual safety precautions, such as avoiding alcohol, driving, or operating machinery.
Back to Work: 1-2 Weeks
When you go back to work depends on the nature of your work. Most likely, you’ll feel ready to get back to non-strenuous work a few days after surgery, but it’s best to wait a week to give your body a little more time to recover. Even just sitting at your desk all day may be surprisingly fatiguing in the first week or two after breast augmentation. Giving your body a little more time to recover will make your return that much more comfortable. Let’s be sure to discuss your specific work responsibilities so we may give you good guidelines to plan well for your return to work.
Full Activities: 6 Weeks
We will give you some specific guidelines about how to ease back into your routine, for the days and weeks after your breast augmentation operation. At 6 weeks after breast implant surgery, you should be able to return to all your normal daily activities and to return to work without restrictions. After the 6 week post-op visit, you should be able to ease back into your full exercise routine.
If you have more detailed questions about breast implants or the breast augmentation procedure, please contact the Zwiebel Center for Plastic Surgery in the Denver area.
