Your breasts are very large. Disproportionately large.
You are experiencing significant neck, back and shoulder pains. Your bra straps are digging into your shoulders causing constant discomfort. Engaging in any vigorous physical activity is uncomfortable, exhausting and embarrassing. Finding a comfortable and supportive bra is impossible.
Will dieting and exercise make a substantial difference in your breast size and symptoms?
Can it help you avoid having breast reduction surgery?
Or, is it an exercise in futility? Pun intended.
Dieting reduces your caloric intake while exercising burns off calories. Both can help you lose weight which leads to fat reduction. The greater the weight loss, the more significant is the reduction of fat.
Can this affect the size of your breasts?
Of course, yes!
Women can definitely attest to the fact that when they gain at least a moderate amount of weight their breast size increases.
The converse is also true. When a substantial amount of weight is lost, the breasts will get smaller.
Will they get small enough so that their breast related symptoms are alleviated and there would no longer be a need for a breast reduction?
Extremely unlikely.
In fact, in over 35 years of evaluating women seeking breast reduction surgery and performing the procedure, I have never known of anyone whose breasts shrank so much in size as a consequence of their weight loss that they were no longer symptomatic. A frequent comment that I do hear from women is that despite their substantial weight loss, they didn’t notice much of a change in their breast size and surely not with regard to their symptoms.
So, despite sizable weight losses of 30, 40, 50 pounds or more, women did not experience alleviation of their symptoms and still needed to undergo breast reduction surgery in order to improve or resolve symptoms related to their large breasts.
There is a silver lining, however, regarding the weight loss.
Though the dieting and exercise, which have facilitated your notable weight loss, will not likely preclude you from needing breast reduction surgery, there are many secondary benefits. By eating better, exercising and being at a lower weight (lower BMI), you will be in better health, have a nicer figure overall and will potentially have lowered your risk for the development of hypertension, heart disease, arthritis, diabetes and cancer, including breast cancer.
And, the results of your breast reduction surgery can be even more dramatic.
So, any way you look at it – YOU ARE A WINNER!
For more information on breast reduction surgery or to schedule your consultation, please contact our office by phone (480-451-3000) or by email.
Steven H. Turkeltaub, M.D. P.C.
Scottsdale and Phoenix, Arizona