At MyBreast, what we wanted to do is to create Harley Street quality at an affordable price. All the surgeons are all of the higher standard in terms of training, we work with private hospitals of the very higher standard, the doctor-patient relationship is the most important and most fundamental aspect of patient care. You will remain in the care of your doctor, of your surgeon – and this is lifetime if necessary.

“Well my name’s Holly. I was 32H at the age of eighteen and I really struggled with back ache and fitting into clothes and things and I thought it was about time I did something about it. Patrick was fantastic, running through everything I needed to know and any questions I had, he answered them for me.”

Breast reduction as you might expect is an operation to reduce the size of the breast, but its very important that isn’t just the size – its really improving and refining the shape of the breast. The best candidate for a breast reduction is any girl or woman who has disproportionally large breasts that will cause problems in a number of different ways. They may be un-aesthetic but more importantly they will have functional problems where the breasts are heavy, they will actually cause discomfort, they can cause shoulder pain, they can cause back pain. It has to be remembered there are some girls for whom breast reduction is not ideal, it certainly isn’t ideal for obese patients, smoking can be a serious problem as it will delay post-operative healing, and finally I will say that there is the issue of having a history of breast cancer in the family, although this doesn’t actually stop or mean that you can have a breast reduction, it does mean that we have to think a little bit more carefully about your pre-operative assessment and we may send the tissue that been removed at the time of breast reduction for examination under a microscope.

“I remember being quite nervous when I arrived, but I was popped in my little room downstairs and everyone was really really reassuring and then I remember going, Patrick came to see me directly to draw on me and I remember being in the operating theatre and everyone was really really nice, really reassuring, made me feel comfortable with it. The next thing I know I’d woken up and it had all been done, all over with.”

Modern breast reduction will often be completed within one and a half to two hours, and in exceptional circumstances the operation may take a little longer. The usual scars of a breast reduction sit in an inverted T-pattern, they go around the outer boarder of the areola, which is the dark skin around the nipple. They then go from the base of the areola down to the chest wall and then there’s a transverse scar that sits on the breast crease. Some breast reductions can do without that transverse scar – short scar breast reductions. There are even some breast reduction techniques that do away with all of the scars, apart from the scar around the nipple areola. Most of these scars will fade and I actually say to patients that within nine months to a year they can be very difficult to see, especially in low light, even when naked.

The risks and side-effects of breast reduction are fairly well understood. In usually circumstance, one can develop hypertrophical keliod scars, however we usually have a good idea whether this is likely to happen preoperatively and there are things that you can do to treat them. There is some numbness of the skin underneath the nipple and sometimes of the nipple itself – although in the vast majority of cases the sensation recovers after a month or two. Other then this, most complications or side-effects are few and far between. In terms of recovery, although some swelling and some bruising is inevitable this is much much less than is generally thought to be the case. It’s also relatively painless procedure – women leave hospital a day after surgery wearing a surgical support bra and can walk around and carry on normal activities. There are some restrictions of course and for ten days or so it’s really slightly difficult to use your arms and you wouldn’t want to be carrying heavy shopping bags or doing any physical work.

“I think I was back on my feet really after a week, not completely recovered and as the time went on I just saw the results more and more and I got happier as it went along and I saw the results improving.”

This procedure probably has one of the highest satisfaction rates of any operation in cosmetic surgery. It can for many women be life changing – it can mean that they can wear appropriate clothes, they feel more confident, they’re more mobile, because they’re not embarrassed about their body shape they can go into the gym or do more exercise and one does see transformations in terms of physical transformations and in terms of confidence.

“I was so happy after I had it done and I will still say now that it was the best decision that I ever made. I would definitely recommend MyBreast and definitely recommend Patrick. I couldn’t have asked for a better surgeon and I really couldn’t have asked for a better company to go through as everyone has been so lovely and so helpful and it really has been brilliant.”