Breast Reduction in Tampa, FL

While many young girls spend their adolescence hoping for larger breasts, others spend theirs trying to hide or minimize their already excessive chest. After years of living with large, heavy breasts, many women experience not only embarrassment with their breast size, but they also suffer from upper back and neck pain, skin rashes, problems finding clothes, and difficulty with exercise or other activities.

Dr. Traci Temmen, a board certified female plastic surgeon, is able to help women living with extremely large and pendulous breasts by performing breast reduction surgery at Temmen Plastic Surgery. With understanding, attention to detail, and a gentle hand, Dr. Temmen is able to give almost any woman the shapely, well-proportioned breasts of their dreams.

Breast Reduction Surgery

While performing a breast reduction surgery, Dr. Temmen does not only reduce the size of the breasts. In addition to decreasing breast volume, Traci Temmen, M.D. also raises the nipple areolar complex to reduce the appearance of sagging and tightens the breast skin envelope to give a fuller, more youthful shape while performing a breast reduction.

Using a variety of techniques, a delicate touch, and short scars, Dr. Traci Temmen is able to sculpt beautiful, smaller breasts while relieving pain and improving the self-confidence of women with excessively large breasts.

Who is a Candidate for Breast Reduction Surgery

Women with a breast size that is excessively large compared to their body habitus are good candidates for breast reduction surgery. These women often have neck and upper back pain secondary to their increased breast size. They may also have shoulder grooving from bra straps, skin rashes under their breasts, breast pain, difficulty finding clothes that fit, and inability to exercise or perform normal activities of daily living due to the excess weight of their breasts.

Dr. Traci Temmen knows that each patient considering breast reduction has specific concerns and goals related to their surgery. During each breast reduction consultation, Dr. Temmen listens carefully to her patients, paying particular attention to individual symptoms, medical history, and desired postoperative breast size and shape. While performing a thorough physical examination, Dr. Temmen is able to determine the exact surgical plan that will give each patient smaller, firmer, and more beautiful breasts.

Who is Not a Breast Reduction Candidate?

Of course, not every woman is a perfect candidate for breast reduction surgery. Patients that smoke, have complicated medical problems (e.g. heart disease, diabetes, blood clots), or are considered obese with a BMI >30 are not candidates for breast reduction surgery. To ensure the utmost in patient safety and operative results, Dr. Traci Temmen requires that patients stop smoking for at least 6 months to 1 year, have medical conditions well controlled, and have reached the ideal body weight before proceeding with breast reduction surgery.

Additionally to obtain the most exceptional results possible, women who have recently had a baby or breast fed a baby should postpone surgery for at least 6-9 months to let their breast tissues contract before undergoing breast reduction surgery.

Breast Reduction Surgery Scar Location

Most women’s biggest concern when considering breast reduction surgery is, understandably, the location and length of scars on their breasts.

Fortunately, by using modern breast reduction surgery techniques, Dr. Traci Temmen is able to perform most all breast reduction surgery through just one or two small scar locations.

Patients requiring a small breast reduction and with only a small degree of sagging may achieve beautiful results following a breast reduction with a single scar placed around the nipple areolar complex (i.e. the border between normal breast skin and the colored portion of the nipple areolar complex). The scar around the nipple is essential to reduce the size of the areola and reposition the nipple higher on the breast mound.

For patients requiring a larger reduction with moderate or moderate/severe degrees of drooping, Dr. Temmen must add a vertical scar from the bottom of the nipple areolar complex to 2-4 cm above the breast fold at the chest wall. While this vertical scar is the scar that most concerns women considering breast reduction surgery, the vertical scar usually heals very well and can become virtually invisible after one year. The vertical breast reduction scar is necessary to tighten the skin envelope and help add fullness to the superior breast.

Rare patients who have lost significant amounts of weight or have extreme degrees of sagging or ptosis may occasionally need a third horizontal scar placed at the breast fold.

Breast Reduction Recovery

Dr. Traci Temmen performs her cosmetic breast surgeries in an accredited, private surgical suite. She performs breast reduction surgery under general anesthesia with the surgery generally lasting 1 ½ to 2 hours, depending on the complexity and degree of breast sagging. Patients recover in the luxury of a private recovery suite with a recovery room nurse dedicated solely to them and their comfort.

Patients may occasionally have drains placed in the breasts that are generally removed in one to five days. A supportive bra is worn for six weeks to aid in healing and shaping of the breast tissues following breast reduction surgery. Most patients are able to return to work within 2-3 days, drive when they are no longer taking narcotic pain medications, and return to full exercise by six weeks.

Breast Reduction Surgery Cost

While it is true for all cosmetic surgery that cost should not be the determining factor when choosing a plastic surgeon, it is especially true when choosing a plastic surgeon to perform your breast reduction. Because of the high level of skill required to perform this surgery, only plastic surgeons certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgeons should be considered. Dr. Temmen is proud to be one of the few female board certified plastic surgeons in the Tampa Bay area to offer advanced breast reduction surgery to her patients.

The cost of breast reduction surgery varies by plastic surgeon and by region of the country. In the Tampa Bay area of Florida, the average price of a breast reduction surgery starts at $10,900 including surgeon fees, anesthesia fees, and facility fees. This cost may increase with larger breast size, higher degrees of sagging, complexity, previous breast surgeries, and increases in planned surgical time.

Dr. Temmen offers convenient payment options for breast reduction surgery and all other cosmetic surgery. They accept check, credit, card, and CareCredit, a credit card that offers special financing and low monthly payments for cosmetic surgery procedures.

Breast Reduction Risks and Problems

While associated with a very high patient satisfaction rate, there are some risks and complications associated with breast reduction surgery. Minor risks and complications for breast reduction surgery include small blood or fluid collections that can be managed in the office. Superficial infections rarely occur but can also usually be treated with oral antibiotics in the clinic. Almost all women have some degree of asymmetry between the breasts prior to undergoing breast reduction surgery and may see small differences in size or shape following breast reduction surgery.

Other risks of breast reduction surgery include wound-healing problems, changes in sensation to the nipple areolar complex, or rarely, loss of the nipple areolar complex. All of these risks can be minimized with proper patient selection. Thus, Dr. Traci Temmen, and most other credible plastic surgeons, will not perform breast reduction surgery on patients who are currently smoking, have high-risk medical problems, or are extremely over weight.

Plastic surgeons like Dr. Traci Temmen, certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, are trained not only in breast surgery, but also in diagnosing and appropriately treating the complications and risks associated with cosmetic breast reduction surgery.

Breast Reduction Before and After

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then when it comes to breast reduction surgery, a before and after picture is priceless! Please note that many of our breast reduction photos are taken six weeks to three months after surgery, thus the scars you see in the breast reduction before and after photographs will continue to improve and fade away over one year.

Dr. Traci Temmen and her many satisfied breast reduction patients, are proud to show case her before and after breast reduction surgery photographs in the Gallery section of this website.

For more information on Dr. Traci Temmen, breast reduction surgery, and all other cosmetic breast surgery procedures offered at her practice, please contact (813) 771-6393.