DIEP Revision Surgery 2019

Jen122

After receiving Radiation Treatments due to MBC diagnosis on my reconstructed implant boob, I iopted to remove the implant and have DIEP reconstruction. After some surgical complications due to infection, i am now healed and ready for my first Revision Surgery. The DIEP flap breast is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than my other breast and has some lumpy hard spots of scar tissue and has now developed a very obvious sunken dent across the middle. My surgeons plan is to go in and insert an implant under the diep flap and then use fat injections to round it out. he will then reduce the size of my other breast and give me a lift. Will probab;ly end up with significantly smaller breasts but at this point I just want to look somewhat normal. Does anyone have expericience with DEIP Flap revisions? How many revisions did you need? Were you ultimately happy with the outcome? Did you ahve to go smaller? Anyone else have an implant in addition to the DIEP Flap?

HopeWins

Jen122 - so glad you posted this. I had bmx and DIEP 8/22, so I haven't had any revisions yet. However, both of my breasts have divots/flat spots. Its hard to describe, but my new breasts have almost the same volume as the old ones but in all the wrong places. Volume is mostly side boob or low boob. I have concave skin on ribs at the top. So when I get dressed I look almost completely flat. Theres no lifting them like natural breasts. It just makes the divots worse.

I cant see a way to rebuild with lipofilling so I've been asking about implants. Not a lot of responses here, but there is a poster (Twills) who is about to have it done after a few rounds of lipofilling that hasn't done the trick.

I asked my PS last week and he said he'd prefer to try lipofilling first because it might work and there is some risk of getting too close to the vessel connection when making a pocket for the implant, etc. I was fine with that except that I expected to get it done in about 8w and the surgical coordinator called back to tell me first available date is March 2nd. There have been some tears, because if it doesn't work, I'm looking at another 6 months for another revision... so I'm just thinking about what to do.

grateful99

Jen122 and HopeWins here is a photo of my profile three years after reconstruction. My DIEP breasts are fine lower down and I am very happy with them but there is no fat on the upper torso, so the breast bone (Manubrium) sticks out quite a bit. (There is also a hole from the IV port.) I've been wondering whether the bump of the sternum was caused when the reconstruction surgeon cut through the cartilage to access a vein for the blood connection. I had one lipofilling but didn't notice much improvement and the doctor said I don't have enough fat to make a difference. I don't want implants - too many people have had problems with them.