A plastic surgeon explains why on-table sizing with intra-operative sizers is the most accurate way to choose breast implant size. He starts with a sizer around 300 cc and compares it to your goal photos until it matches. Don't sign a consent for a fixed size before surgery, especially with surgeons who lack sizers.
Plastic surgery secrets part 2: on-table sizing. Ask your doctor if they do this. So there is different ways to figure out sizing for your breast augmentation procedure. I've done it all, right? So I've done the bra sizing, I've done the Rice stuff, I've done the Vector 3D analysis machine, I've even done the Crystalix thing where you go down, you look at it. I've not found anything be as accurate as on-table sizing. What that is, is you get measurements, you get a ballpark range, you come up with a size range of a photo. So a photo of like a desired size, so shoulder proportions, breast width that you like. She may not have the same height as you, whatever, but that's the proportions you want. You talk to your surgeon about it, and then when you go to surgery, the surgeon puts in sizers to kind of simulate that same look to get as close as you can to that. Let's say I'd start with a 300cc sizer for an average person. I put it in, I see how it looks where the patient's asleep, and I'll be like, all right, that matches your photo, or no, it's too small, we need to go bigger. That way we can determine how good it looks, how good it matches the patient's desirable photo. So our patients, they don't have to worry about trying on all this different stuff. All they have to worry about is getting a desired goal photos, and that takes some time. There's a lot of soul searching involved with that. Typically naked breast photos from the front really helps, so you get like, you know, you can find those on my website or wherever else. Now the doctors that don't do that, they like to kind of go to surgery and just have the size. And so they make you sign for your size ahead of time, and I strongly advise not to do that because how do you really know how that size is going to look? You can get pretty close, but this is something you're spending a lot of money on, a lot of time in recovery. You want to make sure you get it right. And I've seen surgeons just go way beyond what patients want sometimes, and that kind of scares me. So if you're in that situation where you're signing to get the specific size, unless you really know you want that size, I would, you know, ask if you could do some on-table sizing to see if you can get fitted with sizers. And that's— it's a complicated process, and that— a lot of doctors don't even have sizers. So you want to make sure they have sizers so they can do that and see how that size looks on the table to make sure you get the right look. It's like trying on shoes before you buy them. You don't just go into a shoe store, buy the shoes, and then walk out with them.
