In this post I’ll explain how the procedure works. There are three steps:

Liposuction

This step has two equally important purposes. The first and obvious goal is to collect the fat that I will transfer to your breasts. The second (and often overlooked) purpose is to precisely contour the area being suctioned.  We’re looking not just to enhance the breasts, but to dramatically improve the appearance of each area that’s donating the fat. The fat areas should not be treated as just harvest sites; they should be contoured carefully and precisely.

I typically use the Vaser system for this but may also use micro cannula liposuction depending on your specific needs. If you are a good candidate, I will also use Vaser Hi Def techniques to enhance muscle definition in the treated areas.

Fat Collection

This used to be a really cumbersome process that involved washing, filtering, and centrifuging the fat. It usually required an extra person in the operating room just to perform these tasks.  These steps added a lot of time and cost to the procedure. Also, all this processing increased the risk that the fat would get contaminated or dry out.

Tissu-Trans fat harvest device I now use has made fat collection quicker and more reliable.  The Tissu-Trans connects to the liposuction machine and traps the fat in a sterile bag. The pure fat separates out in the device. It does not need to be processed. Instead, it’s drawn directly into injection syringes from the Tissu-Trans and is ready for use. The fat stays in a sealed system the entire time with minimal air exposure and minimal handling. This protects the delicate fat cells, increasing their survival and improving the outcome.

Fat Injection

Once loaded into syringes, the pure fat is ready for injection. I use a specially designed injection cannula to transfer the fat to the breasts. It’s critical here to use many injections of very small amounts of fat. Big globs of fat won’t survive. Instead, we step by step add little bits of fat throughout the breasts slowly sculpting them up to the desired size and shape. This takes a little longer but improves fat survival and ultimately gives you a better result. All of the fat injections can usually be done through 2 0r 3 tiny puncture incisions. There are virtually no breast scars from this procedure.

The fat transfer breast augmentation is usually done in our Dallas operating room with general anesthesia. Patients go home the same day and can resume usual light daily activities within 24 hours. Return to work is a few days for office jobs.

That means I can now remove the fat from the places you don’t want it…and use it to enlarge your breasts. You get fuller, larger breasts — without any implants — and a leaner figure at the same time.

I’ll discuss how the procedure works in a follow-up post but, for now, let me explain why we now have this fat transfer procedure. Three things have happened recently that have made this a reality:

Better Fat Harvesting Equipment

I now use a Vaser/Tissu-Trans system to suction and collect the fat. Using this technology, I can get more fat and get it more gently. That means we get smoother contouring in the areas we suction and also healthier fat for re-injection. The healthier fat survives better resulting in a bigger, more successful augmentation.

Shorter Surgery Times

These new methods also shorten the fat transfer procedure. The fat collects and processes automatically in the Tissu-Trans device. No longer do we need to wash, filter, and centrifuge the fat. These steps used to add a lot of time and also killed more of the fat cells we needed. I’d estimate that the typical procedure takes about 20% less time now.

And by the way, a shorter procedure is a less expensive procedure. Fat transfer procedures are now much more affordable.

ASPS Approval

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons just released the results of its Fat Grafting Task Force. If you’re so inclined, you can read the actual report. In case you’re not, I’ll summarize it.

The task force reviewed 110 papers on fat grafting.

They found, “Fat grafting may be considered for breast augmentation and correction of defects associated with medical conditions and previous breast surgeries.”

The Task Force found no interference with the detection of breast cancer but did recommend further study of this issue. This is especially good news because potential problems with mammograms was one of the bigger concerns of plastic surgeons regarding this procedure.

“Fat transfer results are dependent on technique and surgeon expertise.” As always, choose a board-certified plastic surgeon and choose him or her carefully. Be sure to find someone with advanced liposuction and fat grafting training, skills, and experience.

I’ll explain more about the actual procedure in the next post. If you have questions or are interested in breast augmentation with your own fat, please call my office at 1-888-800-8300.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and comments on this post.

Thank you sooo much! If this isn’t perfection, I don’t know what is!

You gave me exactly what I asked for and I love it.

I am a patient for life.

J  (Dallas, Texas breast augmentation patient)

I am stunned and amazed that anyone actually does this. Yet I see it on plastic surgery TV shows. And I’ve heard of it being done here in Dallas. It does not work.

You cannot choose a breast implant by looking at it.

It’s unreasonable for your plastic surgeon to expect you to choose your breast implants this way. You can’t tell what an implant will look like inside you by staring at it. Or touching it. Or squeezing it. Or whatever. I don’t care. This doesn’t work.

I’ve been doing breast augmentations for more than 10 years and I can’t fully predict how a particular implant will look in your breasts. Every woman’s breasts are different. Different size. Different shape. When you put implants in, they expand differently. And in different places. Implants that look great in your friend may look completely unnatural in you. Even though your breasts seem to be pretty similar.

Now, I can make a pretty good educated guess which implants will be best for you. Most of the time I’ll be right. But I don’t like to guess. Cosmetic surgery shouldn’t be guesswork.

So I don’t guess. I test every single time. I test to find the best implants for you – the ones that will give you the prettiest breasts.

I’ll explain how this testing method works in the next post.

Many thanks to you and Cynthia for all your knowledge,support and time before, during and after my surgery.  Dr. Schwartz is blessed to have such a talented and caring staff.  Your compassion for patients is remarkable!

I look forward to my next follow-up in March.  Hopefully I will see you then so you can see the final results…brace yourself they are amazing looking.

After all I now have a “body by Schwartz!”  -Thought about making a shirt to say that,however, I’m so modest I wouldn’t wear it in public.  Take care and have a blessed week!

Blessings,

J

(Breast augmentation patient)

Here’s how this one goes:

Your plastic surgeon lays out a series of different size breast implants. You insert the first set of implants into your bra (or sometimes they give you an oversized bra to hold them.) You walk over to the mirror. You check yourself out. You turn to the side. You look. You try the next set of implants. At some point you look in the mirror and think, “yeah, that’s the size I want to be.” You tell your plastic surgeon. And that’s the size implant he or she puts in you.

Flash forward 3 months. You’ve had your breast augmentation and are pretty much healed. And your breasts aren’t the size you thought they would be. You’ve just discovered an unpleasant truth:

Breast implants in front of your breasts don’t look the same as breast implants inside your breasts.

So the look you saw in the mirror with the implants in your bra isn’t the look you get from your breast augmentation. The surgery result usually looks smaller and the shape can be very different.

When you think about it, there’s no logical reason why this sizing technique would work. It’s like going to a department store and picking a dress by holding it up in front of you. You wouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t look the same when you go home and actually wear it.

So stuffing breast implants in a bra doesn’t work. And naming a cup size doesn’t work. We need to move on to what does work. But first, there’s one more breast implant sizing method that is so ridiculous it almost isn’t even worth discussing. But I see a it lot on plastic surgery TV shows so let’s dispense with it in the next post.

Here’s how a typical sizing conversation goes:

PLASTIC SURGEON: So what size breasts do you want?

YOU: Oh, about a full C-cup. (Feel free to replace “C-cup” with any size you like. “Full C-cup” or “small D-cup” are the most common answers to this question.)

PLASTIC SURGEON: OK, we’ll make you a full C-cup.

The plastic surgeon then orders and ultimately inserts a pair of implants that he or she feels will give you C-cup breasts.

That is the most common way breast implant size is chosen. And it doesn’t work.

It doesn’t work because nothing has been communicated. When you tell me you want C-cup breasts, you have a mental picture of what that means. And when I hear you say it, I have a mental picture of a C-cup breast.

But there’s no guarantee that what you’re picturing and what I’m picturing are the same thing. Odds are they aren’t.

When you go to surgery, you’re going to get the plastic surgeon’s idea of a C-cup. It may not be what you had in mind.

You wanted your idea of a C-cup – not his.

We’ve all heard stories about women wishing they’d gotten bigger breast implants or even going to surgery again to change implant size. The cup size guessing game is the biggest cause of this problem. If your plastic surgeon doesn’t have a clear picture of your target, he’s not likely to hit it.

In the next post, I’ll review another popular but inaccurate method for choosing breast implant size. Then we’ll move on and discuss a method that really does work.

You can see our breast augmentation results here.

You can read more breast augmentation articles here.

Dr. Schwartz’s radio show airs every Saturday at 3:00 P.M. on KLLI-FM 105.3 in Dallas, Texas. It can also be heard live by internet stream. Archived shows are also available on this website .