Exercise soon after breast plastic surgery is safe and healthy

TUESDAY, December 28, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Although some plastic surgeons do not recommend exercising for weeks after breast augmentation, new research suggests that a ban may not be necessary.

New clinical trial they found that women who continued to exercise after a week break had no more complications and were more satisfied with the results of their surgery.

“These findings are in line with a broader trend recently observed in other surgical areas where early exercise has been shown to be safe without increasing the complication rate,” said study authors Dr. Filipe Basile and Dr. Thais Oliveira. They are private surgeons. practice in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil.

Today, recommendations for continuing exercise after surgery vary, ranging from a few weeks to a few months. The authors noted that calling patients to wait is based on the idea that exercise can lead to complications, reduce the quality of scars, and compromise results.

For this study, patients with breast augmentation were randomly assigned to standard restrictions or early exercise.

The women in the exercise group began the program under supervision a week after surgery. They are aerobic exercise or strength training three times a week for 12 weeks.

Those in the control group were advised to avoid exercise for 12 weeks after surgery.

A year later, researchers compared complication rates and scar quality between the two groups. They also asked patients to supplement a BREAST-Q questionnaire to assess satisfaction with their breast augmentation results.

Seventy-five patients in each group completed the study.

The overall complication rate was 6.9% in the exercise group and 7.5% in the non-exercise group. Complications were generally minor, and none of the patients required revision during the 12-month follow-up period. The quality of the scars was similar among the groups.

The average satisfaction score for women assigned to early exercise was 83 compared with 66 in the non-exercising group, which was a surprise to the researchers.

Basile and Oliveira said their findings were consistent previous studies showing that early postoperative exercise is beneficial and does not increase complication rates after several types of surgery, including heart surgery.

“[T]”Better self-assessment results could be attributed to the effect exercise has on mood and quality of life in general,” they wrote.

“Obviously, this group of patients is being operated on and returning to exercise quickly,” the authors said.

The findings appear in the January issue of the journal Plastic and reconstructive surgery.

More information

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more on that risks and complications of breast implants.

SOURCE: Wolters Kluwer Health, press release, December 22, 2021.