Breast Reduction Surgery
Breast reduction surgery is one of the most common cosmetic breast surgery procedures in the UK.
Mr. Turton has helped hundreds of women achieve the comfort and confidence they deserve – with the most impressive track record for specialists in the UK, and consistently glowing patient feedback on platforms like I Want Great Care.
Why Breast Reduction Surgery?
Excessive breast tissue, or macromastia, is often caused by a combination of hormonal and genetic factors. Large breasts frequently develop during the teenage years due to hormonal changes but can also be triggered later in life by events such as pregnancy or menopause.
Weight gain is another contributing factor. Unfortunately, even after losing weight, breasts frequently do not return to their original size or shape.
This can leave some women with stretched skin, drooping breasts, and disproportionately large areolae. Breast reduction surgery with Mr Turton addresses these concerns by reshaping and resizing the breasts, lifting them to a more youthful position, and adjusting the areolae for improved cosmetic results.
Reasons for Considering Breast Reduction Surgery
For the majority of women that Mr Turton sees, they simply say they dislike the appearance. Large breasts get in the way, they cause unwanted attention, they affect the choice of clothes and swimwear, and eventually cause poor posture. They often inhibit patients from exercising as much as they want to, due to feeling self-conscious in a gym, or because it is uncomfortable. Large breasts can also make you look over-weight.
The most common reasons patients request breast reduction include:
Aesthetic Concerns
- Dissatisfaction with appearance
- Difficulty finding clothes or bras that fit properly
- Challenges in choosing flattering swimwear
- A perception of appearing overweight
Physical Discomfort
- Neck, back, and shoulder pain from the weight of large breasts
- Skin irritation or infections under the breasts
- Poor posture, including rounded shoulders or forward stooping
- Discomfort during exercise, making physical activity unpleasant
Emotional & Social Impacts
- Unwanted attention or inappropriate comments, which can affect self-confidence
- Bullying or teasing, especially in younger women
- Breast reduction surgery provides a transformative solution to these challenges, offering both physical relief and a boost in self-esteem
The Procedure
Breast reduction surgery is a detailed procedure that combines expertise in reshaping, resizing, and lifting the breasts.
Here’s what the process entails:
01
Removing glandular and fatty tissue.
02
Reshaping the breast by artistic tissue mobilisation and removing excess skin.
03
Reducing the size of the areola.
04
Repositioning the nipple and areola to a higher, more youthful position.
DURATION:
2–4 hours under general anesthesia. Larger breasts may take longer due to the extent of tissue removal and stitching.
Safety and Recovery for Breast Reduction
Mr. Turton has carried out many hundreds of breast reductions and is a very experienced specialist surgeon with an excellent reputation. In the hands of an experienced specialist like Mr. Turton, breast reduction is a safe procedure.
Most patients heal well without complications, but as with any surgery, there are some rare but relatively minor risks and even rarer but more serious ones:
Eg. Rare: <5%: delays in healing can occur at the “T-Junction”
Eg. Very rare: <1 in 500: the nipple blood supply can be compromised causing tissue loss, or necrosis of the nipple
5%
Delays in healing
can occur at the “T-Junction”
0.002%
Necrosis of the nipple. The nipple blood supply can be compromised, causing tissue loss.
Breast Reduction Results
Most patients want to aim for a breast size between a C and D cup, and while exact sizes can’t be guaranteed during surgery, Mr Turton’s experience and his advanced techniques, ensure very generous reductions are achieved.
Mr Turton can discuss the setting or realistic expectations and has comprehensive examples of his work to help you.
Patient Suitability
You will need to have a detailed consultation and assessment with your specialist to assess your suitability for the operation. Please bring along a list of any medications that you take.
If you use nicotine in any form, or are a smoker it is essential to stop completely until healed. Smoking reduces the blood supply to the healing tissue and can greatly increase the risk of complications.
While rare, complications such as delayed healing or nipple blood supply issues can occur, the risks are minimized with proper care and preparation.
To ensure the best outcomes:
- Attend a detailed consultation with Mr. Turton to discuss your medical history, medications, and goals.
- Quit smoking before and after surgery to optimize healing.
- Follow preparation and post-operative care instructions diligently.
Breast Reduction Surgery Costs
Guideline:
£12,000 – £13,500
Including:
- Comprehensive Surgical care by an expert specialist with over 21 years experience at consultant level.
- The resected breast tissue for histopathology testing by a consultant pathologist where required.
- An overnight hospital stay in a private room on a properly staffed hospital ward
- Comprehensive aftercare and follow-up appointments.
Recovery Timeline
Hospital Stay
Typically 1 night
Pain Management
Most patients find relief with Paracetamol and Ibuprofen within a few days.
Tenderness
Common for a few weeks, with occasional minor fleeting pains during recovery.
Final Results
Scars soften and fade over several months, with optimal results visible in about 6-12 months.
Breast Reduction Surgery FAQ
- Breasts considered too large/heavy. Unable to carry out normal activities like sport or even work without discomfort.
- The large breast size means that women are unable to find clothes that fit well, especially bras, without excessive expense.
- The woman considers her large breasts cosmetically unattractive affecting body image and self esteem.
- The heavy breasts are causing the shoulders to drop leading to a stooping posture, back pain & painful marks from bra straps.
- Red marks and skin infections under the breasts (intertrigo)
- One breast is a different size leading to cosmetic and practical problems.
- Because they just want smaller breasts.
- Most patients want to aim for a size between C and D cup, which is generally achievable in slim frames.
- However, exact cup sizes cannot be guaranteed, as they depend on the blood supply to the nipple, your natural anatomy, the amount of tissue removed, and how your body heals. Bra size is not a surgical measurement!
- Your surgeon will carefully discuss your goals and work to achieve a size that is in harmony with your body shape and frame.
- Most patients stay for 1 night after surgery.
- The overnight stay allows for monitoring, ensuring you are comfortable, safe and managing any immediate post-operative issues.
- A hospital setting is the safest place for breast reduction surgery and Mr Turton will not perform this surgery in day care clinics. Safety is always paramount.
- The amount of tissue removed depends on your individual needs and goals, ranging from 300–800 grams per side for most reductions.
- Massive reductions involving 1–2 kilograms per side are more complex and may require longer surgical time, recovery, and potentially higher costs. Loss of the nipple increases in large volume reductions. Occasionally nipple sacrifice is planned from the outset, or nipple grafts are used.
- The final volume removed during surgery will be carefully assessed to balance achieving your desired size while maintaining safety, breast symmetry and proportions.
Breast reduction surgery is complex and performed by a specialist. Mr Turton has been doing this type of surgery for over 20-years.
The cost of surgery is derived from a combination of the surgeon’s fee, the anaesthetist’s fee and the hospital’s fee, to produce a fixed price package.
Guideline prices advertised on the hospital web sites and quite rough approximations and should not be relied upon until a fixed price has been offered by Mr Turton’s secretary. This can only be done after an assessment in person with Mr Turton.
In general, breast reduction surgery with Mr Turton costs between £10,500 to 12,500. This will include a full breast reduction, re-shaping, breast uplift, making the areolae smaller and more in proportion to the size of your new breasts, elevating the nipples to an optimal position, and sending any removed breast tissue for pathological examination when appropriate.
- Pain after surgery is typically manageable with Paracetamol and Ibuprofen for about 4–5 days. Stronger pain relief is rarely needed.
- You might experience tenderness for a few weeks, and it’s normal to feel some tightness or pulling sensations as your body heals.
- Occasional sharp or fleeting pains may occur during recovery, especially as nerves heal, but these are temporary.
- A small percentage of patients report a dull ache that lasts longer, but this usually improves with time.
- Your surgeon will provide detailed post-operative care instructions to manage discomfort effectively.
It is imperative that you completely stop smoking within 6-weeks of the surgery and for at least 6-weeks after surgery. If you cannot do this you should not undergo the operation. Most patients are 100% successful with this, and some use nicotine patches initially to help. Your surgeon will discuss this with any patient that does smoke and please always be 100% honest.
The blood supply to healing tissue through the tiny capillary network at the skin edge of incisions is reduced in smokers (or when using nicotine products or nicotine vape) and severely reduced whilst smoking (even passive inhalation) and for many hours after a single inhalation. This would cause necrosis (death of tissue) at vulnerable sites in the operated breast. The nipple and areola are also much more vulnerable as the blood supply to them is being reduced during the operation, and any additional insult such as constriction of the capillary network from smoking or nicotine can be catastrophic. The result can include delayed healing, serious infection, loss of breast tissue, loss of the entire nipple and areola complex needing major revisional or reconstructive surgery, but without a guarantee of a good result. Although these drastic complications are rare and although they can occur in non-smokers they are more common in smokers. Do not undergo this surgery if you smoke or use nicotine. Give up first and then you will have placed yourself in a better position to have an excellent outcome. Please discuss this with your surgeon if there are any aspects that you do not understand.
- Initially, scars may appear red and raised, especially at 3 weeks post-surgery, but they will generally soften and fade over time.
- The sutures are very special in that they are very fine but very strong. They are all under the skin and comprise hundreds of individually hand tied sutures. They are self dissolving after an interval of 9 months to ensure the neatest scars.
- The fading process usually takes several months to a year.
- Some individuals may develop thicker or more noticeable scars, especially under the bust near the inner and outer edges (hypertrophic scars).
- Techniques like silicone scar gel are encouraged for use in the 12 months after surgery and can help minimize scarring.
- Genetics play a role, so if you have a history of keloid or hypertrophic scars, inform your surgeon during the consultation.
- Following post-surgery care instructions, like avoiding excessive sun exposure on scars and keeping the area moisturized, can improve healing and appearance.
Breast pain
Breast tissue is responsive to hormonal changes, and after breast reduction, there is still plenty of breast tissue.
Breast cancer
Whilst there is some evidence that reducing breast size may decrease the risk of breast cancer it should be remembered that all women have at least a 1 in 8 life time risk of breast cancer regardless of the size of their breasts.
An aching back or stooping shoulders.
Unfortunately, once the back has taken a different shape and the shoulders have dropped, although the breast reduction will be more comfortable, it will not always rectify the previous posture. Physiotherapy might help.
Regular use of sunbeds or regular sunbathing damages skin. It becomes more vulnerable to healing complications. In particular, if you smoke and use sunbeds regularly the risk of delayed healing or wound separation increase dramatically. It is, therefore, important not to use a sunbed in the preoperative period for at least 6-weeks. Please also inform Mr Turton of any previous regular sunbed usage. Scars should be covered with sunblock in the future as they can become permanently red otherwise. It is not advisable to expose your scars to regular sunbed usage after surgery.
Mr Turton must be informed about all medication, herbal preparations or supplements that you take. He will normally ask that you avoid high dose vitamin or herbal supplements in the weeks before surgery and any non-essential medication. In the two weeks before surgery, if you have a headache (or hangover) or period pain, then it is preferable to take Paracetamol and avoid anti-inflammatories such as Naproxen, Brufen or Aspirin. These recommendations help to lower risk of unnecessary oozing after surgery, output from the drains, and also lowers the risk of a return to theatre in the first 24-hours to evacuate a haematoma.
Ensure you discuss any allergies that you have, even if you are uncertain.
In some patients, an operation is required to drain a haematoma. This tends to occur suddenly in the first 24-hours after surgery when a blood vessel that was previously sealed bleeds. It overwhelms the drain and collects under the wound. It feels quite painful suddenly and the breast swelling is really very obvious. The nursing staff are trained to recognise this. The surgeon will normally drain this out with you back under anaesthetic, soon after it is recognised. Avoiding aspirin and anti-inflammatories prior to surgery helps to prevent this, as does having a good normal healthy blood pressure. However, this is one of the more common complications (approximately 5% risk) that can occur despite all precautions, and as long as it is appropriately dealt with causes no detrimental effect. Only very rarely would a blood transfusion ever be required.
Bruising may cause the breast skin to become a little discoloured and this may spread downwards on to the skin on your upper tummy area. The body will absorb this bruising over a few weeks but if you are worried that it seems more extensive or swollen please contact your surgeon.
Infection is another possibility despite the routine administration of antibiotics, meticulous surgical techniques, and subsequent wound care after the procedure. It is usually caused by the patient’s own commensal skin bacteria infecting the healing wound. Any signs of spreading redness, heat, purulent discharge or a raised temperature need to be reported promptly to your Consultant, through the ward from which you were discharged, or other members of your Consultant’s team. If you do not need to be readmitted and it is more minor in extent, an earlier appointment to the breast clinic should be made, or a visit to the dressing clinic or ward. If there are any areas that are slow to heal, you may be given a course of antibiotics. Very rare serious infections causing tissue necrosis are occasionally reported in the literature (necrotizing fasciitis) and are more common in diabetics.
There is also a small possibility that the nipple may lose its blood supply and become necrotic (the skin may become non-viable, turn purple then black, and heal by scarring with loss of pigmentation) or you may even lose the nipple-areola complex in extreme cases. This is a rare complication although if you have had previous breast surgery or previous radiotherapy to your breast (as part of breast cancer treatment for example) the risk is significantly higher. Smokers must completely abstain for 6-weeks before and 6-weeks after surgery (no passive inhalation either) and completely avoid use of nicotine supplements too. The risk of nipple necrosis is higher for more major breast reductions.
Very occasionally the blood supply to an area of the skin flaps that are lifted during breast reduction surgery, can become inadequate early after surgery. This is significantly more common in smokers. The involved skin dies (becomes necrotic) and turns black. The tissue left behind heals by scarring. The site most at risk during recovery is at the apex of the “T” incision so the resultant scarring is not as obvious as if it were higher on the breast. However, it could be more extensive. In this situation, the time to heal can be delayed by many weeks, and the dead skin may require surgical removal (very rare). Minor healing problems at the T-Junction are more common, but more easily managed. They still cause a delay before the dressing can be removed for good.
Fat necrosis is a hard area of dead fatty tissue. It can occur from breast reduction or uplift surgery and results in a hard area within the breast. It is not normally troublesome, but if large can be tender. Your surgeon would need to assess you if there was a lump and you would need to check for other causes of a breast lump. Sometimes a biopsy would be required to check the diagnosis.
It can cause anxiety to a patient, but the condition is benign and does not carry any risk. However, all lumps should be investigated by a specialist regardless of whether a reduction has been performed or not.