Breast augmentation surgery is an very old cosmetic surgery item, it’s basic principle has not changed nor improved too much since the first time this kind of surgery was performed. The surgery procedure and each of the steps and process of the surgery however have been improved and fine tuned customer oriented, such as surgery incision, or safer anesthesia methods, etc... All these as effort so customer can get better service quality, and reduce the fear for surgery. Of course if it is possible for patients to be able to decide size of their breasts during surgery, and can wake up anytime during surgery, I think for many women who want a breast augmentation surgery but still fear or all the uncertainties, decision making during surgery with out doubt is the most perfect solution.

Self decision making surgery method has 3 advantages- self decision making, pain-less and immediate recovery. The inventor for this procedure, also my mentor, it is a renowned Japanese Cosmetic Surgeon Dr. Nagumo. He has been performed this surgery for over 15 years; each year he performs over 800 of this surgery, proving this is a very mature surgery method. Its surgical characteristics is the usage of epidural anesthesia, same as the one currently used for pain-less child birth process, applying an special amount of anesthesia in the epidural to numb the chest area. Patient can remain conscious. The other special part for this surgery is the use of expander tool that can simulate size with different amount of fillings. We first start by filling this expander and then wake up the patient, at this point, she can see from a mirror the size and shape of her breasts, the surgeon can simulate size by extracting or adding filling into the expander, patient can exchange her thoughts with the surgeon; after confirming the size, surgeon will exchange the expander with permanent water bag with the amount of filling, patient can walk down from the surgery table with the nurse’s help right after the surgery and can immediately resume her normal eating habits and activities.

Self decision making surgery time is longer as compared with the traditional breast augmentation surgeries, but it has below 2 significant advantages: first, immediately recovery from pain –less anesthesia method, patients can return to their homes 1 hour after the surgery, can resume work the very next day, completely avoiding the risks of vomiting, headache, dizziness, drowsiness, throat pain or numbness, etc side effects from the traditional whole body anesthesia method. Second, the size of your breasts are entirely decided by yourself, surgeon can use different aid tooling to simulate sizes for patients reference, this for the genetically born smaller/ larger breast patients, patients dissatisfied with their breast, or someone who is not sure what kind of breast is most suitable for them. It is the method that offers most warrantees, compared with just looking at previous breast implant pictures, or completely depending on surgeon’s choice and preferences; this surgery surely meets best each patients needs.

I normally hear patients complaining about their breast implants during clinical consults, all these complains at the end come down to surgery performed only referencing other implants pictures, accepting surgeons’ suggestions or simulation for breast size different from actual surgery, etc. In these cases, even though patients are not satisfied with the results, but there is no other choice but to accept it, this is also the bottleneck for breast augmentation surgeries. However, with this self decision making during surgery method, I could see a picture of me and a patient discussing pleasantly during the surgery, gives me a lot of accomplishment. Seeing my patients leaving the clinic happily after breast augmentation surgery, I think this is what I enjoy the most about this kind of procedures, it is also like reaching perfection for cosmetic surgeries, isn’t it?