Important!!

• Keep your elbows to your side and do not pull or reach with your arms for one week.
• It is very important to breathe deeply and cough for several minutes every hour. This will help clear your lungs and prevent pneumonia.
• Flex your leg calf muscles for 3 minutes every hour while awake. Avoid crossing or massaging your legs.
• Start walking the first night after surgery even if it is just to walk around the bed.
• Drink plenty of fluids (at least eight glasses of water or equivalent a day).

1. Prescriptions:

• Use medications as prescribed. You may resume your pre-op medications, except aspirin and Motrin, which you should not take for one week after surgery.
• Do not drink alcoholic beverages – beer and wine included – for 48 hours. They do not mix with anesthesia and may make you very sick. Also do not mix alcoholic beverages with pain pills.
• Do not do anything that requires any coordination for 48 hours after surgery and while you are taking pain medication. The medication and/or anesthetic agents may interfere with good judgment.
• DO NOT DRIVE FOR ONE WEEK AFTER SURGERY

2. Call your doctor if you notice any excessive swelling, redness, bleeding, or soreness, particularly if you notice the difference in only one breast.

3. It is important that you stay quiet for the first three days as excessive activity may cause bleeding to occur. This is best remembered by keeping your elbows to your side and not pulling yourself out of the bed or chair. Light activity is permissible on the fourth day following surgery.  Do not return to regular sports or exercise for six weeks.

4. It is best to sleep on your back for the first week.

5. Drains: if you are discharged with drains, please record the drainage amounts on your drainage sheet every eight hours and add up the 24 hour totals.

6. Bathing: Sponge baths should be taken until bandages and drains have been removed.  Showers are allowed after dressing and drain removal, however soaking in the bathtub is not allowed until all sutures are removed. 

7. Do not smoke for one week after surgery, as this affects healing. 

8. Patients must not be left alone for the first 24 hours after surgery.

9. No bra is needed until instructed. Our office will instruct you on the type of sports bra to purchase after your dressings are removed.

10. Do not apply a heating pad or hot water bottle to your breasts. You will have a temporary loss of sensation and it will be easy to obtain a skin burn. Do not sun bathe or sit in a tanning bed unless your incisions are covered.

11. Do not expose operated areas to sun without protection. Early sun exposure can result in reddening of the scar that may be permanent. After your incisions have healed, always use sunblock for 6 –12 months. Starting two weeks after surgery, begin to massage your incisions to decrease the sensitivity and scar formation.