Dr. Jeffrey Lee is a Harvard-trained plastic surgeon serving patients in the greater Boston area. He specializes in cosmetic procedures of the face, breast, body, and non-surgical treatments such as Botox and Juvederm. Dr. Lee’s vision for patient care blends both safety as well as optimal aesthetic outcomes.

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A large part of how a person feels about themselves is based on their appearance. If one is not comfortable or happy with the way they look, there are procedures that can give extreme confident boosts, such as breast augmentation surgery. As women, our breasts can override our happiness.

At JL plastic surgery in Boston, Haute Beauty expert Dr. Jeffrey Lee provides patients with beautiful and natural-looking results they desire. Because everyone has different goals, it is important to discuss them with Dr. Lee during a consultation. Throughout a consultation, Dr. Lee will go over his best recommendations on achieving your goals and an abundance of other things. To prepare, here’s a breakdown of what is discussed throughout your appointment:

The order of operations in a consultation.

When patients arrive for a consultation, they’ve usually had a chance to ask questions via email or phone call with our surgical patient coordinator. They are also asked to fill out a medical history questionnaire online so that we can take a look at it beforehand.

Once a patient arrives, they are brought into our exam room and are asked to get changed into an exam gown. At this point, our coordinator brings me into the room to meet the patient. The flow of a consultation varies but I try to do the examination on the earlier side. This allows me to be much more specific when I am relaying information. I will go through what I recommend for breast augmentation which includes incision type, implant type, implant profile, and implant position. I will also review the risks of breast augmentation, the timeline from preoperative appointment to surgery to postoperative appointments.

At this point, patients have questions and I let those guide the rest of the consultation. Generally, patients have a concern or two and we talk about that for as long as we need to. Once all questions are answered, I usually step out to let the patient try on different size implants with our coordinator. I will usually give a range or at least a maximum size so that the patient knows what will be available for them.

Most patients are able to select a size that they feel comfortable with at the consultation but some want to come back to try sizing again which is completely fine and normal. Afterward, patients change back to their clothes and meet with our coordinator to get a formal price quote on the procedure as well as to look at available surgical dates if they choose.

The questions you’ll always be asked:

1. What bra cup size are you now?
2. What bra cup size do you want to be?
3. Are you a bodybuilder, fitness competitor, or a CrossFit enthusiast?
4. Do you like the fullness of the upper part of the breasts or do you prefer a more gradual slope?

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The information you’ll review:

1. Breast augmentation surgery is always performed in a surgical center in our building.
2. Risks include but are not limited to infection, bleeding, capsular contracture, rupture, damage to nearby structures, implant malposition, ALCL, constitutional symptoms, and asymmetry.
3. Typical pre/postoperative course.
4. Postoperative limitations include no heavy lifting and nothing that involves a lot of bouncing (i.e. running, spinning, ellipticals, etc) for 6 weeks.  Also, no underwire or pushup bras for 6 weeks.

Common questions and their answers:

1. What kind of anesthesia is it? It is a general anesthetic.
2. What kind of bra should I wear after? You will go home with a surgical postoperative bra.  You can switch it out to a sports bra with good support if you’d like.
3. I’m afraid people will notice my larger breasts after surgery, what can I do about that? It all comes down to what you wear after surgery. If you want to be more inconspicuous, wear baggier clothing. If you want to show the world, wear clothing that is more flattering! We actually get a reasonable amount of school teachers and this is a huge concern for them.  If you wear loose-fitting clothing, it makes it very difficult to tell if you’ve had anything done.
4. What do I do if I cannot decide between two sizes of implants? I generally recommend going with the larger size. It’s a small difference either way and patients generally wish they had gone just a little bit bigger afterward if they could do it all over again.

The main point of concern.

One of the biggest concerns for patients is the pain that comes with surgery. I generally tell patients that the pain is really a muscle soreness and tightness rather than a sharp, stabbing pain. You are still able to move around but you’ll be sore, much like an extremely intense workout.  So baseline, the pain experienced by patients is not nearly what they expect it to be. On top of this, we implement a multimodal pain medication regimen that really cuts down on discomfort. GONE are the days that you only get one big gun medication after surgery. Postoperative pain management has become much more sophisticated and as a result, patients really benefit from it.