“Boob Greed”
Recently a patient educated me about a term I was previously not aware of, Boob Greed. This particular patient was coming to the office for a preoperative visit, a component of which entails confirming the size of the implant she was to have placed at the time of her upcoming breast augmentation. She informed me that Boob Greed refers to patients who undergo an augmentation mammaplasty and then wish that they had selected a larger size implant. While this concept was something that I was well aware of, I had not known that there was an actual term for it. When you Google and search Boob Greed, you get 22,000 listings in 0.35 seconds.
During the initial consultation with a patient we spend a great deal of time helping them select the appropriate size breast implant to enable them to achieve the look they desire. A portion of the discussion is that, nationally, one of the more common reasons a woman will have a revision of a breast augmentation is to go to a larger size. I will even tell a patient that if she searches breast augmentation online and visits various chat rooms she will often find that patients like the appearance of their breasts shortly after surgery but after time find themselves wishing that they had gone with a larger size. In our practice this is an uncommon occurrence because of the time we spend with patients preoperatively with implant selection. I typically remind the patient that the final implant size is their decision; not mine, their friend’s or their family member’s. I recommend to patients that if they are wavering between two sizes that they select the larger size. On occasion a patient will focus on the difference of 25 ml or cc and we will show them how little this actually is (less than 2 tablespoons) in a medicine cup. That often alleviates their concern about the difference between the final two implant sizes. We also take into consideration that implants are typically placed behind the muscle and this needs to be factored into the final implant size to compensate for the muscle slightly compressing the implant.
One of the most important aspects of breast augmentation surgery is having the patient not only thrilled about her results but also not feeling as if she went either too small or too large. Careful implant size selection is a significant component of this process. When all of these factors are taken into consideration, Boob Greed is something that no woman should ever have to feel or relate to.
