Breasts come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, and “normal” encompasses a broad range of shapes a sizes. However, sometimes breasts don’t “look right” and do not appear to have developed as expected. This might be due to significant asymmetry, with over a cup size difference in size between the breasts, or sometimes due to their shape not appearing as a breast normally looks.

Many of these atypical shapes are described as tuberous, an unfortunate monicker given by the plastic surgeon who originally coined the term as they described many of the shapes being similar to tuber vegetables. In this, they grouped breast shapes that were elongated, some had very bulgy and puffy nipples and areola, some had a very high and tight constricted base, and many had what appeared to be missing breast tissue in the lower half of the breast.

Therefore the breasts that can be described as tuberous still have a relatively wide variety of shapes, but most surgeons and lay people would agree that they do not conform to the expected shape of a breast.

Developing tuberous breasts can be very distressing and isolating – becoming aware that your breasts look different from all your friends can have profound impacts. It will stop sufferers from taking part in what we would consider normal activities. We hear of our patients who have never been on a summer holiday for fear of someone seeing their breasts, or even part of their breasts. Some have never had a relationship, or if they have, their partner might never have seen their breasts. Furthermore, they are severely restricted in what clothes they feel they can wear.

Fortunately, our surgeons at Purity Bridge are experts in treating tuberous breasts. They have a wide variety of surgical techniques at their disposal, and will tailor the treatment plan according to your needs and aim to involve you in the decision making at every step of the way.

Treatment strategies might involve the use of breast implants, the use of fat grafting, different forms of breast lift approaches, and sometimes the re-arrangement of your internal breast tissue. What is important to recognise is that this can be complex and challenging surgery, which sometimes requires more than one operation to reach the final result. Fat grafting is often used as the final operation to refine and balance the end result.

If you, or someone you know, is suffering from tuberous breasts, please get in touch to see if we can help.