For the better part of a year, Brittany‘s breast implants proved to be significantly more trouble than they were worth.
“It’s been 10 months since my surgery, and in more ways than one, I am still paying the price for these boobs,” the Botched patient explained near the start of Monday’s new episode.
During her and husband Justin’s initial meeting with Drs. Terry Dubrow and Paul Nassif, Brittany went on to list the lasting consequences of her “double” breast augmentation procedure, the likes of which included headaches and neck pain in addition to noticeable misshapenness and general discomfort.
“I want the opportunity to redo this mistake,” she continued earnestly, having recounted a relatively involved surgical history that began with a single pair of breast implants and ultimately left her with final products almost twice that size. After suffering complications several months after the original procedure, Brittany knew a follow-up surgery would be necessary to repair the damage. So, while preparing to go under the knife again, she started to dream bigger.
“I wanted to go 1,300 cc’s,” she remembered. But manufacturing companies don’t actually produce breast implants sized larger than 800 cc’s, so just about every medical professional Brittany solicited for the job turned her away.
Unfortunately, five or six unsuccessful consults later, she did find one plastic surgeon willing to take on her dangerous request. The problem? In order to give Brittany the volume she’d requested, he suggested they surgically “stack” her breast implants—two on each side—to work around the individual sizing limitations.
Wide-eyed upon hearing this information for the first time, Dr. Dubrow informed Brittany that performing such a procedure required her previous surgeon to act in direct opposition to medical mandates.
“You go to the implant company inserts…it specifically says, ‘Do not stack implants,'” he said before going on to pinpoint a handful of major consequences typically associated with doing so, like thinning of the skin and capsular contracture. Bottom line: layering implants is not only risky, but technically “forbidden” by official plastic surgery standards.
In any case, Dubrow was happy to help Brittany return to a smaller breast size (wrapping up their first meeting, she asked the doctors to remove all four implants and replace them with one 800 cc pair), but devising a plan for how to do that came with its own set of complications.
“We can take them all out, put a new pair in and do some kind of lifting procedure, which means scars,” Dubrow told Brittany after a preliminary examination. And eager as she was to put this quadruple implant situation behind her, the patient still hesitated to provide her consent.
“I know it may be necessary to have scars in order to come out better than I came in,” Brittany acknowledged in a confessional interview. “But that scares me a lot. Because I just feel like I wont see my breasts as beautiful anymore.”
As Dubrow pointed out during a separate sit-down with the Botched cameras, breast lifts are not one-size-fits-all procedures. Less skin “tightening” means less scarring, and vice versa. So, even though Brittany did eventually green-light the operation, she left the question of additional incisions (and thus additional scars) up to her doctor’s discretion.
And luckily, Dr. Dubrow was able to avoid them during surgery.
“Although I could probably give Brittany a little more of a lift by doing a vertical incision, knowing that she really doesn’t want a scar there, it’s not worth it,” he reasoned, standing in the OR just before finishing up the procedure. Continuing, the veteran plastic surgeon concluded that, at least in this instance, “it’s probably a better idea to leave good enough alone.”
At ten weeks post-op, Brittany’s revamped look and restored self-confidence were more than enough evidence to suggest Dubrow’s surgical expertise amounted to much more than that.
“I feel amazing,” she beamed. “I look a million times better and I can definitely tell that [the implants are] actually where they’re supposed to sit. They look wonderful now.”
Hear more about Brittany’s story in the full recap video above! Also, you can watch the full episode HERE!
Watch a brand new episode of Botched Monday at 10 p.m., only on E!