Will a breast reduction reduce my symptoms

Probably the single most common motivation for considering breast reduction surgery is chronic back, shoulder and neck pain.

Research studies following up on the results of breast reduction surgery consistently find back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain can be improved by these procedures.

In recent study published in 2014 the commonest symptoms reported were back pain (90%) neck pain (80%), shoulder grooves (90%), rashes under the breasts (45%), headache (65%) exercise intolerance (80%), lack of self-esteem (90%), and poor posture (85%).

Interestingly, when the patients were grouped according to the amount of breast tissue which was removed all patient groups experienced significant improvement in their symptoms. That is a woman having 250 g of breast tissue removed from each breast was just as likely to have symptom relief as a woman having a far greater amount of tissue removed. For the symptoms of back pain, neck pain, and poor posture, there did seem to be a trend for greater improvement with increased amounts of breast tissue removed. (For example, women who had 750 g of breast tissue removed each side tended to report a greater incremental improvement in their neck back and shoulder pain compared to a woman who may have had 250 g 400 g of tissue removed from each breast.)However all groups reported significant symptomatic improvement.

Some symptoms did not appear to have any relationship to the amount of tissue removed.

In particular, shoulder grooves, breast pain, rashes under the breasts, headache, exercise intolerance, and lack of self-esteem. For these symptoms the provision of the breast reduction procedure irrespective of the amount of tissue removed seemed to provide equal benefit.