DIEP Flap Breast Reconstruction - An Option to Remember

If you are facing the prospect of having one or both of your breasts removed because of cancer, then you should also be looking into reconstruction options that are available to you. You should not think of your situation as hopeless. In fact, with all of the options available to you, you should be very optimistic when looking ahead to the future.

Having some type of reconstruction done will help you as you recover your overall health. A DIEP Flap reconstruction is a good and common way to make your breasts appear more natural after a mastectomy.

A DIEP Flap stands for deep inferior epigrastric perforators. That is a long set of words for a surgery that basically removes tissue and blood vessels from the lower abdomen and transfers them to the area where the breast has been removed. If you are a very thin individual and there is just not enough tissue in that region then you may need a stacked DIEP Flap that removes tissue from 2 areas of the abdomen or the GAP type that goes to the buttocks and hip region for excess tissue.

If you are trying to look for the positives in your situation, consider the fact that you will not only have a remade breast after the removal of your breast, but you will also have to some degree a tummy tuck because as that tissue is removed from the abdomen, it will serve to contour your body some.

As you consider the various procedures that are available for reconstruction, you will also want to consider the doctors that do these procedures. There may be some that work with your cancer center, but you may choose a different one. It is important that they are board certified in plastic surgery. It is important that each doctor has a number of years of experience, and that during those years they have done a number of surgeries in the cancer reconstruction field. Make sure that as you are looking at a few different doctors that you also research what others have to say about the work they do. It is good to know that a doctor not only gets results, but that he or she is compassionate and caring as they get them.

You can take someone else's word for it on most of these areas, but you will really want to meet with the doctors in person before you make your final decision about who will be treating you. During the consultation phase of the process, make sure you talk to someone about the financial side of having breast reconstruction. You will want to make sure that it will be affordable. With the help of insurance or the doctor's financing options, it can be.