The waterfall deformity or “Snoopy” deformity is quite common after breast implant surgery. It is particularly common when the implants have been placed under the chest muscle and if you have a fair bit of your own breast tissue. The longer the implants have been in position, the more time your natural breast tissue has to droop and descend. 

Because the implants are generally kept in a high position by the muscle, you can get a disconnect between the high positioned implant and the breast tissue which has descended. This creates a very characteristic appearance of a double convexity, with the upper fullness being due to the implant and the lower due to the descended breast tissue. You can see this quite clearly in the photograph below.

There are a couple of ways to fix this unappealing look.

The first method involves the removal of the current implants together with the removal of the capsule that surrounds the implant and replacing the round implant with a teardrop implant. This will only work if the breast tissue dissent is mild and it is unlikely that further drop will occur, as in no further pregnancies.

The other and really the more effective method involves lifting the breast tissue to a higher position so that the breast prominence matches the prominence of the implant. This is the method I generally recommend to give the best-looking result. The implants may also be replaced if required, this gives you the flexibility of others going smaller or larger whatever your personal preference.

Both of these operations can be performed in day surgery and will take anywhere between one and 3 hours to perform. Generally, patients who undergo this surgery would plan to be off work for 7 to 14 days and look to minimise physical activity for around 4 weeks.