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Your journey · stage 5 of 5

Longer-term healing

Recovery does not have a six-week finish line.

Woman wearing the white Reco Bra some months after her surgery

By this stage, the focus may be shifting from protecting your immediate recovery to gradually returning to the things that feel normal to you.

Scars continue to change and settle. Exercise may be introduced gradually. You may be considering a prosthesis, returning to your usual bras or wondering when an underwire feels comfortable again. These things do not happen on a fixed schedule.

There is no right point at which you should feel completely "back to normal", and taking longer does not mean you are doing anything wrong. Healing takes the time it takes.

Your recovery continues to deserve care, patience and support, long after the first six weeks.

The short version

Ask about underwire and normal bras at your follow-up rather than working to a date
Permanent prostheses are usually fitted once swelling has fully settled
Many women keep a Reco Bra® for sleep and travel long after recovery
New pain, swelling or changes are always worth a call to your team, at any distance from surgery

Worth doing at this stage

When to go back to a normal bra

Usually a question for your surgeon at follow-up; here is the background.

Ask us anything

A real person replies, usually the same working day.

We don't sell any of these services or products. We've included them because recovery is about more than what you wear. Sometimes, finding the right advice, support or specialist is one of the most important parts of the journey.

Nicole de Havilland, in her studio
Chosen by Nicole de Havilland Lymphoedema practitioner for more than thirty years, and designer of the Reco Bra®

Going into hospital

Packing for a mastectomy or a reconstruction, and the one thing most lists leave off.

  • Drain Dollies (opens in a new tab)

    Surgical drain bags that hang from the shoulder, so drains can be carried without lifting your arms. Two for a double mastectomy, one for a single.

    Designed by a patient. Profits go to Prevent Breast Cancer.

Getting to the toilet after abdominal surgery

After abdominal surgery, lowering yourself onto a toilet and standing up again can be uncomfortable while the abdomen heals. Standing to urinate avoids some of that movement and pressure.

  • Shewee (opens in a new tab)

    The original stand-to-pee device. The Reco Brief is designed with a discreet opening so it can be used without taking the garment off.

    Reco Heart works in collaboration with Shewee, and Reco Heart customers get 10% off with the code RECO10. Always follow your surgical team's advice.

Padding, if you have been advised to use it

Some surgical teams recommend soft padding over the breast in the early weeks, particularly after a mastectomy or lipofilling. The Reco Bra® can be worn over padding, as directed by your team.

  • LanaCare breast surgery pads (opens in a new tab)

    Soft wool pads shaped to sit over the breast after mastectomy, reconstruction, augmentation or radiotherapy, in four sizes.

    Sold from Europe and priced in euros. Ask your surgical team before putting any padding over a healing wound.

Lymphoedema: where to start

If lymph nodes were removed, or you have had radiotherapy, this is the part of recovery least likely to be explained to you properly.

Compression, if you have been advised to wear it

Either as a preventative after lymph node removal or radiotherapy, or because swelling has already started.

If surgery is being discussed

A specialist route rather than a first step, and one to raise with your own team.

Future Dreams

The UK's dedicated breast cancer support centre, in Kings Cross and online.

These are other people's organisations and we have no control over what they publish. Nothing here replaces the advice of your own surgeon, breast care nurse or GP.