“Is there a connection between breast reduction, asthma and back pain?”
I recently came across an article that said one could effectively manage asthma and back pain by reducing their breasts. Is this true? What is the connection between the two?
5 Answers
Yes definitely
The connection is weight reduction attributable to the breast, especially women with very large breasts. Studies show that weight reduction can reduce asthma severity and reduce some forms of back pain.
There is a connection between breast reduction, asthma, and back pain.
The connection between macromastia (large breasts) and neck shoulder and back pain is well established in the medical literature. Any search on google will pull up tons of information. The main reason women get the procedure is because of the chronic pain. The asthma association is more rare, but there is some evidence that it improves chest wall compliance leading to increased pulmonary function (see Int Surg. 2014 Jul-Aug; 99(4): 300–304.) Hope this helps.
Richard Aballay, MD
Richard Aballay, MD
There is no connection between asthma and back pain and large breasts except to say that in asthma, there is reduced air flow in your lungs and being able to expand that space by reducing the weight on your thoracic spine could help you. Similarly, back pain may make you bend over more in your thoracic spine and again reduce the lung space. No physiological relationship, perhaps a slight anatomical one.
