Recently I was talking to two women in a neighboring city who told me that their mutual friends (married couple) gifted their “very flat chested” 20-year old daughter with breast implants. Now the daughter is nearing 10 years post augmentation and has learned that breast implants should be replaced every 10 years.
She doesn’t have the money so went to her parents to ask them. When they said they couldn’t afford the $10,000 to change them the daughter insisted it should be their responsibility to pay as they’re the reason she has them to begin with. Neither the parents or their daughter knew they wouldn’t be lifetime devices and neither have the money for another costly surgical procedure. They all agree they wouldn’t have done it if they’d known.
The daughter is reportedly really stressed (as I’m sure her parents are also) because she now knows she’s “got ticking time-bombs in her.” It’s so often the case that women end up feeling caught between a rock and a hard place because they can’t afford to have their implants removed or replaced.
As a result of that conversation here is a snippet from an upcoming Blog post (taken from a post entitled Dr Jekyll / Mr Hyde) … the last part being pertinent to this situation: ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A major breast implant manufacturer has two completely different Jekyll/Hyde websites:
1) A glossed-over hyped-up page with rave testimonials, photos & articles as bait for potential breast augmentation customers
2) The other is the ‘fine print’, disclaimer, they tried very hard to steer me away from in phone conversations when I’d called to request information about their implants and ask them the tough questions. (I was ultimately told they would have to consult their legal department.)
I’ve read nearly all of the fine print. I think if every woman considering breast implants had to read it and submit an essay to her plastic surgeon there would be a GREAT reduction in the number of women being implanted. For parents gifting their daughters with breast implants for their ‘Sweet 16’; graduation; or any other ‘let’s-just-screw-with-our-daughter’s-health’ reason for celebration, they should most DEFINITELY HAVE TO READ IT and turn in an essay! _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
When I first hugged my children after getting implants I cried, realizing I could no longer press them tight to my heart. It was a devastating realization no one had prepared me for.
Women opting for breast augmentation should be told to savour their last precious hugs. The last hug they get before implanting will be their last real heart to heart hug until their breast implants are removed. The last hug without cold, plastic sacs between them and them person they’re hugging.
When my children tell me what it was like for them when I had breast implants it breaks my heart. It was not a good experience for them.
When you hug a child against implants they don’t sink naturally into your bosom, especially when there is capsular contracture. When I look back at photos of me hugging my children and grandchildren I feel sadness. Whenever we hugged I felt the plastic barrier that prevented true contact, and so did they. I’m sad that was their experience of me.
I wept with joy when I hugged my family and friends after explant. We can again hug heart to heart. I savour each and every hug. It is a great joy!
We give our power away in so many ways. Every time we make a choice based on something or someone outside of ourselves (peers, societal pressures, media, etc.) that is harmful to our well-being we give it away. Every time we self-reject and choose not to love ourselves we give it away.
When we’re sacrificing our own well-being to conform we’re giving away our power. Been there, done it; got that lesson the hard way.
Nobody wakes up thinking, ‘omg, I love myself’ then gets breast implants. We get them out of a perceived deficit.
Too many of us don’t realize until very late in life that we’ve spent most of our lives self-rejecting and giving our power away.
Quotes: Panache Desai
“ … we’ve judged ourselves out of our magnificence … we’ve judged ourselves out of our natural state … we’ve bought into everyone else’s conversations and everyone else’s rules & regulations … it’s completely unsustainable.”
“We can only be who we are, and at some point that has to be good enough.”
A friend I hadn’t seen for a while asked me today if I had pursued legal action given that the breast implants that had made me so ill had been recalled, but I had not been notified. I had them 22 years. They were recalled within a year of getting them. They were unknowingly ruptured for 16 years. The implants had been recalled because they had a near 100% rupture rate at the 5-6 year mark.
I wasn’t able to pursue legal action. I was told at every turn I had no legal recourse.
However, I discovered after being explanted in October 2013 that though I couldn’t pursue a personal injury lawsuit, I technically qualified for some of the settlement money awarded Canadian Dow ladies in the multi-billion dollar Dow Corning class-action lawsuit (1984-1998). The settlement for Canadian claimants was approximately $24.2 million dollars.
Deloitte, the company responsible for distributing the money confirmed my eligibility, but said I was S.O.L. because they’d already doled the money out, leaving nothing for women like myself that contacted them within the final legal deadline. There was nothing put aside for us.
For most Canadian Dow women their share of the settlement, if they received anything at all, was a pittance that didn’t even fully cover explant costs. I presume lawyers and Deloitte received substantially more than a pittance; and surely would NOT have accepted being told there was nothing left for them.
I try to remain positive as I live with difficult health issues and acute pain related to having had badly ruptured silicone breast implants but, on some days like today, anger surfaces. It’s unbelievable to me that something like this could happen but, nobody really cares. FDA / Health Canada / medical system … none of them.
I’m not writing this to whine.
Conservatively there are many tens of thousands of women / men who have become casualties to faulty and dangerous implantable medical devices. (I don’t believe breast implants should be categorized as a medical device as they serve no medical purpose.) Most of us are swept under the carpet or cast aside, counted within the ‘acceptable risks’ statistics.
My husband was also unwittingly a victim of a failed, recalled implantable device which totally disintegrated within his hip socket. After years of suffering and pain he received a replacement prosthesis and was enrolled in a clinical study, but follow-up was nothing short of inadequate.
Until you become one of the ‘acceptable risks’ casualties with no recourse it’s easy to believe it’s somehow ok for manufacturers, the FDA, et al, to consider a certain number of injuries or deaths is acceptable. You never expect it might happen to you. You don’t consider that they will squash you like a bug and deny you justice if something goes wrong.
One might read my story and think, ‘that happened long ago and isn’t relevant now’. But, my story – change name and details – is the story of countless others today. We should ALL be concerned that something like this could happen in Canada.
May you never know the injustice of being harmed by an implantable device with the FDA / Health Canada stamp of approval. May you never have NO RECOURSE.
Conversations around body imaging can be tough. We’re mostly too embarrassed to go there, but when we do we list the reasons we’ve decided we’re not good enough, and that as we age we will be less and less so. We futilely feel we must either undergo body-altering procedures or, be defeatedly resigned to our perception of ourselves as looking old, tired, flat-chested / droopy breasted, frumpy, or whatever. While everyone around us looks FABULOUS of course; even when fabulous is actually $10,000 + worth of plastic surgery.
As tough as it can be to allow ourselves to be vulnerable I think we need to bravely start talking about it. The Celebrate Your Breasts Project intends to inspire women (and men) to address body image issues.
The ‘elephant in the room’ is the power of the media and the LIE that we are not enough as we are. We have given the media the power to tell us what we should look like – but, at what price?
The current trend of so many women undergoing breast augmentation (hundreds of thousands each year), caving to media pressures, is merely the mode of self-rejection du jour. Looking back through decades reveals a pattern of self-rejection on a societal scale, changing with the flavour of the decade.
When a pre-pubescent looking Twiggy arrived on the fashion scene in the 60’s women began to try to look like her. Unrealistic and unsustainable, except through starvation and/or bulimia, women went to these extremes to conform. To fit in. To try to look like the media representation of what it was to be stylish. As Twiggy matured even she didn’t look like ‘Twiggy’.
The Jane Fonda years … eating disorders coupled with excessive exercise and prescription diet pills.
Heroin-chic, with models that are skin and bone, and look like death-warmed-over. All of the above, coupled with hard core street drugs (another huge way people self-reject and is at epidemic levels).
The music video era. Everyone wanting to be non-stop ‘sexy’ and mad obsession with large, fake breasts.
Even the health & fitness industry, where so many industry icons (and lesser knowns) have toxic breast implants and botox. Even the ideal of ‘healthy’ has become contrived and dangerous. Fitness magazines feature surgically altered and digitally edited women (and men). Health conscious women implanting toxic devices while reading labels to make sure they’re not eating anything that isn’t organic.
Decades of self-rejection, layer upon layer. From one generation to the next.
Each year it becomes more and more extreme. Women feeling the pressure fit in are pursuing ever more invasive, expensive and dangerous cosmetic surgeries. Caving to the pressures to compete with an unrealistic and unsustainable media ideal.
In conversations with women about body imaging its evident how much pressure they feel. Most admit to at least having considered resorting to cosmetic (and other) procedures. Many have taken the plunge.
But, the truth is it’s not really about breast size, weight, body type, age, or anything else. We’re ‘hooked’ into believing the LIE that we’re somehow not enough because deep inside we already believe it. I hope we’ll find the courage to address the ‘elephant in the room’. Surgically altering a body part, starving ourselves, or self-medicating won’t increase our innate worth, or wellbeing. I think in the end most of us end up wishing we’d learned to love ourselves sooner.
During breast augmentation the surgeon tore an entire bundle of nerves. I was in terrible pain for 6 years. It subsided, but never fully went away.
In the 16 years of undiagnosed rupture I had multiple issues which caused acute pain, including acute inflammation and infection (to name only a couple). Since explant, due to residual silicone that couldn’t be removed, enlarged silicone-filled lymph nodes, dilated ducts, and other destructive changes within my chest wall, the pain has not gone away. I am in constant acute pain that is unrelenting and exhausting.
Pain is very common for women with breast implants, and unfortunately for many pain issues are not fully resolved with explant.
I come in peace. I come to be a bridge. I come to make things better for all. But, I will come … only death will silence me.
#breastimplants #HealthCanada #WHO #humanguineapigs #womenshealth
My health is irrevocably damaged, my quality of life poor due to 16 years of undiagnosed rupture. IF rupture had been diagnosed earlier my outcome would have been very different. My explant surgeon stated my prognosis is poor.
I hoped that if my situation could be the learning curve and prevent other women from this nightmare then I would be at least glad of that. I hoped it would make a difference for women with implants locally. When a regional surgeon told me he would not proactively screen women with breast implants for possible complications or rupture, even if they presented with symptoms consistent with it, due to possible liability issues, stating that they should not expect care here, my blood curdled and I felt assaulted knowing my rupture had been ignored, my life and my worth devalued because I was perceived a medical liability. And similarly for other women with breast implants in this region.
I had already committed to using the remaining time I have left on this planet to advocate the truth of breast implants, and this leaves me all the more committed.
Yesterday, speaking with a regional surgeon, I expressed it is my hope that through my experience of having undiagnosed rupture for 16 years doctors here would learn from it. I said that I hoped when a woman with breast implants presents with symptoms that could suggest rupture, or other complications, that they would order an ultrasound or MRI.
His response was quick. He adamantly stated he would NOT do that. His reason being that if he ordered a test it would be leaving him open to culpability. So, as was done with me, he would continue to pretend he’d seen nothing and do nothing.
He stated that women don’t get breast implants here and should not expect care here. That if they get breast implants they’d better be informed themselves prior to getting them. He said he knows nothing about breast implants and has no intention of learning anything about them.
Women may not be implanted in Northwestern British Columbia, but they DO get referrals to plastic surgeons, for breast augmentation, through regional doctors.
IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO WOMEN IN NORTHWESTERN BRITISH COLUMBIA, WITH BREAST IMPLANTS:
You are on your own medically – YOU MUST BE PROACTIVE! Request an ultrasound or MRI. If you’re refused remind the doctor that FDA and manufacturer guidelines recommend MRI 3-years after augmentation and every 2-years subsequently.
Anyone with questions or concerns is welcome to contact me.
** Qualifying comment: Though I disagree greatly with the surgeon’s stance on the issue of breast implants I appreciate that he expressed this outright. I wish I had known this years ago … **
Breast Implant Failure & Illness 