According to the National Institute of Medicine, 25 to 40 percent of
people who get breast implants end up needing another operation to
correct something wrong with the first one. (The rate varied in
particular studies, depending on things like how long women were
monitored, the typical time being five years.)
2)
A study by a maker of saline breast implants, Mentor, found that 27
percent of implants put into breast cancer patients had to be taken back
out again within three years, due to side effects. Another 13 percent
had to have lesser corrective surgeries. The competing manufacturer
McGhan/Inamed/Allergan has similar numbers. Even for healthy patients,
both were forced to admit that "most women experienced at least one
complication over the three year period".
3)
In general, breast cancer patients have complications with implants far
more often than healthy people do. Many of the complications are about
three times as likely for mastectomy reconstruction patients as for
cosmetic augmentation patients. We regard this as socially the most
acceptable and necessary time for implants to be used, but medically it
is the most risky and unjustifiable time to use them. If you don't have
a healthy body at the start when you're getting the implants, the odds
of keeping healthy with them in place plummet.
4)
Up to 9 percent of saline implants end up deflating within just three
years, according to the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA also
found that complications become more and more common for each year
implants spend in the body.
5)
Another FDA study found that even among women who had not complained of
any perceived trouble with their implants, MRI scans showed two thirds
of them have ruptured implants on at least one side. The rate was
actually higher in 10 to 15 year old implants than with 20 year old
ones, because the older ones were made with thicker containers. In 21
percent of women in the study, significant volumes of silicone were
found to have migrated elsewhere in the body. Doctors removing implants
often claim that they ruptured at the time of removal. This study
makes me suspect, as some patients long have, that many doctors are
lying about this for some reason, perhaps to avoid liability.
6)
Though rare, it is not unknown for complications to be so severe that
the breast ends up getting amputated. The chest wall can be injured.
Your lungs and heart can be affected. You can end up dead.
7)
They sometimes find cultures of microorganisms growing inside saline
implants when they're removed. This is worrisome given that the newest
implants contain vegetable oil... it could spoil. Saline, at
least, is not a nutritious meal for bacteria. Even the silicone gel
ones sometimes get some kind of mildewy looking stuff growing inside
them... and each new fluid they've tried has been friendlier to
microorganisms than the last one was.
8)
If you're a European patient who has the option of oil-filled implants
(these implants have not been approved in the US), British doctor Rahim
Karjoo warns that oils leaking into the body will absorb calcium, and
the resulting soaplike material, if it enters the bloodstream, can
create fat emboli which can kill you without warning. The British
government recently withdrew its approval for oil-filled implants and
they will no longer be sold there.
9)
Surgery in fatty tissues runs a much higher risk of difficult and
dangerous infections taking root than surgery in lean tissue does.
Infections with implants present are harder to treat than otherwise. In
some cases the implant has to be taken out before the infection can be
controlled. This problem affects about one breast augmentation patient
out of 80.
10)
So they replaced silicone implants with saline ones, avoiding the
possible immunological problems associated with silicone gel leakage...
and then the National Institute of Medicine decided that silicone has
been "exonerated" and doesn't cause many of the problems it was accused
of causing... So what -- somehow just about as many people have
problems with saline implants as had trouble with silicone ones. The
container is still silicone rubber, after all, which differs from
silicone gel mostly just in the length of its molecules' polymer
chains. Eventually, small flakes of silicone rubber come loose, and
sometimes the chains break down chemically, yielding fluid silicone
compounds, elemental silicon, and silica dust. (The operation often
leaves stray talcum powder in the body, too.) The early silicone
implants made by Dow Corning (now banned) simply allowed the interior
gel to soak right through the containing capsule -- a fact that the
company covered up. The implant container can also release traces of
heavy metals like platinum (used as a catalyst in creating the silicone
polymers) or lead, and carcinogenic solvents like xylene and toluene. A
German study (J. Friemann, M. Bauer, et al) of the scar tissue
surrounding removed implants found the tissue was commonly impregnated
with chemicals from the implant, and also showed evidence of chronic
inflammation occurring there. Some doctors believe that "capsular
contracture", the most common side effect of implants, is directly
caused by such an inflammatory response, meaning that the fraction of
patients experiencing an immune reaction to the implants is quite large
in proportion to the total population of recipients.
11)
And if the official line is that silicone is now exonerated, then why
isn't it okay to inject silicone directly into the body without a
container around it, like they used to back in 1960? No doctor would
try that now... they could land in jail. Some doctors are of the
opinion that no facility that accepts blood or organ donations should
take any from women who have silicone in their bodies, whether it's in a
container or not.
12)
The "exoneration" of silicone and implants is based on a failure to
link it to certain autoimmune diseases that some implant patients were
diagnosed with: arthritis, lupus, sclerodoma, etc. Interestingly, the
same symptoms (sore joints, weak muscles, fatigue, cognitive
difficulties) keep leading to different diagnoses, none of which was
provable in itself. The obvious conclusion is that the condition is a
separate disease that somewhat resembles these others. One theory is
that many of these symptoms might be caused by ethylene oxide, which was
used to sterilize many implants after they were manufactured, possibly
contaminating the material. Another is that the common cause is an
allergic reaction to the presence of traces of platinum. The studies
also found no link with breast cancer... but overall cancers were
another matter. Two recent NIH studies of overall mortality of women
with implants, one from the National Cancer Institute (Dr. Louise
Brinton) and one from the FDA, found plenty of extra mortality relative to patients of other plastic surgeries.
Causes included lung cancer, brain cancer, a few other cancers, other
lung diseases, and an increased rate of suicide. Finally, the important
point to note about the dozens or hundreds of studies that supposedly
show that silicone implants are safe is that not one examined a period longer than the initial three years after implantation.
13)
One of the fastest growing areas of medical practice is surgeons who
specialize in repairing the errors and complications of boob jobs done
by other doctors. "If a doctor tells you they don't have complications,
they're either not operating or they're lying to you," says Dr. Jack A.
Friedland of Scottsdale.
14)
A lot of doctors doing boob jobs and other vanity surgery are
half-assed quacks without proper qualifications. Most states allow
anyone with a medical degree -- even dentists -- to take a weekend
course and sell plastic surgery. They do it because it's easy money.
Dr. Ervin Moss of New Jersey says, "You can't imagine how many
specialist groups are lobbying against [laws requiring proper
accreditation] as a threat to the bottom line."
15)
Can you imagine your doctor brushing off life-threatening complications
and telling you "You look great!" when you ought to be heading for the
emergency room? It's been known to happen in the cosmetic surgery
biz...
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