Breast Implant Removal: Stories

I know I won't have done this the correct way, as all you women have joined RealSelf prior to surgery etc. , but I wanted to share with you after all you have done for me.

I have had silicone implants for 22 years at an ex-husbands request (demand). 6 months after he made all the choices, and I couldn't stop crying, I left him.

I am in my 50's now and have lived in isolation since I got them. I can't say what size, or even bra size because I've only ever worn a very tight sports bra to flatten them out. I couldn't see my toes, that's for sure.

Anyway, long story short, I noticed some very painful unfamiliar lumps a few months back. At first I thought the implants had finally ruptured but it was too painful. I began a very short internet search to here. :)

After reading your stories, I decided I was a fool if I waited one more day to get these horrid things out of me.
I had my consult on October 3rd and had the removal done Friday, October 5th. The implants were in perfect form with no sign of leakage, but they did find cancer tumors, which they removed.

I am 4 days post op and feeling so relieved I can't put it into words. This is the first time in over 20 years I am not ashamed to see myself in a mirror. I look forward to being able to go shopping for pretty clothes again, real bras again, and just going OUTSIDE again ! :)))

I guess I just want to thank you all so very much for a place like this, because I may have never found the courage to get done what needed doing without all you very brave and strong women on here.

Much love and happiness to you all.

I guess I should have added a few more details.

I had had 5 children and been breast feeding 10 years pretty much non stop. It never occurred to me that it would bother a man that professed to love 'me'. I mean, what did 'me' encompass if he was displeased with my appearance? I had never had a body image problem. It seemed perfectly normal for breasts to become well loved and used up after doling out so much love and nurturing. Kind of like a favorite blanket after years of giving comfort.

Anyway, I'm healing well. The areas where the tumors were removed are still colorful, but the skin feels cool to the touch and for me that's the good part. I would hate to get infection setting in. I'm still reading here every day and learning so much. This is a wonderful place.

Thanks again for the kind and encouraging words. They help. Xo

Today makes a full week since surgery. I tried my 3 mile aerobic walk just a bit ago and made it through fine. I did avoid doing too much large arm movement I think that would be foolhardy this soon, but the rest went well.

The pain is minimal except the crater pockets yet. The bruising is almost completely gone that's visible on all breast tissue. It's still a little hard to sleep through the night because I'm always subconsciously trying not to cause stress to the recovering bits.

I'm looking forward to my follow up on the 23rd of this month. Will post with an update then.

Stay well brave women! xo

Well, what a nice surprise in the mail today. My Dr sent a refund of 1,400.00 because they didn't do a capsulectomy. (sp?) So I changed the procedure cost. But now I'm wondering if Pathology charges separate? I'm hoping to get another surprise, if my Insurance will pick it up because of the cancer. I won't expect it, but it would sure make this all the more worth it.

I guess part of this journal journey is to record good and bad. I have to admit, I screwed up. I disregarded the 3 week order because I was feeling so good. I have been paying for it the past 2 days. Now, I am sore, and feeling very bruised. I think I should have stuck with less mileage, and less vigorous. Less housework and going about my business as usual. Shame on me. :( Anyway, I have been huddled up on the couch behaving myself now, and will continue to do so til my appt. Tuesday.

I can post photos today. Yay.
Clearly, the right breast is sad. They removed a good deal of tissue when removing the tumors. I'm just not all that bothered though. Maybe I should be. I don't have any photos of pre surgery but I was very large implants. By comparing some ladies photos here, I was a large D cup or DD.
I hope this helps give an idea for some other women thinking of ging natural again. ! xo

Therapy time.

I thought about keeping my thoughts to myself, and not sharing everything here, but then, that would defeat the purpose of helping others here. So, sorry to go on this time of day, but, I'm nervous about tomorrow and new things are happening in my life.Maybe I'll just be dumping here, or maybe I can glean a few words of wisdom...

I haven't had much discomfort for some time with the incisions, but yesterday I began feeling some irritation on the outer edge of the right incision. It has gotten progressively painful in one silly little spot throughout today. ... so, I gathered up the inner courage, and asked my husband to look and see if there was something wrong down there. Ok, that may seem perfectly normal to most women here who are married, and especially married for 20+ years, but, not this marriage. My husband has never, ever, ever, seen me with no clothes on. Ever. We have never slept in the same room, and we have never been 'intimate'.

This implant removal is a whole new chapter in my life, OUR life. Together. It's like this glorious horrid mixed bag of blessings. The implants are gone, and I can now foresee us having a 'complete' marriage, but this crap with the cancer is scaring me away from wanting to build that extra intimacy. ... I suppose this is waaaay too much information, and if it's inappropriate it'll be scuttled....

The point is, he very stoically checked my incisions tonight like he'd been seeing me our whole life together. And I seem to have a small infection growing on the edge of the right incision. Probably an undesolving stitch.

And he kissed me goodnight tonight, and said I was beautiful.

I hope I can make the next 20 years of his life glorious.

Goodnight ladies, thanks for listening. Bless us all. xo

So I begin with many thanks for all your well wishes, again. It feels so comforting to have voices of compassion just support instead of judge and tear down. I was in a bad spot last night, so thank you all for accepting my cry.

Well, on with the medical findings. I wasn't much good in the head for the first 2 follow-ups so this time I made notes, lol.

Ok, I had Bilateral capsular contracture - (better be spelled right it's coming straight off the report!!)

I have very thick capsules with calcification, but, the calcification is Benign so even though it will take many moons to heal, Dr felt it was unnecessary and damaging to remove capsules. (Thank you Dr!)

The cancerous tumor was measured 3"x3"x1". It was attached to the implant. All cancerous tissue has been removed, and I am at this point free of further treatment. OMG, YAY!!!!! This form of cancer will normally return within one year from removal if any cells are left behind. (That's to worry about another day, Not Today)

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So, in a nutshell, excellent news.

But, ladies, Just in "speculation" conversation with Dr, had I not had these implants, chances are, this breast cancer, For Me, would NOT have occurred. Along with the tumor Pathology, it also revealed chronic inflammation, and fat necrosis.

Whether it was a miniscule leak, or an area on the implant was imperfectly thin enough to leach, this has been growing almost since the first year the implants were put in. I personally believe my body started out by going into immune overdrive to combat a bad situation and then as I grew weaker from the fight, and more things went wrong healthwise, my immune system couldn't keep up.

Besides my immense low self esteem with the implants, within 2 years I was having major anxiety attacks. Which was soon joined by Congestive heart Failure. Which was then joined by Chronic Joint Inflammation the past 9 years. None of these issues existed prior to then.

Within 72 hours of Explant, I have not even had the inkling of anxiety. I have no symptoms of CHF and could be going off the meds, and I have None, not a bit of joint pain. Anywhere. No signs of inflammation as of today.

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Now dear ladies, I am off. Off to begin a wonderful, adventurous journey with my husband. I'm a wee bit nervous, lol, but we already had our first 'date' today on the way home from the check-up. He asked me out for dinner on our way home and I said, YES. Yes yes yes! We sat in a restaurant together, and it was wonderful. And weird, and wonderful! He has been my best friend, my knight in shining armor, and my protector all these years, and soon, God willing, also my lover. :)

RealSelf, and the wonderful members thereof, have within one short months time, changed my life forever.
Thank you isn't nearly enough. Without seeing the strong and compassionate women here... I truly don't know what my future would have held. Strength and Blessing and much love to you all. I am, Relieved 2012. xoxo

I woke up this morning with a lot of discomfort in my right breast, which until today has behaved quite well. 4 hours later it has swollen to 3x its size and pain is shooting into my neck and through my right arm. I supposing this is that fluid build-up I have read about on here. What's odd is I didn't realize it could happen this late after surgery. I wonder if I did something to bring this on? Oy vey this hurts. Have a call in to Dr now. Will see what they say.
Will update when we get it worked out.

My brain is very slow and fuzzy right now. Morphine odd drug. Emergency surgery. Dr was astounded how fast swelling and infection set in. He first put needle into incision to get fluid sample. So thick and nasty could only get a few cc. Into surgery to relieve pressure and clean out capsulllle. Also deciided to doo casulectomy. Also put a drain in until further notice. Back to antibiotics and pain medss. It's so strane tomorrow will have been 4 weks.
So now I have a right side capsulectomy and left sside not. I will update when my brain is less fuzzy. I hope some ot this made sense. Thank you all for the care. It means so much.xo

That previous update looks interesting. Apologies for the grammar demolition.
The Dr spoke to my husband after surgery, who was Not well medicated and this is what he said. The entire breast tissue is inflamed which then seemed to have caused the fluid which turned infected. Being he pegged my nature pretty quickly after meeting he asked my husband if I might have over done things too soon.
Yes, I have. But, I also mad one very very bad mistake when I made it to week three last Friday. I went out trying on some new sports bras. I pick one without front or back closures though. And I knew I had made a huge mistake before I ever finished getting it on. Dumb dumb dumb thing to do.
I also understand now, he didn't do a complete capsulectomy, he just scraped a bit of the calcified bits so it would adhere faster. He did this surgery for no charge.
My follow up is Tuesday.
Dr asked for me to please try to understand the healing for explant is not three weeks. Nor even three months. We need to heal a long time, inside. Painful lesson learned.

Early yesterday morning I took my sport bra off for the first time since I'd got home from surgery. I noticed a bloody discharge stain and didn't give it much thought. Pain meds I suppose. Husband came out in the morning and asked if I was ok. The discharge was on the wrong side of the bra. :(

He looked at my incision on the left side and saw it was seeping on the outer edge? I freaked a little. I thought it was healed shut. We called the Dr and he said he had not done a needle check during surgery on that side because I hadn't had any swelling or pain and he didn't want to cross contaminate if it didn't need draining. He said if you feel comfortable, take a q-tip and see if it will drain a bit more... Oh my Lord. We must have drained a good 1/3rd cup of fluid out of the left breast right through the incision line. Small bits of white scar tissue? calcium deposits? would block it and when husband would q-tip them out more and more fluid just streamed out.

Oy I was a mess. I was so scared. I was so afraid the whole incision was going to open... I baggied up all the discharge gauge pads and put them in the freezer. Will take them with on Tuesday just to let Dr decide if he wants to do Path on it or not. We just got done trying to drain more this morning and got about a tsp of clear discharge. So I think it's on the mend. If it hadn't seeped, for whatever reason, we would never have known any, much less so much fluid was also in that left breast. No sign it had been in there.

I am SOOOO going to take it easier this time around my house is going to look like I never clean! lol. Blessing to all here. What a journey we are all on! xo

I've been hesitant to update since things have really been unclear for me this past week. I am happy to say I I am on the road to healing, again. It's been a pretty terrifying week in general, and I'm having a hard time not going into major panic attacks and letting my mind go on a merry go round of fears.

It turns out I had \ have a staph tissue infection. I still have 2 balloon type drains in, plus Dr cut the stitch between the drains - so that is basically leaving me with the full incision open and draining still on my right side. At my appointment yesterday, he said if I had no improvement by Tuesday, another surgery and another tissue flush. - Thankfully, he also agreed to bombard me with an antibiotic cocktail and 36 hours into it, I think I may be coming through to the other side.

One thing I noticed here this past week; as wonderful, and I do mean wonderful, as RealSelf is, sometimes even with each others support, we feel very, very, alone and afraid. Still, I love coming here and reading all you ladies Posts and updates. Some make me smile, some make me wish we lived in a communal explant house. :)

I'll post one last time when I feel like I've past all the roadblocks to complete healing with an end result. Bless us all. xo

Thank you all for the encouraging support. I wasn't planning on updating again so soon. I just got back from another check-up. I was anticipating getting these drains pulled out and being able to begin healing; again.
:(
No such luck. More antibiotics, and maybe next week the drains will get removed. Even then, the full incision, approximately 3 inches, will be left wide open to heal on its own so that it continues to drain as it closes itself. I foresee weeks of constant apprehension and fear ahead.

I felt a bit down in the dumps on the trip home today. One conclusion I came to - hind sight - and - personal experience - ; drains immediately after explant should be welcomed. I wonder how things may have been different if I had had them in right away. It's personally frustrating and sad that my anticipation to get closer to my Love is going to be on hold for months to come. I was looking forward to a cuddle. :/

But, I just read Mrs Wests update, and I so feel her pain. It's very disheartening when things don't come about right and we are in pain and uncertainty. I know I am not alone here, nor is she, or others of you suffering your own fears and uncertainties. Thank you all for your borrowed strength as women. We really are stronger together, than alone. Bless us all. xo

No end in sight. Only one drain removed from right breast.

Left breast still 'leaking' from incision and fluid still in the tumor pocket.

Both look, and feel, like they belong on separate bodies now.

Happy Thanksgiving to all who come here to share their journeys.

Blessings to all. xo

Hello ladies. I've been a miserable human being lately. :/

This morning Dr removed the last perma-stitch and the final drain from the right breast, and I felt much less grumpy within minutes. It has been a month with the drains and I am once again, Relieved. I will continue to drain naturally for a few more days until this last drain area heals on it's own. The drain hose was 5 or 6 inches up into the breast tissue and about 3/4 inch wide. So by the weekend I should be closing up. I still have about a week and a half until my antibiotics are gone and I should be done with those too.

The left incision is still leaking calcium bits and fluids. I don't know how long that can go on. It is keeping me hesitant because I don't know if I can get another infection in that side so long as there is an exposed area. Dr said today I can leave it to heal on its own, or go back in surgery for drain tubes in that side and go through another month of *ell. From reading here, it doesn't seem too 'rare' for incisions to remain leaking for a few months after surgery. I don't know. Right now I'm just confused, and too afraid of more problems down the road.

For today, I'm just happy to be more comfortable and for the most part, pain free. I am Thankful for this.

Stay strong in your journeys ladies. xo

I think this will be my last update. There's not much more I can offer as far as explant experience goes. What I am going through goes beyond that now.

Neither side of my incisions have healed yet, left side having been 8 plus weeks, and the right side, reopened 5 weeks plus ago is still seeping fluid and blood. I am still on antibiotics.I will never ever regret the explant, but, I would certainly have made other choices in how things were done. Hind sight, as always, is only that. Hind sight.

I will be forever grateful for RealSelf. The ladies here are strong, supportive, and so compassionate. Good luck to all of you in your journeys. Stay strong, and Bless us all. xo

Thanks for those of you concerned for my progress. I didn't realize... I'm still struggling to heal. Calcium bits are still pushing out of the left incision and the right incision still has not closed completely. Some days are better than others.

For any ladies who have mentioned my journey causing them doubts, please, the implant removal was very much worth it. But it is so very very very important, to choose a well qualified physician. One who has experience in implants in general. One who has basic knowledge that things can go bad quickly, and act quickly to help rectify it. If you do your homework, unlike myself, you should get through it all just fine!

Blessing to us all. Happy 2013.xo

So ladies, All incisions are closed, and ... well... yeah... new chapters begin. Who knew...

Woo Hoo !!

:D

Thank you RS for everything. xo

Yup. :(
The scar that was leaching off calcium deposits abcessed and will have to be reopened and drains put in.

Will this journey ever end?

I so wish I had had the courage to say no all those years ago.

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Had the surgery this morning. This time, the pain is almost unbearable. There was a lot of fluid build up and calcium deposits in the pocket of removed tissue. I didn't do as well on recovery today so I have had to have the meds changed. I had soaked through the dressings and my clothes before we even got home today.
I will know better where things are in a few days once the pain settles down. For now, I'm off to rest.