Breast Implant Removal: Stories

I had my BA in 2000 at 21, 350cc, went from full 34b to full 34d and now am a bit bigger at 34dd! I had always wanted bigger boobs but never really considered getting breast augmentation because of the scars. When I heard you could get them through the belly button, I got really excited, scheduled an appt and after only one consult set up my surgery for 2 weeks later. I was young and naive, and the doctor told me "no visible scars! they last a lifetime!" There was no mention of sizes, he just told me to bring a picture on the day of my surgery. There was no discussion or thought as to the realities of living with implants and I very impulsively jumped in. Everybody around me was getting their boobs done, so it seemed no big deal. My surgery was very uneventful and my breasts looked great, but seemed a little too big. I was left with only partial sensation in my right nipple and complete numbness underneath the same breast. Very hard to get used to.

Well, they settled soon after and I look like I have naturally heavy boobs, not full, high ones. The weight of the implants has made my boobs look heavy/ saggy. I regretted my decision 6 months after, but I didn't really think there was much I could do about it. Three years later, I returned to my doctor and told him I wanted them removed. He said I would be left with saggy boobs that needed a lift and would be full of scars (which is absolutely terrifying at 24), and since my result was so great, I should leave them be. So for the past 12.5 years I have lived with them, hating how fat they make me feel and look, telling my husband to take neck up photos only, and finding ways to make them look smaller and hide my cleavage under clothes. I want to get pregnant very soon, and I am thinking now is the right time to remove them. I now know these things have a shelf life and I really don't want to be dealing with boob issues while I am pregnant or dealing with young kids. I am terrified as all of us are at how I will look afterwards. But I must say, everyone seems to look perfectly normal! I won't be having a lift, as pregnancy will stretch them out again. I like to think that I will have "pre-stretched boobs," so I won't be disappointed at them after pregnancy as many women seem to be. Who knows, maybe I'll never lift them and just learn to appreciate my body, saggy boobs and all. My husband is being supportive, but I am wearing him thin with my constant obsessing over this. I have been looking at boobs ALL THE TIME for the last two weeks, and have been reading about all of your experiences, positive and negative, and they have been really helpful, so I thought I should add mine to the list.

I had an appt with a PS for removal, and since my capsules are very thin, she will leave them in and not use any drains. She said I'll probably need a lift, and that I should try not to look at them too much for the first 6 weeks after removal!!! I am so worried about getting depressed about flat saggy boobies! But she does think I should be about a B cup after, so at least there will be something there! I really look forward to a smaller size. Hoping my areolas might shrink back some since they went from quarters to silver dollars after implants! I am very, very nervous about surgery and pain in general, and am prone to anxiety/ panic attacks, so this will be a very rough journey for me, but I know once they are out, it will both literally and figuratively have a load off my shoulders!

Here's some photos to show you how nice and low my implants are sitting...also, just noticed in pictures that my right boob appears to be running away from my left one! weird how i can't see that in the mirror!

Just had another consult. This surgeon quoted a much better price than the previous, $3500 (vs $5600) for removal and capsulectomy. He said he recommends removing capsules (and placing drains- ugh) as to avoid seromas, but also because leaving scar tissue behind can interfere with mammograms and look suspicious. I am very nervous about this as it's more aggressive than straight removal and I don't want to lose any more sensation in my breasts. He also said my nipple position looks good, so I might feel okay without a lift. He refuses to do lifts upon removal anyways, as he says the tissues contract quite a bit over 6 months to a year, and you get a much better result going in at a later date. The coordinator told me it's a very good idea to wear a sports bra all the time for the first 6 months to keep all the tissue tight against your chest for better contracture. The doctor also brought up fat injections, saying they might be needed in the future so things look normal. While removing fat from my stomach or thighs and pushing it into my chest sounds brilliant in theory (who doesn't think this sounds like a dream?), I don't think I could consider that unless I had a deformity of some kind. This kinda scared me, his mentioning things not looking "normal." My boobs look completely normal now, shouldn't they just end up a deflated saggy normal after removal? Also, he said removable stitches tend to leave prettier scars and that nipples do usually shrink back some after removal, just to let you know!

Just scheduled my surgery for end of November. Thinking of having my implants deflated a week before, so it will be less traumatic coming out of surgery! I am so nervous I lost about 10 pounds in the last month and a half. I think this might be a bad move because I need all the booby fat I can get to kepp my saggy boobs from looking ilke empty pancakes! I'm not worried about the sag and have no hope like other ladies that they won't be saggy after, as they are now, but I am really hoping I don't have a sunken in chest with sagging skin underneath. I think this is my greatest fear at the moment!

Okay, so I know I can't hope for great results like a lot of the other girls here, since as I mentioned before, I am already sagging. I am really getting seriously depressed/anxious about this. I have tremendous side boobage as implants were too wide and am sure that I will just have loose skin hanging on my sides. The implants have made me much wider, so my boobs will be flat, wide and saggy. They already flop all over the place and fall underneath my arms just like natural boobs. I have very little upper pole fullness, and most of your implants were riding high, almost up to the neck, but mine start low down and my skin is very stretched underneath. :( I know they will look absolutely terrible. I feel totally disgusted for putting myself in this situation and honestly, I sometimes feel if I am ready to handle the aftermath. I am worried that my husband will find my loose hanging skin repulsive. I met him after I was implanted, so this is all he has known. He is not excited about lift scars, so I don't know if that will be an option for me. I am having trouble sleeping at night and seriously worried about depression setting in afterward. I think I will look like I'm 84 years old with 12 children and a 100 lb weight loss. I wish one would rupture just so I will know I won't be a monster.

I don't know if I can do this, ladies. I am so saggy now and all my implant is in the bottom of my boob. I will have sagging sacks of empty flesh afterwards. Plus, someone wrote a review (brooklynbabe) about how disfigured she was afterwards and how her doctor was all reassuring. I look to see which doctor she used, and it's the same doctor removing mine! I am really, really freaking out bad now! Thinking of cancelling!

Thank you everyone for your reassurances. I don't know why I'm so scared. I know I will be saggy, but saggy boobs are pretty normal. I just keep thinking I have a sunken in chest wall underneath these things for some reason! I sleep on my stomach and feel like 12 years of pressing these things against my body all night has created a cavity! Arghhhh!!!! Anyways, did not cancel, and my doctor is very well respected and known. As I am having a simple removal, I don't think there's much skill involved anyways, so it probably doesn't matter.

Hi all, not doing well at all. Realizing how enormous my boobs are, and am losing weight rapidly as anxiety sets in. This is making my breasts "all implant." I can't believe my surgeon pumped me so full, guaranteeing problems down the road. Bottoming out, which I have, necessitating a lift. It is no wonder I lost sensation the first go round. I am lucky to have any feeling at all in my boobs. If I remove them, I will have empty floppy skin, which will probably have to be reimplanted and lifted. I am starting to think mine are overs, since everyone under the muscle seems to have implants that stay high up. I have been looking online, and I am larger than the average playboy bunny. I am not sure I am doing the right thing in removing them, as the result will be so far from liveable, I will probably go into a deep depression. I feel so stuck, and so sick. I am angry at my surgeon. I hate myself so much, for taking a perfectly lovely, healthy body and deforming it with these huge saline balloons. Oh, and I am starting to have a little nerve pain in the sensation-compromised breast, likely from the pressure of the implant. They have never felt heavier in my life. I am so distraught that I reached out and told my whole family, who never knew I had them. They have been supportive, but I am so shaken with the likely extent of my deformity, that I am not functioning. I keep reminding myself that I am more than breasts, and women have mastectomies and are in a much worse situation than I. This just makes me hate myself all the more, as I did this purely out of vanity and stupidity. I wish I had gone to more than one consultation, or at least done a little research. I would have at the very least ended up with a proper size for my body. I feel like I will always have to have implants, and will continue to lose more and more sensation through lifts and implanting until I no longer care anything about them at all anymore. Or worse, I will have nerve pain or get capsular contracture and suffer in that way as well. My heart is heavy and my head hurts all the time. There is no result from removal that I have seen that I think will be worse than my own. I would take pretty much anything over what I will likely end up with. I am not sure I am strong wnough to deal with the impending results. I think I need psychological help before taking this step.

i am hurting inside so much. i know it may be hard to believe, but i never would have gotten implants if i knew they had to be replaced. i was told they were lifetime devices. i believed this! i also went through the belly button because i never wanted scars on my lovely boobs. i was not told that repeat surgeries would need to be done by cutting into the breast. now i will have very scarred up breasts that are a lot smaller and way less pretty than had i left my breasts alone. i feel in a different boat than a lot of you. you had implants because you felt your breasts were unnattractive, which i am sure they were not. most of you loved your implants, but decided to get rid of them. you have them out, and walk away with breasts close to what you started with. only some of the older ladies choose lifts, even though they do not really need them. i am young and because of the terrible boob job i was given, i now need a lift even though i absolutely do not want one. my breasts did not sag, my implants did because they were improperly sized and placed. i am not having a lift upon removal because i want to minimize the cutting into of my breasts as,little as possible, and do not want touch up lifts after pregnancies. i realize this sounds like a pity party, and it is, but i have received no joy at all from my implants, have disliked having my breasts touched since i got them, and feel i ruined a large part of my sensuality at the tender age of 21 by having them in. they are my biggest regret in life, and i feel unlucky that i cannot just take them out and walk away happy like so many of you seem to do. i realize this is all my doing and now i need to deal with it. i know some of you have illnesses you are dealing with, and my situation is nil compared to that. i would give almost anything to go back and undo this. after ignoring how i feel about my breast implants i am finally dealing with all this and i am devastated.

i realise you can see my weight loss in the new pic. too bad i hadn't left my boobs alone. i would look really great right now.nothing sags on me except my saline balloons. too bad i will never look normal in the boob area again. empty skin flaps for me. sigh.

I know I will need to remove tons of excess skin from around my implants. I am hoping to be able to live with the resulting loose skin mass until after children and hoping I have enough breast tissue to make a decent boobie. I am not sure all the hanging floppy skin will be something I can live with long term, but I really want to limit myself to just one lift instead of touch up lifts after kids. The lifts look amazing, but everyone seems to be struggling so hard to heal from them!!! And because my implants are overs, I understand nipple circulation is an issue. Am I doing the right thing by waiting? I really hope I can just lift my skin and not need another implant. If I am caved in underneath, I don't know if that's possible. I have been reassured that everyone has something to lift, but I saw a really funky looking one in the review sections! I have only one good nipple left and am concerned about losing that one! How many of you still have numb nips?????

heading out to the hospital. feeling very scared as i know it wont be pretty. hope at least the pain is light. it feels a bit like jumping off a cliff.....

back from surgery! haven't seen boobs yet, but i took a top down peek and there is not much left and they are really low down on my chest. this is so weird as i have not been flat chested since i was 11! ps says skin already contracted quite a bit and i dont seem to be caved in on the top part at least, so maybe it isnt a complete disaster, but she wont let me see them until friday, so i am sure they dont look great. turns out they were under the muscle, just way too big for my frame to handle. duh! feeling pretty great, not in any real pain (yet!). feels more like i got hit in the chest while playing dodgeball.surgery took 1 hour and 20 minutes and i had a capsulectomy with drains. i look so much thinner in my clothes and feel an incredible weight off my chest. when i walked downstairs i didnt have to cup my breasts, which was nice. i am still scared to see all the skin on the bottom of them, though. thank you so much for your support, everyone. you have no idea how much this forum has helped me to prepare. this needed to be done as i have felt a prisoner to those boobs for so many years. my husband says it's strange for him since he is used to me with big boobs! it is weird for,me too.

back from surgery! haven't seen boobs yet, but i took a top down peek and there is not much left and they are really low down on my chest. this is so weird as i have not been flat chested since i was 11! ps says skin already contracted quite a bit and i dont seem to be caved in on the top part at least, so maybe it isnt a complete disaster, but she wont let me see them until friday, so i am sure they dont look great. turns out they were under the muscle, just way too big for my frame to handle. duh! feeling pretty great, not in any real pain (yet!). feels more like i got hit in the chest while playing dodgeball.surgery took 1 hour and 20 minutes and i had a capsulectomy with drains. i look so much thinner in my clothes and feel an incredible weight off my chest. when i walked downstairs i didnt have to cup my breasts, which was nice. i am still scared to see all the skin on the bottom of them, though. thank you so much for your support, everyone. you have no idea how much this forum has helped me to prepare. this needed to be done as i have felt a prisoner to those boobs for so many years. my husband says it's strange for him since he is used to me with big boobs! it is weird for,me too.

i am going in to have my drains removed today. boobs are rapidly shrinking down! the deformity i thought i had on my right breast is coming from the drain tube poking out sideways. i don't have much pain and i think the discomfort i do have is from the drains. because my other doctor moved my creases and my scars were in my belly button, my new doctor had to make a guess where my boobs would end up. my scars are not in my crease now, but on my actual breast. i was upset about it, but she said it was normal for them to be placed higher than the crease? so underwire bras don't rub and irritate? does that sound right to you guys? also, she did some tissue arranging to make my breasts come out as nice as possible and they look a lot better than i think anyone was expecting. the only thing that has me devastated is that my left breast is now numb from the nipple down as well. the dr assures me this is temporary, but i am really afraid that now i will have two numb breasts. did anyone else have such extensive numbness after removal? this is going to be really devastating if my entire chest is numb. i was hoping for a possible return of sensation and completely unprepared for loss of it. i guess i have to be patient. as i am only 3 days out from surgery.....

i had the drains removed today. i was given numbing shots and i didn't feel anything. saw boobies without all the taping and drains and i love them! the are smaller and much lower than when i first got them in. i would say i am a b cup, assuming they don't shrink up too much more (which i don't really care about anyways)! they definitely are on the droopy side, but i think they are beautiful and push up bras make everything okay! i am so glad i didn't listen to the doctors telling me i needed an anchor lift. it is AMAZING how skin contracts even after having huge implants for 12+ years. if they lifted my boobs, i probably wouldn't have anything left! now i need to learn to correct my horrible posture after years of slouching. thank you so much to all the women who posted about how awful it was to go through pregnancy with implants, especially hatemyimplantsinor, who posted photos especially for me to show me what pregnancy does to implanted boobies. for the women who are told over muscle implants look much worse than under muscle implants when removed, i can tell you one of my implants (the right) was under muscle, and the left had slipped out from under the muscle years ago, which is why it had gone sideways. it was just hanging in my skin!. but as you can see, when they were removed, they look pretty symmetrical, not to mention that most boobs aren't symmmetrical to begin with. so please, don't let doctors scare you into keeping them in. if you really want them out, have them out and see what remains. you may be very pleasantly surprised. my poor stretched out boobs did me real proud. i got really, really lucky on this one and for this i am extremely grateful.

she placed the scars above my crease. one is actually high up on my breast and is starting to tether, pulling my breast tissue inward. it looks really deformed! i am not sure how one would even fix this! i am completely devastated!

i think i am a cautionary tale. i will pay for my foolish mistake with numb breasts and ugliness. i hope i can come out of this without crumbling...

came back from post op visit. dr says she doesnt think it is tethered. she says that breast has a lot more swelling and bruising, which is making the area look funky. she says worst case scenario in six months she does a revision under local, but that the scar should lay flat and they look exactly how they are supposed to at this point. she also says my stitches last 80 days! i thought it was more like a few weeks! my wounds are fully closed and got the go ahead for light massage around the breast, avoiding scar. she measured the scar and saw she was off, but said she really had to guess where the line should be. she measured me from nipple down rather than crease up, so i guess thats why the scars are so high. i will never be happy with how high that right scar is, but i guess my boobs do look pretty good considering i thought for sure i would be a shapeless floppy monstrosity. i guess an unideal scar is just a bump in the road. i really hope it does heal well like she says it wil, but time will tell. she says she is glad we didnt do a lift as they look very nice and are exactly where they should be. i know they are low and saggy, but i quite like the shape! still havent had much pain, and dont remember much from the original aug either. even with my scar setback, i am still super happy i removed those implants. they felt horrid and all i did was try to hide their size. looking forward to pretty bras that i dont have to mash all that massive side boob into! will post pictures at a later point when i feel there is a change.

So three months have gone by, and it's been a roller coaster. I am so happy and relieved that I dont "need" implants anymore! I thought by now I would be 100% healed, and I am not in any pain, but my breasts are still very "moody." Sometimes one will be a little sore, or I will get a sharp pain, and I notice as a stomach and side sleeper that some mornings I wake up a little achey in one of them from the pressure. My scars are still sore as well. 12 weeks isn't really that long, after all, and the full healing takes many months, I am sure. Explanting is a very real thing! It is so emotional. I cried quite a few times afterwards. I was tired of the discomfort, of sleeping face-up, really upset about my scar placement and tethering, nervous about the numbness in my "good breast" (which has largely resolved at this point), but never upset about the size or shape of them, strangely. I love having smaller boobs! Not to mention they feel so soft and lovely. I forgot what real boobs felt like, and it is NOTHING like implanted ones. My husband has been amazing and tells me how beautiful my breasts are and how sexy they feel! Also, I got a lot of nipple sensation back in my right breast! Since the augmentation, I only had a little bit of sensation in the top portion of the nipple, but the "sexy" feeling came back! Yay!
My scar is still tethered, and I don't think it looks very different. It only seems dented in a small portion of the scar, but when I lift my arm it looks sunken in. I have only just now started really massaging it. Boy, it feels disgusting to do it! That portion of my breast is completely numb from the augmentation so I can't feel anything on the surface, just a dull pain underneath. This breast is slower to heal, apparently. It still feels "bruised" around the scar. My dr is suggesting physical therapy in the form of ultrasound and massaging to help it along.
I went to Nordstrom's to get sized. I am apparently a 32DD! I didn't believe it until I was given a stack of bras that fit! I felt the band was tighter than I was comfortable with, and I just refuse to wear anything that says "DD" , so I went with 34D, though I am guessing I am probably a medium C tissue-wise (with no upper fullness, though). I wonder what size I really was with implants. Probably about an E! I really only wore sports bras most of the time because bras for large breasts are usually pretty ugly and very full coverage. My fave bra is the Natori Feathers Plunge bra, which has been mentioned on this site many times. It's very comfortable. It doesn't have any padding, but has molded cups that lift nicely and give a great shape!
Thank you so much for the continued support from all the brave and beautiful ladies here. I wish you all the best of luck and may you have beautiful results and love your natural self!

I have updated my pics to tell more of a complete story, which I am hoping might also help someone out there contemplating implants. Be careful what you wish for! I thought fuller breasts would be 'fun,' but they were anything but!
I have been seeing a physical therapist for the last 3 weeks for my scar issue. My PS wrote a prescription for this therapy, which means my insurance covers it! I am getting 1) infrared laser 2) ultrasound and 3) massage. It has been determined that my scar tissue is now only a small lump under part of the incision and is not attached to the muscle. I do feel it has softened after treatment, and I am hoping to avoid revision by continuing the therapy for another few weeks. I will update (hopefully with good news!) when the therapy is finished.
On another note, when I joined this community in Sept '12, there were about 200 reviews, and maybe only 40 had photos. This number has now doubled in only 6 months- amazing! I think we are seeing a trend, ladies! I am so excited to see women of all different ages and implant sizes posting stories with before and after pics! Know that by doing so you are helping other women in the same situation- I can't tell you how much hope the ladies who posted before my explant gave me!