Can Chiropractic Adjustments Laying In The Prone Position Rupture Saline Breast Implants?

Don’t worry about the implants popping; it’s not likely that the chiropractor could exert enough force to do that. Breast implants are designed to be sturdy, and each manufacturer has its own testing protocol. Allergan tests its implants by exerting nearly 55 pounds of force on them repeatedly, up to 6.5 million times.

It would be very unlikely for this activity to lead to an implant rupture but at some point, keep in mind, all implants rupture, so it could be coincidental if this actually did occur.

The shells of breast
implants are made of a silicone elastomer and are very durable. However, breast
implants are not considered permanent medical devices and do have a failure
rate. That failure rate is ~1% per year, for the first ten years. After a
patient’s initial recovery, I do not place restrictions on activity for women
with breast implants.There have been rare
instances where a woman with saline breast implants will report an implant
failure following trauma to the breast. Examples include women who have
undergone mammography or a thoracic chiropractic adjustment, and then several hours
or days later noticed that one breast was smaller in size. In these situations
the failure has been attributed to the mammogram or the chiropractic
manipulation. But the overwhelming (emphasis on “overwhelming”) majority of
women do not have problems with mammograms or thoracic adjustments, and we do
not generally believe that either will alter breast implant location or
integrity.It is important to speak
with your mammographer and chiropractor about your breast implants. Special
techniques are utilized during the mammogram, but these are aimed at
visualizing as much breast tissue as possible. I’m sure your chiropractor could
take precautions when adjusting the thoracic region by using additional padding
and more gentle techniques to help protect implant integrity.Best wishes, Ken Dembny