Explanting was the best decision I've ever made!

Hi Everyone,

I'll make my story short; I got married at 24 and had a beautiful daughter with my ex-husband at 25. He always wanted me to look more beautiful and more attractive. I was young, immature and in love so he talked me into getting breast implants. Two to 3 years later he left me for an 18 yrs old girl; go figure!

Now I'm 35 and I have learned to love myself. I have been on my own for a very long time and I have done well as a single parent. I am now ready to get rid of these implants. I'm not even sure if I really wanted them 7 years ago. I think I just got them in order to please him and he ended up leaving anyway! LOL...

So, I've gotten a quote from my old doctor in Houston, Texas his name is Dr. Patonella and he did a great job originally and was very reasonable 7 yrs ago. I live in Virginia now and was able to send him pictures for him to review and I just my quote back. It was an astronomical $9,800 but said they would do it for $8,800 which is almost twice the cost of the national average. I would love to go back to him but I can't afford that price tag. He is good but this is definitely out of reach; that's not even including flights and pain medication, etc.

At the same time I was researching Doctors in the VA Area and through the internet I found Dr. Buenaventura in Alexandria, VA. I also found great reviews and it seems she could be much more affordable. My appointment is this Tuesday afternoon and I'm really excited about it. I hope I can get this done during late November or December. I want to make this a Christmas present to myself.

The one thing I've wondering about is if I really need a lift. I'm not sure I guess I don't really have to have it but the results seem to be much more pleasing with the lift. I'm also wondering about how long before I can go back to work. I have an office job and its not very intense as far as physical activity. Would it be smart to take a week off so I can have no issues at work?

I also have BCBS and I have sort of the Cadillac Plan its a PPO and I'm wondering if they would pay for the removal. I've heard the insurance companies sometimes might pay for the removal but not for the lift, which would really help. I would like to hear from other ladies and their experience with returning to work, and to work with the insurance for this. Oh and scaring also, what can I do afterwards to help the healing process?

Thank you so much for all the posting they have really encouraged me to move forward with my life. I am ready to close that old painful chapter and I'm ready to be myself again! : ) I'm attaching a few pictures of what I look like now, I'm hoping to have more exciting news next week after I meet with Dr. Buenaventura.

Hi everyone, its been a very busy week at work but here is the update! : )

Doctor Buenaventura was great, she listened to my every concern, answered every question, and was very easy to talk to. Her staff was also very nice and I felt welcomed. Another thing I noticed was that in her office she was a ton of plaques and awards being recognized as of the best plastic surgery doctors in the area. All this gave me allot of confidence in her skills to perform my surgery.

Overall she mentioned that yes, I have allot of my natural breast tissue which is great. On the downside I do have quite a bit of stretch marks which means the elasticity of the tissue is not there so there will not see much pull back or retraction. This means that I will need the lift but I'm okay with that. Also, the implants are a high profile and they are a little bit too big so they have caused a little bit of sagging and the nipples have gotten a bit larger as well. She measured everything and we went over the details as to how the surgery gets perform. She will remove the saline implants by first draining the saline fluid, then she will remove the actual implants. She will wash the capsules with antibiotic fluids, etc. Then, she will perform the lift, which is only a removal of the skin under the nipple and re-positioning the nipple a little bit higher and she will also make them a little bit smaller. Overall, I will end up with cute, perky boobies, which is great. She uses solvable stitches which is great because I won't have to go through the process of removing those later. She will place drains for a few days in order to collect any fluid, but those get removed in a few days. Total surgery time should be about 2.5 hrs total.

Overall my experience with her was great and total cost for the surgery is: $4,500.00 dollars for the surgery and $1,025 for the Anesthesiologist. Total price comes to: $5,525.00; in order to set up the surgery I have to give a $500 dollar deposit but that should be no problem. 3 weeks before the surgery we have a preop appointment and the entire balance is due then of course. She also had an option to use CareCredit which I think most doctors have now days. She also went ahead and gave me a form to take to my primary care physician and its a Clearance for Surgery form where she also ordered to have some blood work done. She also recommended to have a mammogram done as well to ensure everything is okay. Overall very through in her approach, a little bit of extra work but I think its worth it! This was all on Tuesday...

Friday of that week I went to my primary physician and I took her the Medical Clearance form and she conducted a physical, ordered the blood work and ordered the mammogram all which are normal and routine so my Insurance will cover all that so that was great news. I explained to my doctor also that I wanted to have the implants removed because they were becoming unmanageable and I'm not happy with them anymore. Also, I had a few problems with them about 6 months ago with them and my birth control. About six months ago, I wanted a longer term birth control and my OBGYN recommended the Implanor (5 yr plan) After a few weeks of having it in place, I got high fevers, was throwing up, could not sleep and my breasts got red, swollen and I got very sick and ended up in the ER. My breasts felt as if they were on fire and I couldn't even wear a T-shirt, it was awful. My doctor agreed that the birth control hormone level might have had a negative reaction with the implants. So, she is going to approve and give me the Surgery Clearance Letter and she is also going to provide me a strong case letter summarizing those problems with the birth control hormones and will recommend that its medically necessary to remove the implants. We also sent over my history since that incident and they have been a bit tender, I didn't think much of it but she made me realize the it is a big deal because its not normal to be in constant discomfort. So, overall my primary care physician will provide me with what I need in order to have my Insurance pay for the removal. I'm not sure if they will agree to pay for it but even if partially that would be great too. I would highly recommend for you ladies to take a look and see if your BC is causing you any issues as that could help you out as well. This was something I had not thought about until we started digging into my records and previous events.

Overall, we have decided to do the surgery on January 7th, and I will have a pre-op on December 15th. I will be going to do the mammogram in a few weeks maybe late November. I've taken lots of half days from work to go to all these appointments so I want to take it easy for a few weeks before I start taking any more time. After the Surgery on December 7th which is a Wednesday I will be taking a week and a half vacation from work so it should all work out. I hope!

So, overall great experience so far, a little bit of work, but hopefully I can get my insurance to help pay for this. Now the way all this will work is that I will pay for everything up front of course and then the insurance will reimburse me. I wish they would just pay the doctor if approved of course but why would they make it easy on us right?! Also, another thing I learned was that there is a Medical Code for Silicone Implants and allot of times the insurance companies will pay for the removal of those implants because they have been notorious for causing problems. However, there is no Medical Code for Saline Implants therefore the surgeons don't have a way to submit a claim to the insurance companies and they don't often cause issues that is why they don't often pay for the removal. Hope this was useful to you ladies out there who want to have them removed, I learned quite a bit of information and there was a lot that I didn't know. Hopefully everything will work out okay.

I will keep you posted on what the insurance company says. All the best and thank you for all your kind comments, I hope my situation is able to help out and encourage a few more fellow girlfriends out there.

Ok, now I have butterflies in my tummy! I got a call today and they told me they had a cancellation and my doctor could do the explant on December 17th instead of January 7th! So, I took it!!! Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh! I'm excited and nervous and worried and I can feel myself getting a little panic attack here and there.

My pre-op is now scheduled for November 24th and I have this week to get my mammogram scheduled. My blood work came back and everything came back normal and on target so I hope it all continues this way. Will you ladies posted!