Happy and Sad - Philadelphia, PA

I wanted to share my story with everyone about my journey of having my 375cc mentor silicone gel implants removed. I have always wanted larger breast but wasn't totally unhappy with my small boobies. it wasn't until i had my first child, i hated looking at my breast or even my husband. after my second child and establishing a decent career i saved enough money to have the implants. my husband wasn't very support at first. he really didn't want me to have them but he sure didn't mind ripping the benefits of them afterward if you get my draft. However, my desire to have my implants remove is 100% based on the pain i have from day one after my surgery. although they look great and give me more self confident, I have been in constant pain ever since the surgery and just want to be myself again without the pain. the pain starts in my right shoulder and runs down my arm. the pain is always there but never in one spot, sometime i feel a sharp pain that may start under my arm pits and end up running down my arm but its never really consist other then the pain is always there. sometimes i feel like my arm is going numb, you know the kinda tingling feeling you get right before something goes numb. with all this discomfort and stress in my shoulder, my neck and shoulder muscles are always tight and sore. i mean uncomfortably tight.

At times i feel like my shoulder blade AKA (scapula) is being stretched out of its socked. My husband helps by massaging my neck and shoulder but that might help for a second but the pain quickly returns. I truly feel these implants are the problem. and yes, i saw many docs and they couldn't find a thing wrong with the implants. although, they suggested that maybe the implants are rubbing on a nerve or the chest wall causing all these complaints. however, none of this was a solution to my problem so I 'm done with these implants and just want them out. a lot of docs i saw told me to wait or deal with it because they will go back to their saggy appearance and i will be unhappy with them. I felt like saying, "Duh, i know what they looked like!.. I had my saggy [RS bleep] for a while now" what, do they think I'm stupid or something? like that 's going to stop me.. I'm sure it will have some effect on me emotionally but I really dont have any other choice.

i just don't think these docs understand what I'm going through. I told one doc. if i knew for certain that removing them would eliminate the pain i would have done it a long time ago. but I must confess, i'm a little nervous to have them removed. like i stated earlier I wasn't unhappy with the appearance of the implants, its the pain im getting. No one really knows where the pain is coming from but one thing is certain, it wasn't there before i had the implants. I will have to take it one day at a time. However, i realized i just have to do it and deal with the aftermath later so I decided to go see this other doc i knew from a previous surgery i had. i was happy to hear he didn't try to stop me from removing them or even talk me into buying different ones. i did tell him i might consider a breast lift but wasn't 100% sure about that.

anyway, i felt i could trust him and he did a great job with my last surgery. i asked him every question possible about how he would remove them and so on and he explained it nicely. he didn't make me feel rushed out of his office. So i set a date for July 29. Hopefully, i am making the right choice.

These are pics from before and after preop and 6mo after the implants.

Well, I'm feeling multiple feelings about my implant removal some good and some bad. after seeing my breast I thought "what the hell did I do to myself and that I should have dealt with the pain. but then, I would calm myself down and tell myself I had to do it. ...Sometimes I think maybe I should have given it a little more time. My husband thinks I am driving myself crazy with the should haves. he told me I need to accept my decision and focus on healing. then later after the pain has resolved, worry about the your appearance. cross that bridge when it's time not now... I need to just worry about getting better. I told him I just can't help it. every time I see someone I think wow they have nice boobs or they look good with small breast. and mine are flat, saggy, and small. I think I'm smaller now then before. but I'm sure I'm the same size. maybe if I didn't go so big, I would have been better off. although i was only a C and at the time didn't think that was going too big. I think my chest muscles couldn't handle the stretching of the implants and the fact that the doc clearly hit a nerve and damage it or disrupt it at less.
I went shopping for tops and I got so discourage with finding something that wasn't going to make me look like a flat chested ugly person, so unfeminine. I just don't know how to dress this frame yet. I have been wearing only sport bras and they kinda flatten my breast out giving me no shape at all. hopefully when I can wear a regular bra, i'll get the ones with the padding and maybe I'll feel better about myself.
As for my week post-op visit with my PS yesterday, he reminded me "I need to give it time" "before considering anything else." I told him my breast are so flat that a boy's body looked better than mine. He said there are options down the road but just give it time because you might not want to do anything. I like this Guy, I only wish I found him first. anyway, as for the pain on my right side, I told him it's still there just not as bad and a little different. i can kinda isolate where the pain is coming from that is around my pec muscles and under my arm pit then it kinda pulls around my arm. the pain is more intense when I'm walking with my arm relax to my side and swing. but if i'm lying around the house i'm ok. this happen on Sunday when my family and i went to the shore for the day. while walking on the board walk, i experienced this pain. you know how your arms tend to swing while you walk. He told me it's probably because that pec muscle is attached to your arm muscle and with time it will get better. things are healing still. Gee, thinking back when i was experiencing major pain after getting my implants that explains why i was in soooo much pain. with the swelling and stretching of the pec muscle, is why the pain radiated to my arm and my neck. I did feel a little better after leaving my PS office that day, but emotionally I still needed some more time to heal.. however, i do feel writing about my journey is helping me get through this and hearing about other people's stories as well. I don't feel I'm alone.
I know I probably shouldn't but here are some post-op pics of week 1. It truly helps hear from everyone, Thanks everyone!!!

In the pics, I still have the steri-strips on the incision site so my breast look fuller then they really are. and there is still a little fluid and swelling going on.
I hope in a month or two they look a little better not flatter.