Tag Archives: BII

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Debate swirls over the risks of breast implants, and physicians and patients are justifiably confused by the conflicting information available.  Despite surgeons’ claims that implants are proven safe, tens of thousands of women with breast implants have reported that they have serious symptoms that they refer to as “breast implant illness.”  Many women with these symptoms report that they recovered when their implants are removed.  Our report finds clear scientific evidence that implants increase the chances of those symptoms and removing implants usually improves’ their health.

Women considering breast implants after mastectomy or for cosmetic reasons will want to know about our report.

Patients Must Be Warned of Breast Implant Risks, F.D.A. Says

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Roni Caryn Rabin, The New York Times: October 27, 2021

Federal regulators on Wednesday placed so-called black box warnings on breast implant packaging and told manufacturers to sell the devices only to health providers who review the potential risks with patients before surgery.

Both the warnings and a new checklist that advises patients of the risks and side effects state that breast implants have been linked to a cancer of the immune system and to a host of other chronic medical conditions, including autoimmune diseases, joint pain, mental confusion, muscle aches and chronic fatigue.

Startlingly, the checklist identifies particular types of patients who are at higher risk for illness after breast implant surgery. The group includes breast cancer patients who have had, or plan to have, chemotherapy or radiation treatments.

That represents a large percentage of women who until now were encouraged to have breast reconstruction with implants following their treatment.

The Food and Drug Administration is also requiring manufacturers for the first time to disclose the ingredients used to make breast implants, information that patient advocates have long sought. The information must be made public in 30 days.

It is not clear how the new requirements will be enforced, and patients are highly unlikely to ever see a warning label on a packaged sterile medical device that is usually handled only by a surgeon. F.D.A. officials said in a statement that the patients “must be given the opportunity” to sign the checklist.

[….]

Reactions to the new requirements were mixed. While some doctors welcomed the new warning system, others worried that the potential risks and side effects would not be conveyed adequately by plastic surgeons who were eager to reassure patients the procedure is safe and that the new checklist would be handled in a dismissive manner.

Critics also said the checklist was overly long and written in obtuse language. “It’s better than nothing, but it’s not as good as it could be,” said Diana Zuckerman, a scientist who heads the National Center for Health Research and was a member of the working group that advised the F.D.A. on implant safety.

“They say things like, ‘Breast implants are associated with lymphoma,’ but lymphoma is actually caused by the implants,” Dr. Zuckerman said. “People understand it if you say, ‘Breast implants can cause lymphoma.’”

She worried that surgeons would not take the time to adequately review the information with patients.

“What if a surgeon says, ‘Here’s a checklist — I know it’s long, so it’s up to you if you want to read it or not’?” Dr. Zuckerman said. “Patient groups are very concerned that will happen.”

[….]

To read the entire article, click here.

Former ‘Bachelorette’ Clare Crawley Is Removing Her Breast Implants Over Health Concerns—Here’s What to Know

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Korin Miller, Health: July 06, 2021

Clare Crawley is opening up about her decision to have her breast implants removed over concerns they’re impacting her health.

The Bachelorette star shared the news in a video posted to Instagram that she titled, “Coming to Terms.”

“I’m sharing this in hopes that it might help others going through something similar feel not so alone,” Crawley, 40, wrote in the caption. “I feel that this was important to share so I can be a resource for anyone going through this as well. I know how being your own health advocate is hard sometimes, and can feel like an uphill battle. This is the reality of life for so many people though! I’m just so incredibly thankful to all the people who are in my life that support me not only in my peaks but in the valleys as well.”

In the video, Crawley revealed that she’s been struggling with persistent medical issues over several years. “I’ve been going through things medically with my body that I have not had answers to, to be honest,” she said. “My skin has been having really bad hives and rash. My whole body is just inflamed and itchy.”

Crawley said that she’s also had “blood test after blood test” and seen several doctors. But test results didn’t give her answers about what is going on in her body.

After having two mammograms and an ultrasound—which revealed what she said were sacs of fluid behind her implants—she consulted with her doctor and decided to have her implants removed. “As much as I love my implants, my body is fighting them and recognizes it as something obviously foreign in my body,” she said, adding that blood tests showed an elevated white blood cell count over the past few years. “My body can’t heal. My body is in fight mode, constantly. It’s exhausting, it’s frustrating. It’s all making sense.”

While Crawley said that her decision isn’t the right one for everyone, it’s what’s best for her. “My health is the most important thing. They are coming out,” she said.

Crawley received messages of support in the comments, including from Kayla Lochte, wife of Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte, who shared in March that she had her implants removed over health concerns—specifically she specifically cited as breast implant illness (BII). “Best of luck Clare! Get those toxic bags out,” she said.

While Crawley herself didn’t specifically say that she has BII, she implies it. Here’s what you need to know about the condition—and what to do if you think your breast implants may be impacting your health.

What is breast implant illness, exactly?

It’s important to get this out of the way upfront: Breast implant illness (again, BII) isn’t a medical diagnosis, and there are no hard numbers on how often BII happens.

[….]

That said, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded last year that breast implants should have a “black box” warning to help women make “informed decisions” about potential risks associated with breast implants, including BII, which the FDA labels as “systemic symptoms.” It’s also important to note that BII is different from breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL), a type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma that can develop following breast implants, per the FDA.

BII is tricky to diagnose. “The symptoms women report are pretty nonspecific, and could be related to another illness,” Janie Grumley, MD, a breast surgical oncologist and director of the Margie Petersen Breast Center at Providence Saint John’s Center and associate professor of surgery at Saint John’s Cancer Institute in Santa Monica, Calif., tells Health. “It ends up being that, once we’ve worked out everything else and can’t figure out what’s going on, that’s when we think the issue may be breast implants.”

Research has suggested this is a real health concern. One July 2020 retrospective study published in the Annals of Plastic Surgery looked at 750 patients who had their breast implants removed by a surgeon over a two-year period. Researchers found that patients had “significant and sustained improvement” in 11 different symptoms after surgery. Patients found their symptoms improved within 30 days after having their implants removed.

Another study published in the same journal in January 2019, found that people with silicone breast implants had higher rates of the autoimmune conditions Sjogren syndrome, scleroderma, and rheumatoid arthritis than those who don’t have implants. They also had a higher risk of stillbirth and melanoma.

Why might breast implants make some people sick?

“All breast implants have a silicone shell that also contains various chemicals and small amounts of heavy metals,” Constance M. Chen, MD, a board-certified plastic surgeon and breast reconstruction specialist, tells Health. “Some breast implants also have a silicone filling that can leach off an intact implant or spill out of a ruptured implant. The silicone, chemicals, and/or heavy metals in the body can make some women sick.”

[….]

Scar tissue usually develops around the implant inside the body in an attempt to protect it from the “invader,” Diana Zuckerman, PhD, president of the National Center for Health Research who has researched breast implant safety, tells Health. “For some women, the scar tissue provides the protection they need, and they feel fine,” she says. “For other women, their bodies react more strongly, with an autoimmune reaction or other kind of reaction.”

What should you do if you suspect your implants might be causing your health issues?

You should talk to your doctor, Dr. Grumley says. Just know this, per Dr. Zuckerman: There’s no test that can tell if the implants are making you sick while they’re still in your body. But, she says, “if women find that they are developing symptoms that don’t go away, they should consider getting their implants and the scar capsule removed.”

It’s important to see a doctor who has experience in breast implant removal, Dr. Zuckerman says. Not only do they know what they’re doing, they’ll also know to remove the scar tissue that’s formed, which can contain silicone gel. If they don’t, “the chances of your health improving is not as good,” she explains.

[….]

To read the entire article, click here.

First, Their Breast Implants Made Them Sick. Then They Were Hit with the Bill.

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Catherine Guthrie, Cosmopolitan: August 18, 2020.

Annie Reynoso wanted a tummy tuck. But her doctor said no. Uterine fibroids meant she wasn’t a good candidate for abdominal surgery. He had an idea though, the doctor. If what Annie was looking for was a physical boost, there were other options out there. Like breast implants.

[…]

Then it was a few years later, and odd things started happening: Her breasts swelled to a G-cup. She had fatigue that would knock her out for days. Sudden dizzy spells made it scary for her to drive. She’d get short of breath after walking just a few steps. She had night sweats that soaked her mattress. And there were even stranger symptoms: nausea if she ate before noon, and pain in her chest, neck, ears, and jaw that felt like the worst sunburn of her life. She kept tubes of Aspercreme in her purse, coat pockets, and desk drawer. At least a dozen times a day, she had to slather herself in ointment.

[…]

That’s when something finally changed: A friend of Annie’s started feeling better after her implants were removed, and a rheumatologist told Annie some of her symptoms aligned with Sjögren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease potentially triggered by her implants. After that, all she could think about was getting them out.

Once again, she waited in a surgeon’s office. A new one this time. She’d gotten her implants in the Dominican Republic, where her family lives and they could help her through the recovery. Now she sat alone in New Jersey, consulting with a doctor about having her implants removed in a procedure called an explant. She was hopeful. Until she was told it would cost $7,500—and that insurance wasn’t likely to cover a dime.

[…]

And yet, there is evidence to suggest that breast implant illness might actually be an autoimmune disorder caused by implants. In 2018, a study in the International Journal of Epidemiology found that women with silicone breast implants had more than a 20 percent increased risk of being diagnosed with an autoimmune or rheumatic disorder.

There is also overwhelming anecdotal evidence online, in Facebook groups like Breast Implant Illness and Healing by Nicole, where hundreds of thousands of women share their stories. And of course, there are the endless comments on posts like Chrissy Teigen’s recent Instagram update about having her implants removed. Women saying they wish they could too—women saying, “Having them is making me sick.”

[…]

For sick women who are financially able to get explant surgery, it can change everything. In a July 2020 study in Annals of Plastic Surgery, researchers found that those experiencing symptoms of breast implant illness saw an improvement in their health within a month of having their implants removed. Like Lauren Dearman, who had explant surgery last November.

She was just 20 when her parents offered to pay $8,000 for her C-cup breast implants. Six years later, she began to have severe abdominal issues and chest pain, bad enough that she went to the ER. She was tired all the time and had such trouble focusing that she couldn’t even write a to-do list. She couldn’t climb the stairs to her third-floor apartment without gripping the railing. Her boyfriend told her she was out of shape. Her boyfriend, she knew, was wrong.

When she came across a Facebook group where women were talking about breast implant illness, the stories read like her own medical file. Within weeks, she made an appointment with a surgeon in Chicago who agreed that her implants could be at the root of her health issues. Lauren cried when she learned how much the surgery would cost. Her parents couldn’t pitch in financially this time, so Lauren withdrew $2,500 from savings and took out a personal loan for $6,500 so she could have the procedure. At $190 a month, she’ll be paying it off for the next three years. But she feels so much better now.

In a health care system that has no problem paying for Viagra (and Viagra overdoses), the fact that women like Lauren have to finance their medical care is infuriating, says Cari M. Schwartz, a lawyer at the firm Kantor & Kantor in California.

Schwartz is working on bringing a class-action lawsuit against insurance companies that deny explant coverage. She’s interviewed hundreds of women across the country desperate to get their implants out. In every case, insurers denied coverage, even when physicians deemed removals medically necessary. Schwartz has seen women rack up credit-card debt, borrow money, lose relationships and jobs, and go bankrupt in an effort to save their health. “Women are essentially told that their health issues are their fault,” she says, “because they chose to get implants.”

In 2019, the FDA said it was putting more effort into educating doctors and patients on the “systemic symptoms” many women with implants experience. Although they also still say they don’t have “definitive evidence demonstrating breast implants cause these symptoms.”

Doctors, too, remain reluctant to get onboard. “To recognize breast implant illness is to kill the goose that laid the golden egg,” says H. Jae Chun, MD, a Newport Beach, California, surgeon who specializes in explant surgery. “And many doctors just aren’t going to mess with the goose.”

In the meantime, one of the only options for desperate patients is the National Center for Health Research’s program to help women navigate the path to explant. They don’t give out money, but if a woman has health insurance, they’ll do what they can to coach her and her plastic surgeon through the insurance maze. Often, that means helping fill out paperwork explaining why the procedure is medically necessary. It’s a process that can take months and still results in a denial the majority of the time, says Diana Zuckerman, PhD, the group’s president. But so far, they’ve helped more than 1,500 women get the explants they need.

[…]

Read the full article here

The Number Of Women Having Their Breast Implants Removed Is on the Rise

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Kristin Canning, Women’s Health: August 8, 2020

Something weird was going on with Laura Miranda’s left breast; the shape was changing. Two days prior to her noticing that something looked off, she’d had her first mammogram (breast cancer runs in her family, so she’s vigilant about getting the necessary tests). Now, her left breast seemed to be “deflated,” as she describes. It was June of 2016.

She’d gotten implants on a whim at 22 to fulfill the big-busted aesthetic ideal at the time. They were offered to her as a gift by the gym she worked for early in her career as a trainer—the athletic club had a partnership with a plastic surgery group, and she was meant to be a sort of walking advertisement for them.

She suspected the pressure from the x-ray machine had caused a leak in one of the implants since she’d previously read that mammogram techs have to use less force when implants are involved. “I thought, ‘that sucks,’ but figured they were 16 years old, and that’s just part of the game,” says Miranda, who is also now a doctor of physical therapy in New York City.

She could deal with a little asymmetry on her chest. What was unbearable were the symptoms to come.

Miranda started experiencing days-long bouts of fatigue and body aches a few weeks later. “I was launching a business and working crazy hours, so I attributed my symptoms to that,” she says. “I didn’t think to see a doctor.”

But she kept feeling worse. Eventually, she was bedridden every few days. “In 2017, I was dealing with intense brain fog and cognitive decline, writing and concentrating for my work was nearly impossible, I had to nap between every client I trained, and my vision was shaky,” says Miranda. “I was so tired that I couldn’t work out, so I gained weight and my mental health was in a really bad place.”

She visited her GP, then a cardiologist, endocrinologist, and holistic health practitioner. She had high blood pressure, but other than that, all her tests came back normal. Around the same time, her sister sent her a social media post from a model who talked about how her implants had made her sick. “I knew deep down that this was probably what was going on with me,” Miranda says.

Googling led her to a Facebook group called Breast Implant Illness and Healing by Nicole, a page started in 2016 by Nicole Daruda, who had her implants surgically removed in 2013 after suffering for years from symptoms much like Miranda’s, which she believed were linked to the devices in her chest. The procedure is known as explantation, or explant surgery, and involves the removal of both the implants as well as the scar tissue capsules surrounding them.

“I had never heard of breast implant illness, and no doctor ever mentioned it to me,” Miranda says. “But seeing all these women with such similar symptoms, who also had implants, made me realize something was going on here.”

She immediately wanted to get hers removed. “It just made sense.”

[…]

The thing is, BII isn’t really new—it’s just finally getting public attention. “Women have been complaining of issues with their implants since the 90s—but social media has allowed them to connect to amplify their voices and concerns,” says Diana Zuckerman, PhD, president of the National Center for Health Research, and its Cancer Prevention and Treatment Fund.

Jade Root, a U.S. Army major and fitness competitor, also found out she was suffering with BII thanks to the BII social media community. She’d gotten implants on the recommendation of her fitness coach seven years ago to make her body appear more proportional and up her chances of success on the stage. She slowly started to develop the classic symptoms often attributed to BII. “I chalked it up to motherhood and my deployment. I was managing a lot,” Root says.

But during a break from bikini competitions, her symptoms became crippling. “I couldn’t recall basic terms I needed to use at work every day, I couldn’t complete the drive to the office without nearly falling asleep, even after getting seven hours of sleep the night before.” Doctors prescribed her two meds for joint pain and numbness and one for sleep, and they attributed her memory loss to anxiety, for which she was prescribed Xanax. “It felt like I was forcing myself to get through every day. I couldn’t live like that.”

[…]

Unfortunately, BII “isn’t a disease we can test for,” says Dr. Alan Matarasso. Determining whether someone is dealing with BII is more a process of elimination of other possible causes. “It’s a constellation of symptoms that can potentially be linked to many conditions,” he explains. “And we know that breast implants are one of the most common and thoroughly studied medical devices on the market, and again, the mass majority of people who have them are happy with them and don’t develop any health problems.”

[….]

Still, new research is pointing to the fact that hundreds of thousands of women aren’t exactly making this up. A study published just last month in The Annals Of Plastic Surgery followed 750 women who had explant surgery in 2017 and 2018, tracking the most commonly reported symptoms of BII (the 11 listed above) before explantation, then from 1 to 1,000 days post-op. The study showed significant improvement in all 11 symptoms immediately following explant surgery, and the improvements were maintained long term. Those results echo the findings of several smaller studies that showed patients who suffered from this type of sickness got better after having their implants taken out.

[….]

Chelsea Harrison, a yoga instructor and former bikini competitor, had to do the same. She got breast augmentation when she was 23. “In one of my first bikini competitions I placed third, and the women in first and second both had implants. I was super self-conscious about it,” she says. A few years later, she started to notice rashes, fatigue, and anxiety, but didn’t link the issues to her implants.

Eventually, she had problems with what’s called capsular contracture, where the scar tissue around the implant hardens and can cause pain. “The first surgeon I visited told me I ‘didn’t want to take my implants out from an aesthetic standpoint,’” Harrison remembers. (It can be surprisingly difficult to find a surgeon willing to do explantation, says Zuckerman, because docs are afraid patients will be displeased with the results. And of course, there are risks with any surgery.)

[….]

In the summer of 2019, the Breast Implant Working Group (which includes Dr. Matarasso and Zuckerman) submitted a proposed black box warning for implant manufacturer websites (like what you might find on a box of cigarettes) and a patient checklist to the FDA for consideration. The checklist is meant to be given to patients who are considering implants for their sign-off, and includes detailed information on the potential health risks associated with them.

“We hear that patients just aren’t getting this information from their doctors, or if they do, it’s a huge 40-to-100-page booklet that’s difficult to read and understand,” says Zuckerman. The FDA then released their own proposed warning and checklist in October 2019 (You can find it starting on page 12 of this document.)

But Zuckerman says that the FDA versions of these warnings use “much weaker” language. “The [Breast Implant Working Group] doesn’t feel like it’s enough, so we sent our criticism along with a petition with over 80,000 signatures to support our black box warning and checklist language.” [….]

The hesitation to adopt strong language around BII may be because several studies have not confirmed the link between breast implants and BII. But, Zuckerman argues, “A lot of these studies that were done in response to early claims from women that their implants were making them sick were funded by manufacturing companies or plastic surgeons, and most did not include enough women who had implants for many years,” she says. “Plastic surgery is big bucks, and it could be less profitable if women are concerned they’ll be harmed; that’s why even doctors who believe in BII have been afraid to speak up about it because they could be ostracized by their colleagues.”

But the tides are changing…somewhat. The ASPS, which is the largest plastic surgeon society in the world, has endorsed the Breast Implant Working Group’s patient checklist and likely will endorse the black box warning with a few proposed tweaks, says Zuckerman. She hopes the FDA will adopt the warning and checklist soon.

[….]

Read the full article here

New Study Backs Breast Implant Illness Claims by Patients

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Sasha Chavkin, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists: July 2, 2020

A new study in a leading plastic surgery journal offers more evidence to support the existence of breast implant illness, a malady reported by thousands of women but dismissed as scientifically unproven by many plastic surgeons and some health authorities.

The study focused on 750 women who complained of fatigue, memory loss, joint and muscle pain and other symptoms after having received breast implants. It found that as a group, the women experienced significant relief from their symptoms within 30 days of having their implants removed.

“The data speaks for itself,” said Dr. Lu-Jean Feng, a plastic surgeon and an author of the study. “It’s much more likely that the illness is due to breast implants if the improvements are within 30 days.”

The study adds to growing evidence that some women suffer systemic health problems after getting breast implants. It is well known that breast implants can lead to physical injuries such as rupture, leaking and painful tightening of scar tissue around the implant, known as capsular contracture. But many plastic surgeons have long contended that there is not enough scientific evidence to conclude that breast implants can cause health issues that affect the whole body, such as autoimmune disease and cognitive decline.

In 2018, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists revealed that thousands of women around the world were suffering from serious illnesses after receiving breast implants as part of its Implant Files investigation.

Among the investigation’s findings were that an increasing number of studies indicated that breast implants were associated with systemic health effects such as autoimmune and connective tissue disease. These illnesses took a devastating toll on patients’ lives, often leaving them unable to work, struggling to maintain relationships and suffering severe pain.

The new study by Dr. Feng is not the first to show improvements in women’s health after they had their breast implants removed. But it has several notable elements: it has a relatively large sample size and it shows that major improvements occurred within 30 days of removal. In addition, all the patients were operated on by the same surgeon, Dr. Feng, using the same technique, eliminating the possibility that differences between doctors or methods influenced its results.

The women were surveyed before and after their breast implants were removed, and asked whether they suffered from 11 symptoms commonly associated with breast implant illness, including hair loss, joint pain, chronic fatigue and hives. Patients were asked to rate symptoms on a scale of zero to five. The mean preoperative score was 26.19; it dropped by nearly two thirds to 9.49, after removal.

The study was published in the Annals of Plastic Surgery, a peer-reviewed journal for plastic surgeons.

Diana Zuckerman, president of the health care policy think tank National Center for Health Research, said the publication was significant because it was a sign that the plastic surgery profession was beginning to accept the existence of breast implant illness.

“The plastic surgery journals have not been open to this kind of information,” Zuckerman said.

Breast implants are a crucial and lucrative product for plastic surgeons, and the breast implant business accounts for more than $1 billion in revenues each year.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has also shifted its stance on breast implant illness.

After long maintaining that there was insufficient evidence to connect breast implants and many symptoms reported by patients, the FDA now lists “Systemic symptoms Breast Implant Illness (BII)” among the risks and complications associated with breast implants, although it notes continuing scientific uncertainties.

“Symptoms such as fatigue, memory loss, rash, ‘brain fog,’ and joint pain may be associated with breast implants,” states the agency’s website.

Read the full article here

Crystal Hefner Removes Breast Implants, Says They ‘Slowly Poisoned’ Her

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Chloe Tejada, The Huffington Post Canada: July 21, 2016.

[…]On Tuesday, Crystal Hefner posted an update to her social media accounts, revealing to her fans that she removed her breast implants after they caused several major health problems and bad side effects. […]

“My Breast Implants Slowly Poisoned Me,” she titled her post. “Intolerance to foods and beverages, unexplained back pain, constant neck and shoulder pain, cognitive dysfunction (brain fog, memory loss), stunted hair growth, incapacitating fatigue, burning bladder pain, low immunity, recurring infections and problems with my thyroid and adrenals,” she wrote. Hefner went on to explain that symptoms started a few years ago but she ignored them, despite the fact that she was not feeling well.

“The aches, the bladder pain, brain fog, fatigue. I ignored it, labeling myself a hypochondriac, despite truly worrying that there was something wrong with me. I joked about losing my memory to age, and about getting ‘lazy.'”

As the negative side effects worsened, her work as a model and DJ suffered […]

After announcing that she had been diagnosed with Lyme Disease and toxic mold, commenters said her symptoms were similar to the effects of those suffering from Breast Implant Illness.

She became a patient at The Lu-Jean Feng Clinic in Ohio, where, after discussing it with Dr. Lu-Jean Feng, she had her implants removed.

“Instantly I noticed my neck and shoulder pain was gone and I could breathe much better,” she wrote about how she felt after the surgery. “I know I won’t feel 100% overnight. My implants took 8 years to make me this sick, so I know it will take time to feel better. I also have other illnesses to address, but with the toxic bags removed, my immune system can focus on what it needs to.” […]

Here’s to wishing Crystal a safe, and healthy recovery.

Read the original article here.