When I was 19 years old (barely a legal adult and almost half a lifetime ago), I made the decision to undergo breast augmentation surgery. I was young, in a new relationship and there was a lot of pressure to be perfect. Oftentimes that meant changing things about your body, but it made me comfortable knowing so many other women had made the same choice (I feel like I know more women WITH implants, than without).
As far as I knew, the surgery was completely safe and with minimal side effects. It’s certainly a personal choice, but I am and always have been supportive of making decisions that are right for you, especially if they make you feel better about yourself (I honestly didn’t know what I had). Shortly after the surgery, I began experiencing notable but peculiar symptoms.
The first was arthritis and inflammation in my thumbs and fingers. I remember telling friends about it and thinking it was abnormal for someone at such a young age to experience joint pain, and I’ve been living with it consistently for 15 years.
Next came the allergies – sinus pressure and infections, and sensitivity to manmade and organic allergens. Nothing extremely out of the ordinary – many people experience allergies in their lifetimes and I simply chalked it up to getting older.
But around the same time, I started feeling sad. Really sad, and oftentimes for no reason at all. I was a normal, healthy young adult dealing with the same issues and problems as anyone else my age, but still it was something I couldn’t quite explain. I saw a doctor about it and was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. The medication I was prescribed was intense, and I quickly decided it wasn’t the right solution (for me).
I also started developing gastrointestinal issues, which I blamed on a food sensitivity to gluten. I went gluten-free for years, which helped alleviate some of my symptoms. I also stopped eating soy and was a vegetarian for some time. And I began the long road of pouring over and researching other, more natural remedies (still to this day just can’t make myself take prescription medication).
My husband Kevin and I moved to San Francisco in 2011, but the symptoms never went away. In fact, other ones started presenting themselves. My allergies were getting worse, despite the fact that I lived on the coastline. Kevin, who suffered from pretty severe seasonal allergies, had almost none to speak of in SF. But mine were starting to take on a life of their own. Sometimes the afternoons would hit and I’d get hit with debilitating fatigue and low-grade fever – certainly not “typical” seasonal allergy symptoms but also not completely unheard of. I was having concentration and insomnia issues, as well. My fingers and toes would have circulation issues.
Finally, I went to see doctors about my symptoms and was told to take allergy medication, which actually helped ease the symptoms a bit. They diagnosed me with Reynaud’s disease for my fingers and toes. They ran allergy tests, blood panels and I even saw a naturopath. Everything came back “normal” and doctors were telling me I was “perfectly healthy” but I didn’t FEEL perfectly healthy. And when you can’t figure out what’s wrong with you, you really start to wonder if it’s all in your head. I’d leave doctor’s offices in tears, because I just wanted an answer – ANY answer. Doctors sent me to psychiatrists for my concentration issues, allergists for my allergy issues and the answer was always “more prescriptions.” Xanax, Allegra, Adderall, Ambien…you name it. I knew I couldn’t live a normal life on that many prescription meds and would take them for a short while and then stop.
The last thing you want to hear the year of your wedding, in 2015, is that one of your implants has twisted into a muscle and needs to be replaced - especially since I had just had foot surgery the year prior. Still not suspecting that my symptoms had anything to do with my augmentation, I decided to have the implants replaced from saline to silicone. And looking back on that time, my symptoms actually eased up a bit. I almost forgot that I was ever “sick” for a short period of time.
Then in 2016, we moved to Phoenix and my symptoms started returning bit by bit. My allergies came back with a vengeance, but so did Kevin’s. Everyone in Phoenix agreed that the desert USED to be an escape from seasonal allergies, but as Phoenix grew, so did the pollen. So in a way, I was tricked into believing it was something else. The arthritis and the “brain fog” (oh my god, the brain fog) were getting much, much worse. I was more anxious and depressed than ever. I chalked that up to moving to a new city with no friends. I was having trouble regulating my body temperature and having heart palpitations and chest pain. I chalked that up to living in a place with temperatures that can reach 120 degrees, or hormones or heart disease in my immediate family. Again, I saw doctors in Phoenix. They ran tests, an EKG that was “abnormal but not critical” and I was referred to cardiologists.
I thought about seeing therapists for my anxiety and depression issues. And I still couldn’t sleep. Ever. I was experiencing migraines and was very susceptible to food poisoning (go to a restaurant, eat the same things as everyone else and I would be the only one to be sick all night). Back to pouring over the internet for natural solutions – turmeric for inflammation, cutting things out of my diet one by one, melatonin for sleep every night, B12 shots that I would self administer even though I was deathly afraid of needles, specialty teas to help my stomach issues. Anything I could do to help my symptoms - the natural way.
The strange thing was, I was “healthier” than ever. I was exercising with extreme vigilance each day. I ate only organic produce and meats, and watched my diet like a hawk. I had gotten certified as a fitness nutrition specialist in SF, and I was doing everything I could to be as natural as I could.
Life happened in so many ways in 2018. I had a beautiful baby girl in July, and then my Dad passed in October. I started to ask myself…is this why I’m anxious and depressed? Is it post-partum? Is it the grief process? I’m sure those things affected me during that time. But the truth is, all of these things were happening well before 2018. 2020 has been hard for all of us. From a mental health standpoint, it’s undeniable things prior to the global pandemic impacted me emotionally, and COVID just made it harder. But the physical symptoms were getting worse and worse. Debilitatingly so. I would develop extreme fatigue and low-grade fever temporarily almost every day. Was this Coronavirus? With so much going on in the world, and what seemed like so many bad things happening to others, it was difficult to think of myself - but I just kept getting worse.
I would have chest pains, severe arthritis in every joint of my body, body aches and chills to the point of tears. I would cry when I couldn’t open Nixon’s bottles. I started dropping and breaking dishes and glass almost daily (yes, it got wild - so clumsy). I couldn’t sleep, even though Nixon has always been a great sleeper, and I’d get frustrated that I wasn’t 100% available to her emotionally and physically as a Mom.
The exhaustion was so real that I couldn’t function. I started losing things, misplacing things and constantly walking around in a daze - there were times when I would stand in my kitchen and not remember where our glasses were (true story). Is this what being a Mom to a toddler felt like for everyone?
Finally (last month), in an act of desperation for answers, I crowdsourced and asked my audience on Instagram (noting: it’s not COVID guys). Had anyone ever experienced my flu-like symptoms – the aches and pains, the fatigue, the fog, the “allergies” before? A few people responded and asked if I had breast implants, because it sounded like Breast Implant Illness (BII).
Breast Implant Illness, I asked myself? You mean, are my implants leaking? I started researching as much as I could online. THERE IT WAS. No, not from leaky implants. Tens of thousands of women on Facebook groups dedicated to this disease. Thousands in Arizona alone, that had formed their own Facebook group. Thousands of women who had been told by doctors they were “crazy” to think a perfectly safe implant was the root cause of all of their issues.
Thousands of women who had been dismissed by physicians and plastic surgeons when they questioned whether their implants were ruining their lives. And hundreds, thousands of women who had gotten their implants removed, only to have their symptoms disappear within a days, weeks or a year. Symptoms exactly like mine. I cried. I knew in my heart the implants were making me sick. The guilt immediately set in. “I did this to myself”
I spoke with Kevin about it and as a career-long healthcare investor turned entrepreneur and self-proclaimed “skeptic” he agreed it was undeniable that this COULD be the cause. Even still, we/he wanted to be sure before we decided on another surgery, which was scarier now that we are parents.
He made me go see my primary care physician one more time and get a blood test to rule out other diseases. Was it Lupus? Lyme’s Disease? Hashimotos? Fibromyalgia? Some other auto-immune disorder? Was it my thyroid or adrenal glands? The blood test came back negative, despite similar symptoms. In fact, many of those diseases are misdiagnosed as such because doctors aren’t thinking about BII.
Of the 30 symptoms listed for BII, I experienced 29 of them (the only one I didn’t have was weight gain - at the moment, but recall shortly after my first set of implants gaining a significant amount of weight and being asked if I was pregnant because of how fast it came on, now I constantly struggle to keep my weight under control, believe it or not).
Kevin agreed it was statistically impossible for me to have 29 or 30 symptoms (everything listed in this post and more), other than having 4 or 5 simultaneous diseases. The problem is, BII is not an “official” disease diagnosis, and there’s a lot of competing interests out there to identify BII as the root cause of illness in women.
It’s been well documented that doctors (both male and female) consistently downplay complaints of health issues from women. We’re branded as “whiners” or “overly dramatic.” I called all of my friends who had removed their implants – there were a shockingly large amount of them once I counted – and quizzed them about their experiences. I apologized for not taking them seriously enough, something they probably experienced from their doctors and surgeons, as well.
We made the appointment to get the explant surgery as soon as we could. With COVID and being a Mom, it was particularly scary. Trust me when I say I saw no other option. I tested negative for COVID as part of the surgery (twice), so that answered my fears about the fever. The surgery went incredibly well thanks to skillful experience of my doctor and his staff and I’m well on the road to recovery (happy to share my doctor with you for the locals). No leaks in my implants to speak of. My surgeon can’t/won’t speak to anything officially, only that he’s done explants for women experiencing similar things and “many women feel better afterwards” - my general practitioner actually said this too. That’s about as much as I can expect.
The truth of the matter is, the decision has to be right for you. I was ready to have my implants removed, even though they were a part of me for 15 years and frankly, part of my identity. I’m still adjusting to that fact, but I’m focused on being healthy and the best Mom I can be to Nixon.
I would wake up with a swollen face DAILY. Ice every single day, and still look completely inflamed. Day ONE of post-op my eyes were clearer and my face inflammation was miraculously gone, DAY AFTER SURGERY!
It’s been a noticeable change since the surgery, despite the pain meds and the anesthesia wearing off. I’m feeling clearer, and I hope this is the end of all my symptoms. I haven’t had a body ache or fever or arthritis in almost a week.
I’m keeping a detailed log of all my pre- and post- surgery symptoms that I will continue to share with you. I also know this might not be the cure-all for every single one of my symptoms, or my anxiety or depression and there may be more work to do. But I am very hopeful that this is a great first step and a head start in the right direction.
I’m writing this post because although there’s a lot of great information out there, you really have to dig to find it. There’s no “search engine optimization” around BII because the device companies do a good job of making it clear it’s not a “real disease”…yet.
But if you’re like me and experiencing unexplained symptoms, I want to make sure there’s one more story out there to follow (and there are thousands of stories out there). I’m happy to share my journey of recovery throughout this process, and maybe it will help you or someone you know. Reach out to me on Instagram, and I will be as candid and honest as I possibly can be to help.
Symptoms I can hopefully check off this year!
Cloudiness/Fogginess
Night sweats
Body aches
Overall feeling of discomfort/uneasiness
Lethargy / overwhelming exhaustion/ fatigue
Loss of memory/forgetfulness
Confusion / inability to concentrate
Can’t absorb information
Depression
Anxiety
Difficulty swallowing
Joint pain and swelling
Pain w/ touching or being touched
Pain in feet when walking
Overall sore body
Dry mouth
Feeling loss in limbs/ tingling / numbness
Face swelling / hand swelling / joint swelling
Trouble falling asleep
Waking up throughout the night
Fuzzy vision
Vertigo
On and off light fever
Heart palpitations / pains
sore throat/ tightness
Light nausea
Swollen veins
Jaw clinchingAll symptoms get worse close to period. Come and go in waves but have recently been more severe.
Update #1 | 5/13/20 | 3.5 Weeks Post-Op
Symptoms that I have NOT experienced (on any level) since (day one of) explant are BOLD below:
Cloudiness/Fogginess
Night sweats
Body aches
Overall feeling of discomfort/uneasiness
Lethargy / overwhelming exhaustion/ fatigue
Loss of memory/forgetfulness
Confusion / inability to concentrate
Can’t absorb information
Depression
Anxiety
Difficulty swallowing
Joint pain and swelling
Pain w/ touching or being touched
Pain in feet when walking
Overall sore body
Dry mouth
Feeling loss in limbs/ tingling / numbness
Face swelling / hand swelling / joint swelling
Trouble falling asleep
Waking up throughout the night
Fuzzy vision
Vertigo
On and off light fever
Heart palpitations / pains
sore throat/ tightness
Light nausea
Swollen veins
Jaw clinching
Symptoms that have gotten better / lighter / less frequent are BOLD below:
Cloudiness/Fogginess
Night sweats
Body aches -gone
Overall feeling of discomfort/uneasiness
Lethargy / overwhelming exhaustion/ fatigue - gone
Loss of memory/forgetfulness
Confusion / inability to concentrate
Can’t absorb information
Depression
Anxiety
Difficulty swallowing
Joint pain and swelling -gone
Pain w/ touching or being touched -gone
Pain in feet when walking
Overall sore body -gone
Dry mouth
Feeling loss in limbs/ tingling / numbness -gone
Face swelling / hand swelling / joint swelling -gone
Trouble falling asleep - still having trouble here / was initially better
Waking up throughout the night -gone
Fuzzy vision -gone
Vertigo
On and off light fever -gone
Heart palpitations / pains -gone
sore throat/ tightness -gone
Light nausea -gone
Swollen veins -gone
Jaw clinching -still experiencing
*** I LOST 7 pounds of inflammation THE FIRST WEEK.
I knew my explant wouldn’t mean immediate relief. I was also incredibly nervous that it wasn’t the root of my issues. But, 3.5 weeks post-op and can confidently say that I am 100% sure I was sick because of Breast Implants. I had an almost immediate feeling of relief in my physical body after surgery. And for someone who had just had surgery, I looked healthier than I had in a long time.
I was experiencing arthritis everyday of my life the last few years. And very frequently over the last 15. I have not had arthritis ONCE in 5 weeks. I don’t know the science behind this, but I am so happy that I trusted other women and my gut on this one.
One Year Update
Symptoms that I have NOT experienced (on any level) since (day one of) explant are BOLD below:
Cloudiness/Fogginess
Night sweats
Body aches
Overall feeling of discomfort/uneasiness
Lethargy / overwhelming exhaustion/ fatigue
Loss of memory/forgetfulness
Confusion / inability to concentrate
Can’t absorb information
Depression
Anxiety
Difficulty swallowing
Joint pain and swelling
Pain w/ touching or being touched
Pain in feet when walking
Overall sore body
Dry mouth
Feeling loss in limbs/ tingling / numbness
Face swelling / hand swelling / joint swelling
Trouble falling asleep
Waking up throughout the night
Fuzzy vision
Vertigo
On and off light fever
Heart palpitations / pains
sore throat/ tightness
Light nausea
Swollen veins
Jaw clinching
Symptoms that have gotten better / lighter / less frequent are BOLD below:
Cloudiness/Fogginess
Night sweats -gone
Body aches -gone
Overall feeling of discomfort/uneasiness -gone
Lethargy / overwhelming exhaustion/ fatigue - gone
Loss of memory/forgetfulness -gone (except for mom-brain sometimes)
Confusion / inability to concentrate -gone
Can’t absorb information -gone
Depression -much better
Anxiety -much better
Difficulty swallowing -gone
Joint pain and swelling -gone
Pain w/ touching or being touched -gone
Pain in feet when walking -gone (other than surgery foot)
Overall sore body -gone
Dry mouth -gone
Feeling loss in limbs/ tingling / numbness -gone
Face swelling / hand swelling / joint swelling -gone
Trouble falling asleep - much better
Waking up throughout the night -gone
Fuzzy vision -gone
Vertigo -gone
On and off light fever -gone
Heart palpitations / pains -gone
sore throat/ tightness -gone
Light nausea -gone
Swollen veins -gone
Jaw clinching -still experiencing
I was experiencing arthritis-style symptoms in my hand almost everyday for several years. That was IMMEDIATELY gone when I removed the implants. That part still blows my mind.
I get a lot of questions on the “aesthetic” part of this journey and I can tell you that giving my skin a year to heal and find its way was definitely the right move for me. They’re not the same as they used to be. But I never expected that. I have my life back and that’s really all I can ask for right now.
