Could my breast implants have been killing me?
It's been 2 weeks of recovery and so I now feel a little bit more able to talk a little about why I just had a rather major surgery. I'm hoping that by having the courage to share more and more of my story of chronic illness and toxicity issues, I may help, even one person, get well đ
Many of you may know I've been really unwell for over 18 months now, I can't believe I'm even writing that, it's mad to think this is what my life has become đ A long journey of trying to figure out why my body has been progressively feeling like it's shutting down, is under attack and has zero energy. I'm a super healthy person in every way so this didn't make sense, and I knew right from the start there were deeper causes to this. About a year ago I reached the level of fatigue and dysfunction that I've been at since, so I saw a functional medicine practitioner - this is root cause medicine, holistic and at one with our bodies. We found, as she suspected, mould toxicity, gut dysbiosis with candida overgrowth, as well as nervous system overwhelm. By then I'd had 2 quite major nervous breakdowns and had given up everything. But my nervous system was still feeling like it was under attack and I was chronically stuck in fight or flight.
As you can imagine, I have been searching for answers and that's when about 6 months ago I came across Breast Implant Illness (BII). Hundreds of thousands of women unwell with the toxicity from the silicon in their bodies (plus all the other chemicals found in breast implants), and a lot of the symptoms were the same as mine; brain fog, chronic fatigue, twitching and tingling, weakness, chronic constipation, bloating, adrenal fatigue, nervous system issues, unable to tolerate smells and sounds, hyper-sensitivity, candida issues etc etc. They reported immediately getting better after implant removal, at least significantly if not totally well again! It's like once I saw it I couldn't un-see it. I asked my body if it was this, and felt no answer (numbness and disassociation due to toxicity overwhelm is very common symptom) so I decided for now to continue with focussing on detoxing mold out of my gut (it can live there and poison you from the inside, it's more common than you think). Well long story short, even with serious detoxing going on, I didnât improve and then couldn't ignore the elephant in the room any more and a couple of months ago at end of April I decided to see some surgeons. The path was paved for me and the decision felt so easy. I'm often indecisive but my whole body, mind and soul were a YES, even despite the huge price to get this done properly.
So a little back story, I had whatâs called tuberous breasts when I was younger, and that's why I saw doctors in my mid-20s, after 10 years or more of hiding my boobs and hating their asymmetry and abnormal shape. I was super skinny back then and the only option on the NHS or even with private surgeons was implants, so I went ahead and got them to âcover overâ the issue. And wow did I love my new boobies. It worked really well and my boobs looked 'normal'. I never had them for the size, in fact I was asked if I wanted bigger implants at the time by a surgeon, he couldnât believe I wasn't doing it for big boobs. They ended up awesome so I was happy, until I started getting really sick and had to see with open eyes the risk I was taking and the havoc I was causing on my body by having toxic plastic over my heart and lungs (sounds mad when you put it like that doesnât it!
Having this breast abnormality/deformity in the first place though (that wasnât corrected by the implants, just hidden) meant that now my surgery was not going to be as simple as just taking the implant out (called explant), it was going to be a reconstruction too, to correct the tuberous shape, which involved fat transfer from my belly, abs, hips and waist to help with the shaping as well as a mastopexy (lift).
Well the surgery went well as you probably know from my instagram posts, and I can't tell you how relieved I am to have them out. Even if the toxicity from these was only part of the puzzle, I can already feel the strain they were putting on my body for all these years, the tension over my heart, the stress my body had to detox constantly. Things that I subtly knew, and I think many women with implants do, but one that you canât quite explain, until you remove them and see what was happening all the time in the background. I had already known when the time came to replace them (this should be done every 10-15 years) I wouldnât. I have grown so much in the last 10 years and having plastic in my body does not align with my healthy, toxin-free, organic ethos - does it?!
Before and since my surgery I have delved even deeper into the damage breast implants are doing to everyone womanâs body, whether she knows it or not, and I wanted to shout from the rooftops for all my friends with implants to consider this, in fact all women.
The 2 surgeons I met with both predominantly do explants now, they spend their time un-doing the damage caused by breast implants, and they both have been studying women during this process and said that 70-80% of women got significantly better IMEDIATELY after explant - how mad is that!
Sadly the implant industry is a multi-trillion dollar industry. The company that owns Allergen implants, a type that were recalled due to safety issues, is worth $95 Billion alone. Thatâs only one company!! Sadly for me, they also made the implants I had, Motiva, and sold them to me as a lie. I was told they were saline, and therefore so much safer, but this is just marketing BS. Yes implants can now be filled with saline, but the shell is still silicone and so no less toxic. To add to that, my surgeon checked them and even though the ID card I have with them said saline-filled, they in fact were silicon gel! So I am now going to be following this up with the brand!!
This huge industry refuses to do any studies, or allow any studies into Breast Implant Illness, so thankfully some of the surgeons are taking it on themselves to research and collect data that would help eventually stop this immoral practice of putting plastic inside of women, or at least raise awareness so women can be informed before they go ahead. I had not one warning about my implants - itâs shocking!
There are 40+ chemicals in them that are toxic, endocrine disruptors and carcinogenic that 100% leech into the body whether we want to admit that or not. All implants cone out thinner than they went in, where did that silicon go? I recently had the chance to smell new implants and theyâve got that plasticy smell, which I donât know about you, but I wouldn't even put that on my skin, let alone inside my body to remain wet and start to decay!! But somehow with implants we're hood-winked to think it's OK. IT'S NOT.
On top of all that there is a newly found type of cancer that is breast implant cancer that develops in the scar capsule around them!! It all blows my mind!
Scarily this is not just isolated to breast implants. Implants of any sort can cause the same toxicity illness, as can amalgam fillings and botox - all things that have been so normalised over the last few decades!
There are some fabulous account to follow if you want more info on toxicity, you can also reach out to me. I love these accounts on instagram:
@reversingbreastimplantillness
@dr.jess.md
@breast_implant_illness
There is also a fabulous book called âTOXICâ by Neil Nathan that discusses chronic illness and the modern toxicity epidemic - Iâll discuss more about this in another blog!
I will keep sharing my progress as I recover from chronic illness, so far I feel lighter in energy, less fatigued despite an invasive 5 hour surgery and have said goodbye to the dread feeling I woke up with at 5am every day! Fingers crossed this keeps improving, but no matter what happens, removing my implants has supported my health in more ways than one, and now I can be safe in the knowledge that I am toxin-free and on my way to the healthiest, most vital version of myself â¤