J's Saline Implant/Explant Story by CJ My name is CJ and I am a 36-year-old medical secretary and single mom living in California. In 1998 I had finally reached my goal of losing over 50 pounds. I had struggled with my weight, for a while, it was mostly down, but frequently up as well. I had adopted a lifestyle that was healthy, and was primarily into power walking and jogging, along with swimming, and some weightlifting. I was thrilled with my new figure; I was a size 5 and loved it. I felt fantastic; I used to run up to 30 miles a week, it was such a wonderful feeling. I knew this time I wasn't going to gain the weight back. There was only one problem, my once perky, quite full B small C breasts had shrunken down and were terribly saggy and covered with lots of stretch marks. Where I used to be able to put them into a nice push up bra and achieve great looking cleavage there were now these ugly stretch marks and nothing but loose, floppy skin. It was depressing. I had heard allot of talk about implants, saline of course, because I knew the silicone ones carried risks and thought even though I am pretty poor I bet I could save enough to get some and make my breasts look good again. Unlike many women small breasts hadn't ever bothered me, I liked my breasts when they were a nice perky B cup, and when I gained a little weight and they stretched to a c cup they looked great. After gaining 60 pounds with my daughter they were huge, but they still didn't look too bad when I went back down to 120 pounds. I was ok with being small. After gaining another 55 or so pounds and then the final weight loss was when I became somewhat obsessed with my breasts. I was only 34 years old, and I was single, and I just didn't feel I could ever be intimate with a man again with these 80-year-old woman breasts. So I checked into some sites on the net and made some appointments and started searching for a surgeon. I work at a great hospital but was way too uncomfortable discussing this with anyone I knew so I talked to my sister who also wanted to get hers done. She knew lots of women who had implants and so we went to a few consultations and got some opinions. The first two I saw said I needed a lift as well and the $$ were in the 10,000 range. I saw one who swore by smooth implants on top of the muscle, (this was also not what I wanted) although his fee was more reasonable. Finally I found a Dr. who seemed very good, came highly recommended and said he could fix my breasts and make them look great without a lift and placing them sub muscularly. I was thrilled, and began to scrimp and save. It took me almost 2 years but I finally had my date set and the money and everything seemed to be falling into place. I had chosen February of 1999. Unfortunately I got sick with a bad flu, so I had to reschedule. It was ironic because my sister had to cancel her surgery due to some calcifications on her mammogram. I kept thinking it was strange, almost like I was not meant to get these implants. I almost cancelled but decided not to, I re scheduled for April 5th 1999. I was very stupid, looking back now, I never asked what type of implant, I only knew they were to be placed under the muscle and that they would be a full c. I just wanted them filled out, not too big just nice and full. I had the surgery and it was so much more painful than I had ever been told. I was not prepared for this kind of pain and I had only one week off work. I was in agony and on painkillers and sleeping on my back was miserable. I could also tell that while they looked good, the right one seemed to be off and lower and not quite right. From day one I was not happy with that breast. If I wouldn't have ended up with illness I would probably had insisted he fix it. These photos are my pre explant photos, and as you can see, my implants were way too big and saggy and I had the dreaded "double bubble".   After two weeks I was still not myself but I was going stir crazy. My Dr told me it would be ok to start light workouts again, and so I started with walking and then about 3-4 weeks into it I was jogging lightly and doing some tae boa. I was not feeling right, weak, and just not good, but I attributed it to the surgery, etc. my incisions looked great, I looked fantastic in clothes, but the implants were firm, and uncomfortable, and the whole lower part of my breasts were numb, but my nipples had full sensation, and by a month and a half I was sleeping on my tummy and finally feeling like I was getting better. Summer was coming and I was excited, but still stressing on my right breast not looking right. It hung lower and you could see the crease from where it used to be. But everyone kept telling me they looked great and I decided to let it go and see how it looked and give it time to heal. So, it had been 3 months, I still had lots of discomfort, but I could live with that, but I started noticing subtle things, changes. I felt flu like; I kept thinking I was getting sick, chills, and fatigued, and funny. My feet were achy and my hands were achy. This seemed strange, since I wasn't doing anything with them to cause them to feel strange. I was tired all the time, and felt funny, but I kept thinking I was stressed or tired and shrugging it off. By now I felt I should be able to run at least somewhat like I used to, but I just felt so weak when I did. My legs felt heavy, and then one day something happened and my hip got strained or something and from then on it was like all these things started going wrong. I went to the Dr. for the hip, I was very concerned, and also mentioned the ache ness and the implants. She shrugged it off, prescribed me Motrin and sent me away. I backed off on the jogging and tried swimming and still had all this ache ness and my feet were really bad. I couldn't understand what was happening. I started thinking what if it was my implants. "No" I told myself "it can't be that". I found a tiny little lump in my breast and panicked, and then upon inspection found another under my arm and several in my groin area. I had these checked out and was told they were lymph nodes and no big deal. My Plastic surgeon said they could be related to a reaction to the implants and not to worry. I again brought up the achiness and he seemed pretty unconcerned and told me it was probably nothing. Then my head started in. I remember it came on subtly at first. I walked into a room and everything seemed foggy and distant and like it was weird, like I was high, or something was wrong with my vision. I shook it off and drank some coffee thinking I was stressed or tired. It seemed to come and go for about a week. I kept telling my mom I felt weird, dizzy, strange, but no one seemed to understand. Finally, one day I was vacuuming and the room just started spinning around, I felt so sick. I went to work everyday like this. I work at a hospital and I felt like I was probably safer there than at home, but I was becoming very scared. I started thinking I had MS or a brain tumor or something awful, but all along in my mind I couldn't help but wonder if it was somehow something related to my implants. I went back to the Dr again. This time I was refereed to a psychiatrist. He didn't seem to think I was depressed. He thought it sounded more like a medical problem, while the medical Dr. s seemed to think it was a mental problem. I convinced him to let me try some anti depressants, praying that maybe that was an answer. Nothing was working though. I could still function and work and would try to push myself to workout and do things, but I always felt messed up and achy, not right. I had many lab tests, saw many specialists, spoke with many Dr's and even had an MRI and nerve conduction tests because I was concerned about ms. All those things were ruled out. I decided to wait, and struggled with my decision. In the mean time,I tried different drugs, nothing really helped. I tried acupuncture. I tried treatment for yeast, for anxiety. I tried counseling and the counselor told me she too, didn't think I was depressed in a clinical sense. She thought I was depressed, yes, who wouldnt be, but she believed my problems were real, and the pain issues got worse and worse. I saw my rheumatologist, and while he gave me a diagnosis of fibromyalgia, he told me he didn't think I had a true case, and neither did I. I still am amazed at my ability to work, and to get in some exercise, even though I felt like I was spaced out and achy all the time. I tried so hard to get through each day. It was difficult alone. I have family and friends, but lets face it, people don't understand what it is like. They saw me and I looked fine. I looked great, in fact, which I was happy about. Yet, it made it harder for people to believe I was ill, because I looked normal, my implants looked great, and they were firm, not hard, and they looked really nice in clothes, and even unclothed. I hated to give them up, but even if by some chance it wasn't the implants causing all this, how could I live like this and not knowing if it was in my head all the time? Would I recover, and regain my health? (Only time will tell.) I took clonazepam for sleep, and vicodin for pain and these helped, but I hated taking drugs everyday. I still didn’t sleep very well. I had no motivation and had hardly any social life anymore. What good are beautiful big breasts with no social life? I used to love to go shopping, and now the lights in the stores made my head spin. I used to love to go out and have fun. Now I just wanted to stay home and do nothing. After work I hardly felt strong enough to stay up till 9pm most nights. That is no way to live. My list of symptoms: Aches and pains, hands are stiff and ache and feet too Knee pain, hip pain, neck pain, back pain, Visual disturbances, off balance Dizzy spacey lightheadedness, almost like being drunk Foggy head Fatigue that comes and goes Red rash on chest Sleep problems (not enough or too much) Feeling of being sick, but hard to describe Feeling of things just not being right Swollen lymph nodes Elevated Ana test Diagnosed with fibromyalgia and possible connective tissue disorder Finally, a series of events occurred in my life and they all pointed in one direction-explant. I spoke to many women over the course of the last year and a half, and the name Dr.Feng kept popping up as the best plastic surgeon for removing and reconstruction. I had emailed her and spoken with her, and I just had a feeling about her. I had decided that if I was going to get them out, she was the only one I would let do it. I just felt that I could not go to another male, no matter who he was. So when the opportunity arose for me to get a free ticket to Cleveland, I called and made my appointment and it was set for December 7th, and surgery on December 8th. It was costly, and far from my home, and I was nervous, but mostly I just want to be done with it now. I had my explant on December 7th 2000 in Cleveland Ohio by Dr.Lu-Jean Feng. I was very pleased with Dr.Feng and her staff. They were kind, knowledgable, friendly, and understanding. Dr.Feng spent at least 3 or 4 hours with me the day before my surgery explaining possible risks, complications, what to expect, showing me before and after pictures, explaining exactly step by step, what would happen to me, and putting me at ease. I was, by this time, completely committed to this decision to have the implants removed. She marked me with a purple pen and after we talked and got my prescriptions written and everything in order I left and went back to my motel with my mom. My surgery was scheduled for the next day at 6am. It was snowing, freezing cold the next morning, as we drove the short distance to Dr.Feng’s clinic. I changed and was led into the pre op area where Dr.Feng came in and started my IV herself. I was impressed with her ability to get it the first time, as I am a hard stick. The drugs kicked in and I was very relaxed when I was put in the OR on the table. I remember nothing else until I woke up 5 or 6 hours later and with the worse sore throat of my life. I was given some ginger ale and water and was in a lot of pain. Dr.Feng came and held my hand and assured me that she had removed all of the scar capsule and that it had taken allot of effort to get my implants out. She told me that she had no doubt in her mind my implants had been making me very ill. She said there was much inflammation in the tissue surrounding the implants and that there was alot of scar tissue and that because of the textured surface of my implants that they had been embedded in my chest wall and required much scraping and cutting and prying to remove them. (I was very aware of this fact over the next 3 months as I remained sore for a very very long time. I have never been a slow healer, and my incisions healed very quickly.)This points out that textured implants are very dangerous, in my opinion, and should never ever be used (not that any implants are good) but these are some of the worst on the market. The next problem I had were the drains. Oh boy, as a nursing Assistant I have emptied many Jackson pratt drains in my life, but I had no idea they were so uncomfortable. I was told I could get them out when each side had less than 30cc’s of fluid in it. It was supposed to be 3 days and I had my flight scheduled in 4, but it was not to be. The first day I put out 100cc’s of bloody fluid in each side. The second day was even worse, and by the 3rd day while it started to come down, it was still way more than 30cc’s. It was time to change my flight. There were more costs, and more days in the hotel room. My mom was going stir crazy. I was taking percocett and vicodin for pain. I was so used to the vicodin, that I functioned well on these (after having been on them for a few months due to my chronic pain situation). The percocette knocked me out so I could sleep at night. We were getting cabin fever, so we decided to venture out in the snow and go to only "touristy" places in the area. The first day we went to the "NFL Hall of Fame". This was good to get out, but not without its difficulties, considering I had those uncomfortable drains underneath my big sweater and felt like I looked fat and ridiculous. The next day I ventured out again to the "Rock n Roll Hall of Fame ". I overdid it that day and was feeling pretty awful. I was,of course, disappointed, because in my mind, I had hoped for an instant relief of my symptoms. Oh well, this was not the case, and looking back, I realize how unrealistic my expectations were. I should mention that I had not seen what was underneath the heavy padding, thick bandage and surgical bra yet, but I had tried to peek down the top. I could see the curve of my breasts so I felt I had something left but what,I had no idea. My drains were a constant source of frustration. They were continually flowing. I was drinking loads of water, hoping to flush things out. My mom couldn't believe how much water I drank. We were sick of Cleveland- sick of the motel, sick of all the local restaurants, and this was starting to cost a lot more than we expected. I cancelled another flight, scheduled it for Sunday the 16th. I was praying I could get the drains out by then. Dr.Feng said she wanted to look at my incisions and clean them and check everything, so I returned to the clinic. I was scared to look. It was awful. They took the bandages off and I was flat as a pancake, smooshed down, the tape had irritated my skin and it was red, and the incisions were not pretty. As you can see the incisions look great and my breasts are symmetrical but I was a mess from the compression bandage and the drain holes were very irritated, I had to have the drains for 8 days. I put out at least 100cc's of fluid for all that time till the very end esp. the right breast which required allot more work than the other She seemed pleased. She said my breasts were "cute". I was not not feeling cute, but they were even and a nice shape so I could see where they would get better, once healed. The drain holes were irritated, and they burned and ached, but I was stuck with them for a few more days. Finally Saturday came, and Dr.Feng said the drains needed to come out. I was still draining more than 30ccs on the right side, but the left was down to 15. I was thrilled, because they were coming out. We returned to her office that day and she took the drains out. This hurt for a second, then it was such a relief. Aahhhhh! She taped them up. She took "after" pictures of my breasts. Then she wrapped me up tight, because she was concerned about fluid possibly building up again in the empty pockets where the implants were. Then, we were off. We were going home at 5am and we were thrilled. Back home, finally and , I was depressed. I was flat as a pancake in this bandage . However, I had to get my butt to work the next day. I managed, and I got through this difficult period. The holidays gave me time to rest, and I never missed another day of work due to this surgery. Well, healing continued. After about 8 weeks, I was finally able to wear a bra again, that was somewhat flattering. I was able to work out, and able to do most things. I was still not without my symptoms, however. During all that time, I had my boyfriend in Idaho supporting me and helping me as much as he can from far away. I was worried about how he would feel about me without my big boobs. He assured me "it doesn’t matter." I made plans to visit him as it was time we find out the truth. I was doing a lot better, but still having health issues. March, 3 months post op, I flew to Idaho. My fiancé loved me, and he loved my breasts. We decided to make things legal. We got married. My fears about how I would feel about sex, about being naked again, about my breasts, were all laid to rest. Everything still worked! LOL! I was happy. Things were looking up, I was planning to sell my home in California and move to Idaho. In April, I was back in California. I was told by my rheumatologist that I still had a high ANA and we needed to run more tests. I was sad, lupus??????? I already had the mixed connective tissue disease diagnosis (which I didn’t believe completely) . We set an appointment for May 1st, to do tests for schleroderma, sjorgrens, lupus, etc. I was scared. I had really good days and really bad days, but overall I was feeling better. In May, my tests were all negative. I did not have lupus, I did not have the dreaded schleroderma. I was still very achy and had moments of spacinesss, and my energy was low at times, but I still was better than with the implants . I could think clearer, I was learning what worked and what didn’t, I was still doing a very healthy diet, and I was taking so many supplements I was loosing track. I was frustrated by the ups and downs, but hanging tough. I made the decision to start taking plaquenil for my rheumatism; I am told by dozens of women that it is a godsend. I struggled over this for a long time and then I decided I would try it. My breasts looked good, and at 5 months I was pleased. The scars were light, still noticeable, but not bad. They had fluffed out a bit. I was no longer so self conscious of them. My head was amazingly clear at times. Some days I was tired, especially after work. Some days I was full of energy, and I was able to jog one or two times a week and power walk the other 1 or 2 days. My diet was healthy, and I was getting stronger. Emotionally I was not over this whole thing. I still feared lupus. I still had a high ANA (antibody test) and I was convinced it could still be from the implants, residual toxins or whatever. I was getting better, my head was getting clearer than it had been in a year and a half. I knew I made the right decision even if I never recovered completely. I could tell my body was healing. My breasts were looking great. I warn any woman considering implants, to consider my story. Implants destroyed my life, and even if I should I regain my health completely, the cost (financially and emotionally) will be with me for the rest of my life. It has been a nightmare. I have put my friends and family through hell, and I have put my poor daughter through hell. She didn't know exactly what wass wrong, only that mommy didn't feel well most of the time. This whole ordeal has cost me $15,600 ( even more if you count the prescription meds, the supplements, the lab tests -thank God for my great insurance) and I still have lingering effects which I know are related to the toxic reaction my body had to the implants. The pain and the suffering was awful, and when I have a flare, or something sets me off it is frightening. Sometimes, I still fear that I may end up with a full blown auto-immune disease, but I pray that I will not. < I am not going to tell anyone not to get implants, for it is not for me to decide. There are women who claim they feel great and have no health problems, and I hope that they remain that way. Maybe they will be lucky, and maybe they are not sensitive like me. Maybe down the road they will have problems,too. I do not know. I only know that I am sure it had to be the implants as there was nothing else in my life that changed. Remember, I was a strong healthy athletic woman when I got ill only 3 months after my implants were placed. This can happen and does happen even with saline implants. Now, my ANA test has come down and is almost normal, borderline at last check. I work out like an animal at the gym, 5 times a week. I do spinning, weights and I have a killer muscular frame. I am down to 17% body fat. I look great,and I feel great. although I have some pain in my feet and hands occasionally. My new husband is an angel, he is perfect, and he loves me and we have 5 children combined. I am a new woman, so there is a happy ending. I hope this story will help someone who is going through this ordeal to feel better about the situation, and anyone considering implants to think of all that I have endured. NEW!! CLICK HERE for CJ's 17 month UPDATE PHOTOS! Love, CJ Email CJ NOTE- CJ has shared her ordeal on other "Pro implant" forums, only to be ridiculed and eventually have her story completely removed. We felt her story was powerful, truthful, and compelling. Her story is NOT RARE, and we are happy to include her experience on our site. How many other women are out there who want to share their stories, but are ignored? Thanks for sharing your story with us CJ!