Date: Wed, 23 Aug 2000 21:10:24 EDT

Health Problems Due to Implants 

Sixteen years ago due to my body being out of proportion, from having three children and nursing I decided to have breast implants. Several of my nieces and a few close friends got them and all looked very good without any problems. I was told they were perfectly safe by the plastic surgeon and I assumed they were FDA approved. If I had known they were not I never would have had them put into by body. During the operation to put them in my heart rate became unusual with pvc's a cardiologist had to come in and assisted. My irregular beat lasted for ten years with doublets and triplets and I was on flecidine heart medicine. Every year I had to have a nuclear stress test. I was put in the hospital twice for two weeks to try and control the beats. Eventually they became normal and no one knew why I got them and what made them go away. I also had a severe allergic reaction and was put in the hospital. My eyes were closed, lips swollen, red odd shapes all over my body with severe itching. I was packed in ice and hourly meds rubbed all over me, also had an IV with meds dripping in. It was never really diagnosed or understood why I had the allergic reaction by the medical world. I had that happen in the second year after implanted. I told them I had implants and they didn't seem at all concerned that it could be the problem. The fifteenth year I started having wrist pain, also fingers, and gradually up my left arm, later in story you will see my left implant had ruptured. I went to Georgetown University Hospital's emergency room for my pain in my wrist. The doctor gave me naprosyn and put on a wrist support, said I was depressed. The doctor said I had carpal tunnel or reflex sympathy dystrophy. 

Eventually it spread all over my body. I went to several doctors and then was referred to rheumatologists. I had many blood tests done by each doctor especially checking thyroid and for diabetes, which showed up negative. I was put on b12, magnesium, and lidocaine injections for one and a half years and over thirty different prescriptions over a period of two years. I had never had anything chronic and couldn't believe someone couldn't make all this pain go away. I had electronic tests done, EEG and EMG, by three neurologists. I lay on his table with my arms over my head on my back and just cried from the unknown terrible pain while waiting for my appointment. I could hardly drive home. He didn't know what was wrong! They recommended a psychiatrist and physical therapy, and more prescriptions. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue also myofascial pain, but no one knew why. It could be from physical stress or mental stress and/or trauma. I had been under a lot of stress with my father and mother being elderly and ill and I was the only sibling near them and a busy job with the government. My husband had just retired and within six months he had a major heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery also six months from the heart bypass he needed another bypass of aorta by iliac on both sides. I didn't know why I was ill but as you can see I was under a lot of stress. 

In the summer of 1996 I became so exhausted for several weeks that I couldn't get out of bed or get dressed. When I did get up I could only maybe go to bathroom and back to bed. I was so tired and in terrible pain. I had to put each arm and leg up onto a pillow to take the strain off my joints. I lay on a heating pad for an hour at a time and then got up and tried to sit up for a short time. I told each doctor that I had implants and was there any connection! They did not think so. I am fairly intelligent, but I had never heard of FMS, myofascial pain and cfs. It overwhelmed me and I was scared. I took all the many prescriptions and had physical therapy but I did not get well. My memory became very bad, and I would write out checks for our bills and forget to put check into envelope or mail them the wrong check. I had very dark dents on the inner part of my eyes, rashes on my body, terrible heat waves and sweating on chest and neck, pain in neck and ears (tmj) upper arm pain, especially left side and shoulders felt like bursitis. I had muscle spasms throughout my body. I went to two main hospitals and two well known universities in the DC, and Maryland area. I always told them I had double lumen implants for the last sixteen years could that be the problem. I had trigger point injections into muscle spasms in upper back and neck. My legs and feet had terrible pins and needles for hours at a time. Twice the numbness was so bad I turned my right ankle and received ruptured ligaments and ankle had to be put in a cast. I still have a mild amount for hours at a time. I still sweat profusely when I have a hot flash but also if I try to do anything, even something not requiring much energy. I will have to sit down for five or ten minutes until it passes. My blood work showed I had inflammation, a high rheumatoid factor, sed rate, pos ana, low cortisol, my skin burned if around any coldness, dampness or a draft. I continued to have a yearly mammogram, and one sonogram and also mri was done after I became ill. 

I started taking off work for hours here and there coming in late and leaving early due to pain and fatigue. I would became confused about some of the work I did. I had known all of the functions of my job position, had received awards for my outstanding work and now some of it seemed almost different and confused me. I couldn't concentrate on more than one thing at a time. I would fall asleep on my lunchtime and go off the road going to work and also driving home. I even had to roll the window down for fresh air to help. I said I will be back when they make me well, which I thought would be in a few weeks. It now has been four years! Due to my health I had to retire on disability from the Federal government and also Social Security. My income was suddenly cut in half. This put us in a financial mess leaving work unexpectedly . I wasn't able to drive a car, I wasn't able to do hardly anything around the house due to extreme pain, fatigue and now depression. It deprived my family of a wife, mother, grandmother and also of income from salary and future retirement annuity. 

While at home ill, I fell down metal steps from my kitchen to carport, I developed a herniated disc at l5-s1. I had to be operated on for laminectomy-discectomy in June 1998. The operation was very painful and I was on our couch and trying to get well which dragged on for two years. If my cotton lightweight robe would touch my leg on the back of my calf it would hurt. I was told the c-reactive protein results showed nine which meant super hyper-skin sensitivity. All this time I had to have physical therapy. It still is painful from the sciatic nerve, and scar tissue. I also had three epidurals done at the hospital in the spine and pain clinic this past year to help with sciatica nerve pain. 

The first two epicurals didn't help. Each one was two weeks apart but the third one reduced the pain by 25%. Every year I always went to have my mammograms and pap tests done. A technician, who usually did my mammogram said she had three other women with implants who were also ill with chest and arm pain. Not one doctor ever said it could be my implants and I told all of them that I did have silicone breast implants. When they told me of the other women the light came on in my brain, its the implants! This was fall of 1998. I gathered all my mammograms, sonos, and mri after the technician told me of the other women. One report said I had a slight wrinkle on left side, no rupture, don't worry about it, and see you next year. In desperation, I finally called the plastic surgeon who had put them in sixteen years ago. He said," bring all your reports and come see me". From the mri he said it showed rupture on the left side and he said I should have them out. I also had a nodule on top of sternum 1cm, and one in upper gastric area. A cyst on the right breast near the nipple appeared close to the surface, a very hard small nodule. The p/s said he would take that off when he did the explantation. I called the radiologists who had read my previous mri and mammograms and told them of what the plastic surgeon said, and I wanted these films looked at again by two different radiologists, because the p/s says I have a rupture. I had that rupture for three years with unrelenting pain, and no one ever believed it was from the implants. The radiologists then re-read and agreed there was a rupture finally. I was in pain almost three years with the implants, with out the implants being considered as the problem.

I had to fight my hospitalisation for authorisation tooth and nail to help pay for explantation because they only wanted to pay for left breast. After several letters and phone calls my plastic surgeon said he would write off the charges for the right breast. 

During this time, I kept sending in all medical papers to the Global Suite but thinking it really couldn't be from implants could it! A lawyer working as a counsellor to answer questions about the suite, at a phone number given on the paperwork that the suite had sent for information, spoke with me on a few of my calls for asking questions. I asked him do you think this is possible that they made women ill. He said "yes", and that my bloodwork was the same as the first woman that sued. Then I knew for sure!! I have now obtained a lawyer to help me, before that I hadn't. The lawyer also gave me the phone number of a woman who was in the suite and very knowledgeable about the symptoms and also legal issues. I had never known or spoken with anyone else who was ill just like me. After speaking with her, I found we had all the same symptoms. I had Cox Uphoff for three months, and three M for many years, both were double lumen, with the inner larger lumen section of silicone and a little saline in outer shell. I heard somewhere only 40cc of saline. I now know that even the shell of silicone can bleed. It has been a year since explantation and mastopexy, which was the most painful surgery I have ever had. I had stitches on the inside, of long incisions under each breast. On the outside I had about twenty staples on each incision and also nodules removed. I developed an infection where each staple was inserted. Who knows what the nodules really were! The implants were taken out "en bloc" as advised by woman I spoke with. She had previously had hers out and was a support leader. They were sent to pathology where they were weighed and scar capsules were also taken out, "en bloc", and examined. The report said foreign body inflammation. The nodules which they called cysts (could have been granulomas). I now have a nodule on my thyroid, for now they say benign but have it checked again in six months and one kidney stone. I also sent my implants to Dr. Pierre Blais for him to analyse. He sent me a very interesting report showing the left outer lumen ruptured, the right intact. In the saline it showed fungus and mycrobacteria. He included copies of catalogues showing 3M and Cox Uphoff telling doctors what they can purchase, price and possible side effects. This was never shown to me at time of implant. It was the most solid information I had ever read about implants. 

This whole medical tragedy has ruined several years of my life, put me into a terrible financial situation, trying to come to grips with all of this. I was constantly searching for the truth and a good doctor. Still looking for the truth, I read a book suggested by the group leader written by a rheumatologist , The Silicone Breast Implant Controversy, it cleared up a lot of unanswered questions. I would advise any woman, or anyone concerned to read this. I pray everyday that I will fully recover from this terrible disease. Each day I wake up and don't know what that day will bring, whether I will have fatigue and muscle pain or feel fairly good. I am a little better, my rashes are better, the swelling has come down, my mind has improved, also my skin isn't burning as much as it did. I still have a long way to go to be like I was before this terrible thing took over. There isn't any amount of money that could compensate for the hell I have been through, not a billion. All I have received is $1,000 for proof of manufacturer, an $3,000 for explant with proof of operative report. I could use some monetary amount just to get myself out of being so far in debt and for medicines. But if I could change what happened I would never make such a decision to have the implants. Some friends of mine who also have implants have contracture but have not been explanted because they are not in pain yet. I don't know if everyone will eventually have bodywide pain or if it only happens to women who are sensitive or allergic to chemicals. I do feel the timing of the rupture and my pain is the same time frame and it did make me ill and suffer terribly. My family life and my friendship with others has been put into a very stressful relationship the last four years due to the pain and mixed diagnosis. I feel sometimes like I am a prisoner in my own home. I don't have the stamina to attend different social events very often. I don't look like I did before all of this. I look tired and my hair has thinned and turned white throughout almost my whole head. I feel the silicone and saline made my immune system work against itself and caused my illness. Thank God the doctor put me on antibiotics in the beginning, just in case there was something in my body causing all this. It has been horrible not knowing what caused this and now knowing, trying to find a doctor willing to help and knowledgeable about silicone, and trying to get well, dealing with the suite, the pain and depression, worrying about my health now, and in the future, who knows for sure what health issues we are in store for. 

I have in the past year, after I bought a computer, spoken with some women who are having similar problems, some more and some less. They are silicone women whose friendship has helped so much, knowing I am not alone. Some say you will improve in time. There are some women who are activist for this silicone implant disease cause who have similar symptoms and say some have died and also committed suicide. Dr. Blais said possibly two years and I would recover based on his research for many years of failed medical devices. 

There are 5,000 women in Maryland alone, and 2,000 in D. C. very ill. I have been told to be anonymous, or it could destroy any monetary amount I might get, which wouldn't be more than $20,000. It maybe would have paid for my gasoline, parking and medicine. Isn't that a slap in the face! I was told not to attend the FDA meetings in March 2000, that it was for saline women and not double lumen. We are all afraid about our present and future health. Some women have told me you will improve, and others say you will get worse and die. I guess only God will decide. 

Six months after explant I had my first mammogram, without breast implants in my body, and a nodule was seen in my right breast. I had wonderful, caring radiologist named, Dr. Yingling who serves women out of the Breast Care Center in Bethesda, Maryland. She redid my mammos and explained everything to me while showing me the film. She showed me the mammos done somewhere else were not of good clarity. She checked for scar capsules that could have been left in and also the lymph nodes for silicone. I was somewhat paranoid that something was left in the breast after explant or they were not healing inside. She did a needle biopsy of the odule while using sonogram at the hospital. I heard later she was well known for sono biopsies. The plastic surgeon recommended her to me, that she takes care of his wife and also sister. It showed changing cells and I was advised to have it removed. I had that removed immediately and was very scared that it might be cancer. It wasn't thank God. It was benign but did have the changing cells. I have been taken off of hormones due to having the nodule which was the type that would feed off of estrogen and now I get bad, hot flashes which feel like a blow torch is on my neck. My neck turns very red, burns and I perspire from the upper half of my body. My neck after the hot flash still retains some of the redness. From under the breast area sweat runs down profusely. I have terrible night sweats also. After I have the hot flash if any part of my skin is out from the covers the air will burn my skin, especially if the air conditioner is on or even a ceiling fan. 

This is my story so far. Please keep this without a name or it could cancel any little monetary amount I might get years from now. A woman who is a victim of silicone says she has a video movie, which she had made that proves our implant holocaust. I wonder if anyone would know her name I would like to have a copy. I read somewhere months ago someone was making a film and selling it for $20.00 would that be her? There is also a great book named, The Silicone Breast Implant Controversy by Dr. Frank B. Vasey and Josh Feldstein. This doctor spoke the truth on Capitol Hill. Some doctors may shun him but after that brave speech he is now booked up a year in advance by silicone women who are ill. I think he is located in Tampa, Florida at the university. 

It has been fourteen months since explantation and I think I am slowly getting better. I don't have to lay down as often as I did. I have to really pace myself. If I overdue it I pay for it. My pain is not as severe and not all over my body. My skin burns sometimes but not all the time. Once I go to sleep I feel I get a goods night sleep. I do have hot flashes several times a day where my neck gets very red. I get a cold washcloth and lay it on my neck and take a break. I don't have any rashes on my skin presently. My medications are down from thirty to seven: celebrex 200mg 2x per day, plaquenil 400mg -2 at PM, Prozac 20 mg in a. m., upt to 30 mg recently, neurotin 600mg-4-5 x day, pamelor was, 100mg reduced to 50mg at p.m., after Prozac added, flexeril 30 mg, p.m. and 10 mg a.m., maxide 75/50 1 am, Tylenol for arthritis as needed, vicodin as needed only when pain is bad. Some women have told me malic acid and magnesium has helped with their muscle pain taken regularly. I am trying to do gentle stretches several times per day and a short walk in the fresh air. I have terrible scars under my breasts and only recently have I been able to wear a bra due to tenderness. I hope and pray that within another year I will be well. 

The doctor who is in charge of the Spine and Pain Clinic in the hospital informed me he has several fibromyalgia patients and gives his fibromyalgia patients minocylcine 100mg twice per day for one year and believes some women have this from bacteria. Presently I am in my first month of treatment. He has a 70% cure rate for fms with this antibiotic treatment. He is a young doctor and says this is the latest theory. I hope I can recover from this and that it does help someone to know they are not alone while trying to overcome this, and also that I might be able to change a women mind about getting breast implants. 

I am now at the fifteenth month since my explantation . I think I have quite a lot more energy than I did. My rashes are almost gone. I still have some sciatica in my left leg but I am having physical therapy treatments twice per week. They think since I had fibromyalgia that during the recovery from my back surgery I wasn't able to walk enough and the gluteus and periformis muscle are in spasm. A different physical therapist is using heat, ultra sound and then while muscle is relaxed some taking his elbow and pressing and kneading in the area of the periformis joint. I saw the doctors partner to get his thought on my sciatica problem and he agrees it is not another disc. He gave me a cortisone shot into the area. I did notice less pain from having that type of therapy and the injection done. I am scheduled for three times a week. I feel now it isn't the disc again but a muscle and S I joint problems. My skin still burns some days but not all of the time. I did have an internist eight months ago say he thought my hormones were all messed up. They tested and my estrogen level is too low. The doctor didn't explain that there are even more hormones to check on than estrogen so I didn't persue it. I can't take HRT now but I plan to go to an endocrinologist to check on the pituitary and other glands after reading more on the subject of dopamine, etc. Recently I wrote to Dr.Blais, where he was the only doctor to diagnose, that I was ill from the silicone implants that I sent him, to analyse. I wanted to know is there anything we can do to help in getting well sooner. The most recent blood test show that my blood is going back to a normal range and hopefully my bodies muscles, joints and endurance, and sleep will also.

Nancy