So… You’re Thinking About Getting Breast Implants? Read This First!

So you’re thinking about getting breast implants?

Is it me, or does everybody these days seems to be talking about Breast Implant Illness and explanting their breast implants?

Recently, headlines were made about a rare form of cancer, called BIA-ALCL, that was linked to textured breast implants.

Health organizations worldwide took notice. Canada suspended Allergan’s license for their textured BioCell implants, France banned textured implants outright, and Australia is under pressure to ban them as well as the United States Food & Drug Administration.

For many years, we’ve been told that breast implants are safe. Plastic surgeons, for the most part, warn about risks of complications (rupture, seroma, hematoma, capsular contracture) but I had never heard about all of the maintenance and multiple surgeries required when you sign on for a breast augmentation until I started researching more. Most people I know that have implants are still in the dark. Hence the need for an article that lays out all of the facts.

It wasn’t until I started experiencing some health complications due to my own breast implants, that I started rethinking the things I have been told for years by people that had a financial interest in perpetuating such falsehoods.

After doing much research, I no longer agree with the medical professionals that claim that breast implants are safe. If I could turn back time, I would never have gotten my breasts done in the first place.

Instead of having regrets, I plan to use my voice to help patients that might be considering this surgery become more aware.

For starters, there is a huge problem that needs to be fixed with the breast augmentation surgeons because most patients have not been given all of the real facts in order to be able to give their informed consent. From now going forward, I think it is only fair that patients are told the truth about breast implants that I (and many others) were not told when we got ours.

Contrary to what most doctors have said in the past, breast implants require maintenance. They are not lifetime devices. You are supposed to get them redone at least every ten years, as the bags degrade over time. They are not indestructible. The whole marketing scheme that shows someone cutting open an implant only to display that it looks just like the inside of a harmless gummy bear candy is very misleading and needs to stop. Such theatrics do not demonstrate the safety of these medical devices. One simply needs to google the images of an en bloc capsulectomy disection to see what truly happens to these bags after years of being inside a warm body.

Not only that, women haven’t been told that they should not be getting mammograms because it could potentially rupture your implant. Be aware that if you choose to get implants, you’re taking on additional risk. You won’t be able to get the gold standard test to detect breast cancer because of them. Let that sink in.

Did you know that currently the US Food and Drug Association recommends that all breast implant patients receive an MRI after the first three years and then every two years thereafter to check for what’s called silent rupture? It says so right on the FDA’s website.

Risks of Breast Implants

Most insurance plans don’t cover tests like these because breast augmentation is considered to be elective surgery. These tests are expensive to the tune of $2200 a pop. So if you are adherent to the FDA’s recommendations you would need approximately four MRIs x $2200 ($6600 total) during the span of the ten year approximated lifetime of your implants.

Then you factor in the fact that a good board certified surgeon probably costs around $10000 (or more) for the surgery. So plan for your breast implant maintenance surgeries and tests to run you about $16600 every ten years.

Breast Implants Are a Rich Woman’s Hobby

Eventually, you’re probably going to get older and be 60 years old someday. Are you going to keep getting surgery when you’re getting up there in age at 60, 70, 80, and so on? Do you want to sign on for all of that? When does it end?

And don’t forget that you are rolling the dice that you will be one of the lucky recipients that won’t have any complications from any of these upcoming surgeries you plan on signing on for, but the odds are actually quite stacked against you.

I always went to “celebrity doctors” for my surgeries but my body never liked them, regardless of the surgeon’s skill. I usually developed the dreaded capsular contracture complication in only one of my breasts causing asymmetry. Since I made my money as a model, I had to keep getting them fixed, which cost me a ton of money, not to mention the risks of having to get surgery repeatedly. You can about read what then happened to me when my body finally rejected my implants and eventually tried to force one out through my skin here:

Pray that none of that happens to you. However, these complications are a lot more common than you think. The “that sort of thing only happens to someone else” way of thinking may steer you down a bad path.

Then there’s the chance that you could get sick with that something that everyone is talking about these days, called Breast Implant Illness (which I strongly believe is what may have caused my horror story with implants). I’ve personally seen many go from healthy and vivacious to being bedridden, unable to work, and constantly sick, while in and out of hospitals.

Symptoms of Breast Implant Illness

Still thinking about getting breast implants? Better also make sure you keep an additional $12000 — $15000 on hand just in case you too get sick and need to explant your breast implants. Ch-ching!

Start Saving Your Money Now… You Will Need Lots!

Even worse, the FDA recently announced that there is a special man-made form of cancer of the immune system called BIA-ALCL that is found only in women with implants. Sure, it’s rare, but it’s still a risk.

I think if more people knew what breast implants really entailed, they’d decide against them.

Don’t do it! You are beautiful the way that you are. YOU are enough!!!! You don’t need implants! It’s not even worth it.

YOU are enough!!

You’d be putting a huge foreign object that is made with chemicals like printer ink and a cleaning solvent inside you. Breast implants are made of neurotoxins, heavy metals, and carcinogens… And they go into your body where it’s nice and warm, right next to your heart and lungs. What could possibly go wrong?

Chemical Soup — Breast Implant Ingredients

Scientists say that water bottles left in a hot car can leach the chemicals into the water, then what do they think happens when you put all of those chemicals into a body that’s 98.6 degrees? Where do you think that the chemicals that degrade inside your body go? They surely don’t evaporate!

Your health should always be more important than aesthetics. If you don’t have your health, you don’t have much.

I also believe breast implants to be less in fashion now than they once were when I got mine.

If you ever want to talk about any of this, feel free to get in touch with me by leaving a comment below. Or if you’d rather DM me privately, you can find me easily. I’m @bobbibillard pretty much everywhere on the internet.

Best of luck to you with your decision. I know you’ll decide what is right for YOU. No judgment either way.

To me, it’s a no brainer. Buy a pushup bra instead and save all that money for something else. ❤