Fw: Reconstructive surgery in the '70s was the beginning of a nightmare for many...

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----- Original Message -----

From: " ilena rose " <ilena2000@...>

<patricia.hagen@...>

Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 12:12 PM

Subject: Reconstructive surgery in the '70s was the beginning of a nightmare

for many...

> Bravo! Articles like these can awaken many women to what is happening in

> their own bodies. Thank you Ms Hagen and Indystar!

>

>

>

>

>

> http://www.indystar.com/articles/7/120178-7087-047.html

>

> Implants' legacy is misery

> Reconstructive surgery in the '70s was the beginning of a nightmare for

> many.

>

>

> " I was never given any indication there would be any problems with them, "

> Janice Jackman says of her implants. -- Matt Detrich / The Star

>

>

> By Hagen

> patricia.hagen@...

> February 13, 2004

>

>

> Janice Jackman is one of the thousands of Indiana women involved in

> class-action lawsuits against manufacturers of silicone-gel breast

implants.

>

> Women involved in the lawsuits received implants beginning in the 1970s,

and

> have been dealing with health problems ever since.

>

> What Jackman calls a " constant battle " started in 1975, when she was a

> 33-year-old mother of five in South Bend. At high risk for breast cancer

> because of fibrocystic breast disease, she had a bilateral mastectomy and

> reconstruction with silicone implants. She picked up a staph infection in

> the hospital and nearly died, she says.

>

> " Back then, I did as much research as I could, " says Jackman, now 61 and

an

> owner of an Indianapolis health insurance brokerage. " I was never given

any

> indication there would be any problems with them. "

>

> The implants had to be replaced that same year, and again in 1981, when

they

> started leaking.

>

> She sought legal advice from Popp Hoffman, a Zionsville attorney

> who represents 350 women in Indiana.

>

> The claim Hoffman submitted in the class-action lawsuit lists myriad

health

> problems that started in the mid-1980s: arthralgia, myalgia, sleep

> disturbances, fatigue, neuralgias, chest pain.

>

> " The big thing was the pain, " says Jackman. Excruciating nerve pain in her

> left leg kept her off work for six months a couple of years ago. Recently,

> she says, it took her six weeks to recover from a bout of flu.

>

> While Jackman received $50,000 from the settlement program funded by

implant

> manufacturers, she says that money couldn't possibly make up for her pain

> and lost opportunities.

>

> She lives with the remains of the third pair of implants, ugly and hard in

> her chest: " They solidified and atrophied. "

>

> Why not have them taken out?

>

> " There was no way my insurance would pay for it, " she says. And the

options

> for reconstruction surgery seem too risky after all she's gone through.

>

> " I'm still alive, so I count my blessings there, " she says. " I'm waiting

to

> see if something else comes along. "

>

> Call Star reporter Hagen at (317) 444-6017.

>

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