48 Reasons not to get a boob job

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48 REASONS NOT TO GET A BOOB JOB:

[Warning: nudity below. And it ain't pretty.] [if you don't like adult language or you want censored pictures, go here for the AOL Special Edition version of this page.]

1) According to the National Institute of Medicine, 25 to 40 percent of people who get breast surgery end up having to go back for another operation to correct something wrong with the first one. 2) A study by a maker of saline breast implants, Mentor, found that 27 percent of implants put into breast cancer patients had to be taken back out again within three years, due to side effects. Another 13 percent had to have lesser corrective surgeries. The competing manufacturer McGann has similar numbers. Even for healthy patients, both were forced to admit that "most women experienced at least one complication over the three year period". 3) In general, cancer patients have complications with implants far more often than healthy people do. We regard this as socially the most acceptable and necessary time for implants to be used, but medically it is the most risky and unjustifiable time to use them. 4) Up to 9 percent of saline implants end up deflating within just three years, according to the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA also found that complications become more and more common for each year implants spend in the body. 5) Another FDA study found that even among women who had not complained of any perceived trouble with their implants, MRI scans showed two thirds of them have ruptured implants on at least one side. The rate was actually higher in 10 to 15 year old implants than with 20 year old ones, because the oldest ones had thicker containers. In 21 percent of women in the study, silicone was found to have migrated elsewhere in the body. Doctors removing implants often claim that they ruptured at the time of removal. This study makes me suspect, as some patients long have, that many doctors are lying about this to avoid liability. 6) Though rare, it is not unknown for complications to be so severe that the breast ends up getting amputated. The chest wall can be injured. Your lungs and heart can be affected. You can end up dead. 7) They sometimes find cultures of microorganisms growing inside saline implants when they're removed. This is worrisome given that the newest implants contain vegetable oil... it could spoil. Saline, at least, is not a nutritious meal for bacteria. Even the silicone gel ones sometimes get some kind of mildewy looking stuff growing inside them... and each new fluid they've tried has been friendlier to microorganisms than the last one was. 8) If you're a European patient who has the option of oil-filled implants (these implants are not yet permitted in the U.S.), British doctor Rahim Karjoo warns that oils leaking into the body will absorb calcium, and the resulting soaplike material, if it enters the bloodstream, can create fat emboli which can kill you without warning. The British government recently withdrew its approval for oil-filled implants and they will no longer be sold there. 9) Surgery in fatty tissues runs a much higher risk of difficult and dangerous infections taking root than surgery in lean tissue does. Infections with implants present are harder to treat than otherwise. In some cases the implant has to be taken out before the infection can be controlled. 10) Some doctors are of the opinion that no facility that accepts blood or organ donations should take any from women who have silicone in their bodies. 11) So they replaced silicone implants with saline ones, avoiding the possible immunological problems associated with silicone gel leakage... and then the National Institute of Medicine decided that silicone has been "exonerated" and doesn't cause many of the problems it was accused of causing... So what -- somehow just about as many people have problems with saline implants as had trouble with silicone ones. The container is still silicone rubber, after all, which is partially composed of silica powder. As the gel gradually weakens and breaks down, silica can get loose... and some believe that this is the form of silicone that has toxic effects. It can also release slight traces of heavy metals, and carcinogenic volatiles like xylene. 12) And if the official line is that silicone is now exonerated, then why isn't it okay to inject silicone directly into the body without a container around it, like they used to back in 1960? No doctor would try that now... they could land in jail. 13) One of the fastest growing areas of medical practice is surgeons who specialize in repairing the errors and complications of boob jobs done by other doctors. "If a doctor tells you they don't have complications, they're either not operating or they're lying to you," says Dr. Jack A. Friedland of sdale. 14) A lot of doctors doing boob jobs and other vanity surgery are half-assed quacks without proper qualifications. Most states allow anyone with a medical degree -- even dentists -- to take a weekend course and sell plastic surgery. They do it because it's easy money. Dr. Ervin Moss of New Jersey says, "You can't imagine how many specialist groups are lobbying against [laws requiring proper accreditation] as a threat to the bottom line." 15) Can you imagine your doctor brushing off life-threatening complications and telling you "You look great!" when you ought to be heading for the emergency room? It's been known to happen in the cosmetic surgery biz... 16) You want health insurance coverage for other breast-related illnesses? Goooooooood luck. 17) The first time I had a chance to feel a pair of tits with implants in them, they felt like two blocks of cement covered with a quarter inch of skin. I was told it was an unusually high quality job, too. 18) They claim that the cement tit problem has been solved, and modern operations don't produce that kind of extreme hardening any more. Well, they still end up hardening sometimes. One doctor who trumpets the improvements over past techniques and calls saline implants "absolutely safe" ( Beraka of New York -- he gives plastic surgery advice on women.com and elsewhere) still admits that 5 to 8 percent can end up "as firm as your thigh" due to scar tissue... and that he sees "a lot of bad results" from other doctors. He may be understating the problem rate... Mentor found that 9 percent of augmentations had serious "capsular contracture" (which causes hardening, and sometimes pain), sometimes bad enough to require reoperation.

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