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Visitor 26 - Anonymous I have always been very obsessed with my looks. I began to exercise at age 12 to stay slim and have always been into the latest fashions. No matter how much I worked on making my body look good, there was nothing I could do about the size of my chest. With my athletic build, my A cup chest just wasn't proportionate to the rest of my body, and I always felt I didn't look womanly on the top. After 5 years of wanting implants, I decided to get them, at age 25. I went to a few consultations, but I decided to go to a woman doctor in Newport Beach, who I felt comfortable with because a close friend had used her. I knew I couldn't afford it, but I didn't care. I was between jobs and moving to a new city, so figured it was a good time. I financed the whole thing. The exciting day came, and I was ready to transform my pretty but tiny A-cup sized breasts into beautiful, bodacious D's. I got saline implants, 500ccs, under the muscle, through the armpit. The doctor and her staff had me sign a stack of paperwork that I didn't really read. They explained to me that complications such as deflation and capsular contracture do occur, but are unlikely. I wasn't worried. I was in perfect health and almost all of my friends had undergone the same procedure and never had a problem. I came out of surgery with the "elephants on your chest" feeling and a lot of soreness, but it seemed to go smoothly. I stayed with a friend for about five days, and then felt good enough to drive home to San Diego where I had just moved. After about ten days, I started to feel worse. My right breast was dropping beautifully and barely hurt but the left one wasn't dropping and was so sore that I had to sleep sitting up and could barely move. I called the doctor and she told me that this was normal and that I needed to give it time. A month passed and I hadn't made any progress. I still could not lie down and I was in so much pain that I couldn't even walk to the mailbox. I was very frustrated because I had just moved to a new city and needed to find work but I couldn't interview because I could not drive far due to the pain I would feel at any bump I hit in the road. The doctor agreed to examine me, but found nothing. I asked her why all my friends had been fine after a month and I was in so much pain and she lectured me that all people heal differently and I shouldn't worry. I begged her for more pain medication but she denied me. I resorted to taking about 20 Advil a day. About 3 weeks later, still in excruciating pain, I noticed a strange mark forming on my left breast, in-between the crease and the nipple. The area was hot and tender, and my whole left side of my torso was throbbing. I rushed to the doctor's office where I learned I had an infection. They put me on Augmentin, an antibiotic and sent me home. The next day I awoke to find my implant popping through my skin where the mark had been, puss pouring out. When I called the doctor she informed me that the implant needed to be removed. I went into a panic. No one had even mentioned infection to me, and although I did find a clause about it in the paperwork I had signed, it had never been discussed nor had I ever heard of this happening to anyone else. The horror of losing my new implants which I had financed money for absolutely horrified me, despite the fact that I didn't know how mangled my chest would look now. The doctor calmed me though, explaining that we could leave the right one in and replace the left in 3 months. She removed the left one in her office, after giving me a shot of Demerol and some local anesthetic. I couldn't feel any pain, but I could feel the tearing sensation of the implant that had been attached to my skin. I watched my full breast deflate to a raisin-looking form as the doctor yanked it out of me. She told me that was a cup of puss inside of me that came out, and that the infection must have been going on for a month. This upset me because I wondered why did she not catch this earlier. I began to speculate that if she would have listened to my complaints maybe we could have saved the implant. I really didn't want to go back to her for more surgery but my financial situation was not good, and the doctor promised me a free second surgery. She sent a sample of whatever was inside of me to a lab and when it came back she told me that it was an infection but they didn't know what caused it. She blamed it on something else in my body. She said that I must have an infection lingering somewhere else and because I put a foreign object in my body it the infection was carried there through my blood. continued . . .
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