Breast Implant Illness Part 1 - Deep Dive

In this special 2 part series of PSC Deep Dive, plastic surgeons Dr. Melinda Haws and Dr. Pat McGuire moderate a group discussion on breast implant illness and Breast Implant Associated-Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (BIA-ALCL) with BIA-ALCL patients. Illness: Improving Patient Safety Part 1

This is Part 1 of the unique PSC exclusive Doctor-Patient Deep Dive programming series with collaborative discussions between patients and surgeons.

Dr. Mindy Haws moderates a lively and informative discussion. Breast Implant Illness (BII) and Breast Implant-Associated Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (BIA-ALCL) have gotten a lot of press lately. Women across the country with breast implants are suffering from a myriad of symptoms with no readily apparent cause. While more is known about the latter and, more importantly, there is a way to test for it, breast implant illness is more or less a diagnosis of exemption.




It is frustrating for both the patient and the surgeon. The bigger question, however, is why do only some women experience breast implant illness? And is there a way to bridge the gap between a patient’s understandable fear, anxiety and anger, and the surgeon’s ability to safely deliver on their desires? Dr. Melinda Haws of Nashville, TN heads up the task force for breast implant illness for the American Society For Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (The Aesthetic Society). She leads a deep dive discussion panel of women on the best ways to maximize breast implant patient safety.

WHAT IS BREAST IMPLANT ILLNESS?
Dr. Pat McGuire is a board certified plastic surgeon in St. Louis, MO. She is on The Aesthetic Society task force on BII. Her experience with breast implant illness is that patients are coming into her office suffering from a multitude of symptoms for which there is no direct cause. The most common complaints that she hears are:

fatigue
joint pain
GI problems
anxiety
restlessness
changes in their hair
body odor
By the time that these women get to her, they have typically had extensive workups for which they may have spent thousands of dollars out of their own pockets. And yet, none of these tests have revealed an underlying cause for their symptoms. They are usually at “the end of their rope.”

Breast implant related illness symptoms.
Breast Implant Illness is the term used to describe this group of women with this collection of symptoms that they attribute to their breast implants. “We don’t know a lot about it. There’s not a blood test that can be done for it or x-rays that can be taken to diagnose it,” explains Dr. McGuire. These women have real symptoms and find themselves having a hard time getting people to take them seriously.

BREAST IMPLANT ILLNESS: A PATIENT’S PERSPECTIVE
Jamee Cook directs a breast implant victim advocacy and patient support group on Facebook and started a FB support site for BIA-ALCL as well. Her story is all too familiar. She was an active mother of two who was working as a paramedic when she got her PIP saline breast implants in 1998. By year 3, however, she began to suffer from fatigue, lymphadenopathy and recurrent fevers. It “never once crossed my mind that I needed to go see my plastic surgeon,” says Ms. Cook. It never occurred to her that her symptoms could be caused by her implants. The doctors that she consulted simply chalked up her symptoms to the rigors of her job and of being a working mother.

But things got worse. She was eventually diagnosed with auto-immune Hashimoto’s disease and thought this was the answer. Even so, the thyroid medicine did not relieve her symptoms. She ultimately quit her job after having her third child. In 2012, one of her implants ruptured, but she didn’t have the money to fix it for 3 years. This wound up being a god send. When she went in to meet her surgeon, he said that he would replace her implant. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to take this route, but the conversation did spur her to go in search of her implant card to find out what type of implants she had.

This is when she discovered that she had the PIP saline implants which were low quality devices. By this point, she had developed a host of other symptoms including chronic sinus infections, anxiety, anger issues that affected her relationship with her kids and husband, arm/hand numbness, and migraines. As she began to do research and saw the generalized lists online from other breast implant illness sufferers, she became convinced that her implants were the problem. She decided to have both the implants and the capsule removed. “I would say that 80-90% of my symptoms went away immediately,” explains Ms. Cook. The brain fog that had made it impossible for her to process the medical journals that she loved lifted. Her relationship with her husband and kids improved. She got off all of her medications except her thyroid medication. When she had her implants she was a “different person. Without them, she went back to normal.