Breast implant article

[Army Of Me]

I was just googling around and found this article from Hilary magazine - not familiar with it but the info sounded balanced and realisic. The link is for accessing the men's comments at the end of the article (it was just too much to include here - so link is there if you are interested.) I couldn't seem to see a date on the article, but assume it's recent. Also, there is a little headline at the end saying that graduation gifts of implant ops are common.

http://www.hilary.com/dating/implants dot html (put in a proper .html when typing into your browser).

How Much Do You Really Know About Breast Implants?

The safety of breast implants has been a controversial issue since 1990, when a Congressional hearing revealed that no studies of human beings had ever been done before the implants were sold to more than one million women.

Although breast implants have been available (without safety testing) since 1962, they became a very popular and very public trend in the early 90's. Millions of women in the USA already have them and hundreds of thousands more, many of them in their teens and early 20s, get them every year. After years of controversy cooled enthusiasm for implants, a new generation of women are buying into the increasingly popular 'look' that this procedure provides--and the speed at which they are doing so has been increasing at a startling rate.

As a woman who has studied women's body image, I have tried to understand this resurgence. Women are bombarded with images of thin Barbie-like models with large implanted breasts every time we visit a news stand or see an ad for lingerie. Even clothing ads are increasingly showing less and less clothing and looking more and more like the artificial, airbrushed Maxim magazine editorials. Very thin bodies with large chests very rarely happen in real life. Despite this, magazines, billboards, models like Gisele Bundchen, and catalogs like Victoria's Secret have made this body type the expected ideal.

In the late 1980s, the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons (ASPRS) provided information to the FDA in support of breast implants, and claimed that there was "a substantial and enlarging body of medical opinion that these deformities [small breasts] are really a disease." With no objective studies, plastic surgeons instead quoted their own marketing survey, which reported that ninety percent of implant patients were "very satisfied."

In 1991-92 it became apparent that the estimate of two million implant patients had been based on the implants sold, not the number of women who had undergone surgery. Since most women had at least two implants and many had replacements, there were probably fewer than one million women with implants. This smaller denominator meant that the proportion of patients who were ill was twice as high.

Since then, researchers have published several epidemiological studies on the safety of silicone implants. Most have not evaluated many of the illnesses and symptoms mentioned by implant patients. Most studies have focused on cancer, scleroderma, and a few other classic autoimmune diseases, and found no statistically significant increase. However, the studies have major shortcomings; for example, most include a few hundred or at most a few thousand women with implants, which is not large enough to study rare diseases like scleroderma, which afflict less than one in 5,000 women. Moreover, most of the studies include many women who have had implants for a few months or years, even though these diseases take many years to develop.

Even today, most of the information put out about breast implants are created by the surgeons themselves to ease potential customers minds. For example, there are current studies that use psychological tests to measure self-esteem changes after getting breast implants. Some found an improvement after three years while other tests found no change at all. The tests that found an improvement did not compare the sample group with a control group of people who didn't get surgery, to find out how much people tend to gain in self-esteem just by living. (Usually it's young people who have the most trouble with self-esteem.) So before you buy into a study, check where the information is coming from.

FDA studies indicate that "most women with silicone gel-filled breast implants will have at least one broken implant within 10 years."

When I first spoke to women with implant problems, their stories seemed difficult to believe. They told me about silicone dripping from nipples, breasts so hard that they were embarrassed to be hugged, and breasts deformed by ruptured implants or by the surgery that attempted to remove the defective product. Many young women described feeling like their grandmothers, exhausted by simple daily tasks, unable to recover from flu-like illnesses, or disabled by joint or muscle pain that left them unable to work or care for their families. Virtually all claimed that their doctors did not take their complaints seriously.

So be realistic about what can happen to you after surgery. Any surgery on breasts can, and often does, damage nerves and reduce skin sensation. The extent of the loss in sensation is unpredictable but we know that, however severe, the damage can't be completely reversed. Attempts to reduce this effect have a tradeoff: they increase the visibility of the surgical scar. Complete numbness of the nipple is not unknown. In a smaller number of cases, the side effect is the opposite: painful hypersensitivity to touch.

If you want to know the nitty-gritty of what it's really like to have implants, take it from writer Paul Kienitz when he says that "...breast implants are like stage makeup: they look good at a distance. They look better on you from 50 feet than from 10 feet, better from 10 feet than from one foot, better in a photograph or video than in real life, and better with more clothing than they do with less. They're at their worst when the distance is most intimate."

Think long and hard about what you hope your implants will accomplish for you. Truth is, implants are probably not going to bring you much closer to what you really want. What are you really after? You'd better take a hard look at that question before you act on the assumption that implants will get it for you.

If you want more male attention, implants may increase the quantity but only with a corresponding decrease in quality. You'll get your biggest gains in approval among guys who are most prone to objectifying you, and least prone to treating you as an equal.

If you want to fell more feminine or sexy, the way to do it is to start appreciating the body you've got. If your mindset toward your body is negative, no change of appearance will ever eliminate that! If you think it will, you end up chasing an illusion. When you are in the habit of always finding fault with your body, you will never run out of faults to find... indeed, you'll only find more and more as you get older. It's a trap, and changing your body won't get you out of it -- the one thing that will is to change the fault-finding way of treating yourself. If I treated you that way, I'd be intolerable... so why treat yourself that way?

**********************************
(Quote at end of article)
"I'd be dissapointed if my girlfriend's breasts were implants." false: 55%, true: 45%
- Marie Claire magazine poll, Dec 2001

[sam]

(Quote at end of article)
"I'd be dissapointed if my girlfriend's breasts were implants." false: 55%, true: 45%
- Marie Claire magazine poll, Dec 2001

I know it's just a silly online survey for a fashion & makeup magazine but

[Army Of Me]

Yes the mag survey results did not coincide with the other results I found on the search criteria I used-(but I'm still researching the results) - I was searching "what men think about breast implants". There was another site (by a man) that had some pretty realistic comments (not favourable towards being pro-implant), but I didn't post the link - one at a time.

I know a lot of men will say to a woman that they think her breasts are fine, when in fact he might be imagining her with bigger breasts (wonder where the ideas come from - duh). After all, no one, not even a man, will say "actually yes why don't you try it, I think I'd like them bigger/firmer", unless they are unbelievably insensitive. But it doesn't stop them thinking it. It's kind of like not being able to tell someone you think they are overweight - but worse than that, as breast augmentation is a serious issue involving dangerous procedures, and it's a kind of controlled mutilation.

I did find some comments that men don't really care how the breasts came to be bigger, as long as they are. But there were more comments weighted in favour of natural breasts. Uh oh, this could have a twist here - if men are saying they want natural ones, that's telling us not to have them (implants), and so just to be seen as not letting a man define her, a woman will go and have the implants! (just joking really.)

I wanted to post something for general viewing about this subject (for people who only read on here), as not a lot of people know exactly what they are getting into when condidering the physical dangers of implants, never mind the financial considerations and psychological implications (and last but not least, the political statement that you have bowed to male pressure to conform). I touched on this in my letter to Boots UK on another forum - women treating their body parts as accessories to be sliced open and stuffed full of silicone like so much plastic (which, after all, is what barbie is made out of), and not real, live human flesh and blood. Many people are de-sensitised to this now, and also are not given all the facts in their true light by surgeons who have financial interests to play down the reality.

Anyway, as usual, wrote more than I intended.

[annared]

I used to work as a nurse on a Burns & Plastic Surgery Unit. The Plastic's were mostly major reconstruction jobs, but we still got a fair amount of Breast Augmentation done for free on the National Health Service. Yes, i've come across my fair share of breasts "encapsulating" (skin adhered to implant), infections ect ect.

What was even more disturbing for me, was the amount of drastically thin women having breast aug' operations. Many of them admitted that they had lost breast tissue simply by over dieting. One woman (border-line anorexic to me) confessed that she was in her second marrage with a "much younger man" and that was her only reason for the implants.

The staff used to call these patients *Barbie girl syndromes*

Sometimes, i used to feel they would be better off seeing a therapist than a plastic surgeon.

[Army Of Me]

annared, I have heard about women having breast surgery on the NHS - how do they get their GP to refer them for this? If it's for cosmetic reasons only, it's not supposed to be paid for by the NHS. Are there a lot of women saying they are psycholically traumatized due to having non-barbie breasts? This is a scandal if so.

[annared]

Army of me
It's been about 7yrs since i worked on that unit and i am no longer a nurse (patriarchy poisoning). There used to be lots of grumbles about free Barbie breasts, and they were starting to dry up as i left. Though, yes all of the ones we admitted, were claiming to be psychologically traumatised by their lack of Rack

[Army Of Me]

annared - little secret - I worked for the NHS for 6 years in administrative roles and it was the last time I worked - Helped to ruin my health. The women were worse than the men as they have to try harder to fit in with the heirarchy.

But back to the breast jobs, I wonder if it's poss to find out if the freebies are still going on? I'm sure if they are, it will be hushed up.

Yes, the anorexics would be the first in line for this op, after all, it addresses a body-image problem doesn't it? It's a different shade of the same colour, if you see what I mean. You only have to look at Jordan (scuse me I have to spit some venom when I say her name lol- ah that's better.) But rather than change culture, energy is put into manipulating body shape dictated by the media blah blah blah lol.

[annared]

Sorry to hear about NHS affecting your health ArmyOfMe, it did mine as well, so much that i trained as a counsellor and left!

But back to the breast jobs, I wonder if it's poss to find out if the freebies are still going on? I'm sure if they are, it will be hushed up.

I'm going to make a couple of phone calls just out of curiosity

I also used to work on Gynaecology,(many moons ago) but i'm not recovered enough to talk about that one yet, without going into melt-down

[oneangrygirl]

they have discovered a link between implants and suicide.
not a causal link, mind you, but some kind of correlation.

[annared]

they have discovered a link between implants and suicide.
not a causal link, mind you, but some kind of correlation.

I wonder why it doesn't surprise me.

[oneangrygirl]

related:

Body image concerns tied to mood disorders in teens
Fri Jun 16, 2:23 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In a study of adolescents who were admitted to a psychiatric hospital, those with body image concerns were more likely to suffer from symptoms of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and other mental health problems than those who didn't have such concerns.

ADVERTISEMENT

Also, patients preoccupied with body shape or weight were significantly more likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociation and sexual preoccupation.

Overall, body image disorders affected one third of all of the teens evaluated, and were severe enough to cause significant distress or interfere with normal functioning, Dr. Jennifer Dyl of Brown Medical School in Providence, Rhode Island and colleagues report.

"These relatively common, yet distressing and impairing body image preoccupations deserve further study in adolescents," Dyl and her team report in the journal of Child Psychiatry and Human Development.

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a medically recognized condition in which a person suffers from a disabling preoccupation with an imagined or minor flaw in his or her appearance. The condition usually first appears in early adolescence, a time when the body is undergoing major changes in appearance, Dyl and her colleagues note.

To investigate the prevalence of BDD, eating disorders and other body image concerns and their association with other mental disorders, the researchers evaluated 208 boys and girls between 12 and 17 years old who were admitted to a psychiatric hospital for inpatient care.

Fourteen met the medical criteria for BDD, 8 had eating disorders, and 46 had shape or weight concerns that were clinically significant but did not meet criteria for BDD or eating disorders.

Just 1 of the 14 study participants with BDD had this diagnosis noted in their medical record, Dyl and her colleagues found. Less than half of the teens with shape and weight concerns were actually overweight.

"Our results underscore the importance of screening for and diagnosing BDD and other body image concerns in adolescents," Dyl and her team conclude.

[Army Of Me]

annared - uh oh, I have a gyn appt on Tues - am having all sorts of diagnostics done for suspected uterine cancer (it's probably ok, but I'm more afraid of the invasive investigation part). A few years ago, I had an intra-uterine biopsy done as an outpatient with no general anaesthetic. The gyn told me that it was sometimes done without general anaesthetic and was ok for most women, but I screamed the house down when he did it- the letter reporting back to my GP said I was traumatized and the GP was horrified that the gyn had done this. It was awful, and turns out, a couple of years later, the same gyn was struck off or sacked (can't remember which). So don't tell me anything til after Tuesday.

And my health is slowly improving, but I don't feel that it will ever be back to the old me.

Edit - btw, annared, do you remember a year or two ago, it was highlighted in the media about the explosion in elective caesareans on the NHS? What was missing from a lot of the reports was the fact that women were electing to have caesareans for the only reason that they didn't want their vaginas ruined for a man's sexual pleasure. I did read that fact somewhere in the small print in some women't mag, but it was not picked up on or highlighted in all the obvious reports. Again, selective release and/or witholding of information by the media.

There was some stupid debate on Richard and Judy about this, and they had people on representing all views, and there was some smarmy woman on there, who had actually brought her baby into the studio, and she basically said that old argument about "oh, they are killing people in Iraq and people are worried whether or not women are having caesareans?" I get so furious when they use that Iraq issue to divert the fact that actually, they don't have a real argument. And no one said at the time, the real reason (mentioned above) that many women were choosing to have caesareans. I wrote to R&J and gave them a piece of my mind. I was so furious!

Oag - yes I remember that statistic about the link between suicide and breast implants. They said that women who go for these ops already have low self-esteem/depression etc, and it's no surprise. The article you have quoted does not surprise me either. It doesn't single out girls as being the main victims. "They" keep doing these studies, then saying "yes, we need to undertake further research" but then it's just dropped from any obvious further discussion.

What concerns me about these reports is that they put a name to a disorder, the tendency for which may already be there in the victim, and then NOT address what is greatly exacerbating the disorder, i.e., the culture which is condoning/promoting/causing people to develop these disorders. In other words, they want to say, the disorder would have made the victim commit suicide/be depressed anyway, not the fact that the breast implants/anorexia, caused and/or made much worse by the culture, had anything at all to do with their condition. And then, by omitting the responsibility of the media influence, they make it sound like the cultural imagery has no link whatsoever. They just say "needs further investigation" when it's blindingly obvious what's really wrong.

No one implicable in all this seems to be addressing what is making this issue so endemic (is that the right word?)i.e., the media are not taking any notice or responsibility at all, the porn industry continues to influence the mainstream feed of imagery, and people continue to slavishly and unthinkingly follow the celebs and models that are portrayed everywhere, and being made to feel that they need to conform to a certain body shape (mostly women). That's a simplisitic explanation of course, but we all know what it's about.

I came across something, I think it was on the Object website, that made the point that men's bodies in the west are as protected, concealed and covered-up as women't bodies are in a lot of middle-eastern countries. Food for thought.

I have come to the realisation, as I'm sure all of you have way ahead of me, that we just have to keep f******g repeating ourselves over and over again and change will happen.

Remember the song by Del Amitri?

"And nothing ever happens
nothing happens at all
The needle returns to the start of the song
And we all sing along like before"

I was just reminded of those lyrics as I was writing this post.

Why is it, that I can wait ages before hitting the submit button hoping I have finished a post, and nothing comes to my mind, but as soon as I hit submit, a deluge starts?

[Army Of Me]

Here is something on this topic from the Sun UK - Susie is a housemate in the latest Big Brother UK - I didn't realise she had been a stripper, but as this article points out, she became a stripper to pay for her revisional breast surgery, and you can bet that she did more than stripping. This is another hidden fact that is never brought out into the open in the press, that many women become prostitutes to get the high amount of money for surgery. They don't do it necessarily because they are prostitutes, but become so to look like what the lad's want, and many prostitutes have the surgery too, so where is the dividing line? Sick. As you will read, she is now married to a millionaire sugar-daddy who no doubt keeps her in collagen lip injections, face-lifts and as much silicone as she wants. He paid £4000 to someone who had found one of the golden tickets in a kit-kat bar ( a competition where 100 tickets were put randomly in the bars and whoever found them had a chance to enter the house), and she had been trying for a few years to be a contestant. Everyone thinks the "competition" was a fix, as her boobs are so enormous, they wanted her to be in the house for the lad's tit-watching pleasure.

STRIPPER Susie began peeling off ten years ago when a botched boob job left her breasts WONKY.

The busty brunette, 43, went under the knife to give her bust a lift.

But she had to work in strip joints to fund corrective surgery.

Susie - now wed to millionaire Cosmo Verrico - worked the “pound in a pint glass” circuit around pubs in Shoreditch and Whitechapel in East London.

She had a second op three years later and now boasts 34F assets. A regular at one bar, The Nag’s Head, recalled: “There was always a shock when she got her t*** out.

“One was much higher than the other. She told everyone she was trying to raise cash to get them fixed.

“After three years she re-appeared with them sorted out.”

Susie looked parched in the sun yesterday as she lifted a pretend pint to her lips while parading her charms in a bikini.

And builders revealed they were left panting working on her posh home in Chelsea, West London, — while she paraded in the BUFF.

A scaffolder said last night: “Susie didn’t spare any blushes — she would just walk around the house naked. She even did the washing-up in the nude!”

[annared]

ArmyOfMe.. Hope your investigations go smoothly. It's your sort of story that gives me "melt-down" Like i say it's years ago since i worked on Gynae' and i'm sure women are alot more vocal now, at least i hope so. I've got a theory that Gynae' attracts more than it's fair share of Misogynists.

As far as the elective Caesarian Sections goes, yes i was totally outraged, i think the media called it "too posh to push" as Victoria Beckam (posh spice) opted for it, out of non medical reasons.
When i was doing my Obstetric placement during my nurse training in the 80's a Midwife told me that some Doctors (midwifes do suturing now) used to put in a "husband knot" during repair of the perineum, to try and tighten the vagina to pre baby size. There's a post on something simlar on a blog somewhere, i'll try and find it.

[annared]

This is the post about episiotomy repair, from i think it must be, Bridget Jones Diary, entitiled "I knew there was a reason" I've left a message about the "husband knot" but it;s not published yet. http://salfordfeminist.blogspot.com/

[Army Of Me]

Oh lord annared - that quote from BJ's diary is ...well is there a word? Oh, but feminist's are just too serious and have no sense of humour do they?

Fuxake.

And yes, I remember now, the "too posh to push" saying. They were focusing on the false reason for having caesareans was that the actual birth was unpleasant, a lot of work, and too much pain or whatever.

What actually bothered me was what I said before, no one was saying that they were having them (caesareans) for reasons of male pleasure being spoiled if they didn't. That's what fucked me off.

I am a bit ignorant about childbirth as I have never had kids, but I didn't realise that they could sew you up "better than before" to order after a "real" birth. If this is the case, why be cut open? I guess it's a choice now and if people were paying, I guess that's up to them, but if couples are making the decision and the NHS and taxpayers have to fund the bill for the benefit of some guys keeping their tight holes intact on their women, well..... s

[annared]

I am a bit ignorant about childbirth as I have never had kids, but I didn't realise that they could sew you up "better than before" to order after a "real" birth. If this is the case, why be cut open?

It's usually agreed that if a woman's vagina looks like it's going to tear, during child birth, it's better to have a controlled surgical incision, than an uncontrolled tear, which can go anywhere! bladder, rectum ect.
Up until the early 80's i guess, just about everyone was given an episiotomy whether they wanted/needed one (up to 98% in some Hospitals) because the patriarchy said so. Then arrived the more automonious, pro female Midwife, who started to question and do research on the practice. Now women are only given a episiotomy if needed, not as merely routine. Hurrah for Midwifes

[soopermouse]

No one mentioned that the Caesarian is a lot better than the idiotic birth on your back position that the patriarchy imposes, and that has caused a lot of pain and suffering to women- because the position only has one advantage- for the doctor to see better what is going on

[annared]

Yes! It was actually brought about by some English King, so that he could see what was going on. Women left to their own devices adopt a squating or all fours position. The vagina curves upwards when you are lying on your back, so you are actually pushing a baby UPHILL! I had a right barney when i had my last baby 18 yrs ago, because i wouldn't lie down but I WON!!

[Army Of Me]

Remember that guy in France who was using the "revolutionary" squatting method and also introduced the under water birth method?

Yes I have wondered in the past why women are not allowed to squat as this seems the most, for want of a better word, ergonomic position to allow the baby out, and seems more natural. Maybe there is so much medical intervention at times, such as epidurals, that they just make them assume the prone position.

I didn't know the history of the reasons for the "lying down" postion, but I don't think the caeserean should automatically be the alternative to this either, especially just for the reasons listed in previous posts. Brings a whole new meaning to the expression "squatters rights"! Sorry, that sounded a bit crude.