The Rabbit Hole

Yeah, that’s not me in the picture, but I’m sure that I looked just like this (plus some tears) the day I first found out about BII.

My boyfriend had helped me come to terms with the fact that my shoulder and neck problems were never going to get better without a breast reduction. I had always felt like my implants were far too big for my tiny frame, and now it seemed like my body just couldn’t even hold them up anymore. I just couldn’t get over the cost or the down time it would take to go through another major surgery. In the end, I bit the bullet and reached out to friends to ask for recommendations.

I was reading results on a Facebook post in which someone else had posted asking for recommendations, when someone I don’t know said, “…have you researched BII?”

BII? I had never heard of it. Always thirsty for knowledge, I typed what is BII into my search bar. And then I fell into the rabbit hole of Breast Implant Illness.

I quickly scrolled through the first few search results, but I already knew. I knew that this was what I had been chasing for so long. I hadn’t even read more than a few meta descriptions and my gut screamed, “This is it!” as a single tear rolled down my face. It was dizzying to see all the answers to all the questions that I had been searching for after all this time. I fell down the rabbit hole reading story after story just like mine, reading all the research that lead to breast implants causing illness in women (particularly ones with a history of autoimmune diseases), and all the failed attempts to get the manufacturers to comply with FDA requests to conduct further studies.

The first entry that I actually opened was called, “Breast Implant Illness - Symptoms, Explant, Surgeons and Detoxification,” which lead me to the Healing Breast Implant Illness website. I read for hours, mostly the symptoms and the technical breast implant safety pages.

I was heartbroken that they knew. The manufactures knew from the very beginning that women like me—with a history of autoimmune disease—should consider breast implants a risky procedure. They purposely and routine cut women with such history out of studies that the FDA later required. I was never told there was shelf life for implants, that they should be replaced every ten years. I was disgusted to find out that when the manufacturers didn’t comply with the ordered studies, the FDA did nothing to push for it.

Tears ran down my face as I read all night long. As soon as morning came, I reluctantly told my boyfriend what I had found. I struggled with the idea of explanting instead of a reduction, but I couldn’t in good conscious put another set of toxic bags in my body for the sake of my vanity. My health was more important. I had already been robbed of my health, my time spent with my daughter and the rest of my family, my happiness, and my career. I had to explant.