The Health Risks of Breast Implants
Breast implants are a highly requested cosmetic-surgery procedure, and females as young as 16 have been known to get breast implants. Although the purpose of them is often purely aesthetic, getting implants is a serious surgical procedure that comes with several health risks.
Loss of Sensation
According to Dr. Hilda Hutcherson, clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University in New York, 10 to 18 percent of women who have had breast implant surgery still feel no sensation in the nipple area five years after their surgery. This can affect one's sex life adversely, and there is no way to return sensation once it is lost.
Breast Pain
There is inevitably pain the first few weeks after breast-implant surgery, but some patients continue to experience pain ranging from occasional, mild discomfort to persistent sharp pain in their breasts.
Additional Surgeries
Surgery is something most people avoid having if it's not necessary because things always can go wrong, including infection, excessive blood loss and shock. However, when it comes to getting breast implants, the need for subsequent surgeries is inevitable, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Breast implants are not made to last forever, and those who have them will typically experience a migration, rupture or scarring that will necessitate additional surgeries to correct the issue.
Ruptures and Migration
When saline-filled implants tear or rupture, they deflate and have to be removed through another surgery. Silicone implants that rupture do not simply deflate, and sometimes it can be difficult to tell that they're leaking. Because of this, those who have silicone implants are encouraged to get an MRI at least once every three years. Leaking silicone implants can cause hardening of the breast tissue, swelling, pain and burning.
In addition, silicone implants can migrate to other parts of the chest, resulting in an unattractive appearance, at minimum, and, at the most, a surgery to correct the migration problem.
Scarring
Capsular contracture, otherwise known as hardening of the tissue surrounding an implant, has been cited by the FDA as a known risk of breast implant surgery. This scarred tissue can result in those with implants not being able to produce enough milk to breast feed, and it can decrease the effectiveness of mammograms and breast-health screenings. There have been documented cases of cancerous breast tumors going undetected because of breast implants.
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