My Explant Experience
I’m about to get real personal. When I was 24, I got breast implants. See, the thing was, I had 32A breasts and was super self-conscious about them. Silly, I know. I should have loved myself exactly as I was, but I was young and stupid and had zero self-esteem. So, I went under the knife and got 250 cc implants that brought me to about a B-cup.
During my first pregnancy, I gained a ton of weight. So much so that my breasts grew to F-cups. No lie. Now, mind you, I’m only four feet, 11 inches tall. At roughly one hundred and sixty five pounds, I was all belly and boobs.
About a year after I had my daughter, my breasts were sagging a bit and felt crazy-heavy. I was also experiencing sudden and sharp pain in my left breast. Nervous and with every nightmarish implant horror story haunting me, I went to a plastic surgeon to find out what was wrong. Turns out that the rapid weight gain and loss stretched my breasts, which was causing the implants to sort of “shift around” in my chest cavity. My left breast also had developed some extra scar tissue.
The verdict? They needed to be removed or changed.
Well. I wasn’t ready to go back to being an A-cup. I was a new mom. I felt hideous. Fat. Also, I didn’t know it at the time, but I was also suffering from severe, undiagnosed postpartum depression. My brother had recently passed away, and I was dealing with that, too. So, I had a ton of mental issues going on. The last thing I wanted was to lose my….womanhood…I guess. Again, silly, I know, but that’s how I felt at the time.
The cheapest option was a simple removal, but that wasn’t happening—not even close, so… No. The other cost-effective option was to replace the implants, but we’d have to go slightly bigger than what I currently had to fill the now larger chest cavity. 350 cc implants, so not too much bigger. The third option was to stick with the current size of 250 cc, just replace them with fresh implants, and do a lift. I liked that option, but when he told me the price of this surgery, I swear to gawd, I had an out-of-body experience.
We settled on replacing the impants with the 350 cc ones.
Fast forward to 2019.
I've had enough of having implants. I was done. Done, done, done. I went for the first consultation to have them removed. Not replaced. Removed. I wanted my body back. Mine. As I was supposed to be. Small-chested and all. Just…me. The doctor was kind and patient and explained all the drawbacks of removal. Concave breasts that come with having large implants for as long as I had mine, because I wasn’t opting for a lift. Cost wasn’t an issue. Scarring was. See, the thing with me is that I didn’t want my nipples touched. Couldn’t have them touched. My implants were put in under my breasts, and that’s how they were being removed. I didnt want my nipples tampered with, and decided that, for me, flattened pancake boobs were a better option that having my nipples cut. Some women choose differently, and that’s wonderful for them. I have an honest to God phobia about it, so I truly couldn’t do it, and was so excited to get on the doctor’s calender that I could hardly contain my exicment. I even wept in his office like a baby at the idea of not having the implants in my body anymore.
But life delayed it for a bit, and then COVID happened. Then, my daughter was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. And then more life happened. And then I went for a second consultation with the same doctor in 2023, but his rates were a bit higher, and I decided to wait another year. But….
But.
On February 25th, 2025, I did it. I had the implants removed after having them for a total of 27 years..
My God. Twenty-seven years. It might as well have been forever. I started experiencing massive body dysmorphic disorder. I couldn’t look at myself. I would literally mash my breasts down as much as possible (which wasn’t much because implants don’t ‘mash’) and imagine my chest flatter. Normal. I legit felt like a blow-up doll. A characture of a woman. I had begun to hate my entire torso. I felt disgusting, like I was living in someone else’s body. It was…weird.
Now, over the last two weeks, I’ve never felt so free. So happy. So…much like myself. I wake up and feel a renewed love for myself. For this lovely skin I’m in, beautifully flawed and all, because for the first time in 27 years, I’m me. All me and nothing else. How glorious.
But here’s the kicker. The surgeon who replaced my implants lied. He didn’t put 350 cc implants in me. They were 550 cc. They were massive and explained why I had serious breathing issues that landed me in the emergency room quite a few times over the years. Those things were pressing on my lungs, chest wall, and rib cage. Also, I hadn’t realized how sick they were making me. Joint pain. Neck pain. Brain fog. Back pain. Ringing ears. Dry eyes. Weak immune system. Memory issues. Chronic fatigue. Sure, some of it is related to being post-menopausal and having Epstein–Barr, but much of it, I’m finding out, is directly correlated to those breast implants. I wish I had gotten them out sooner. No, that’s not true. I wish I had never gotten them at all. I was perfect just as I was, and I’m sad for the girl who never felt as confident as this 51-year-old who has damn well earned the right to feel f*cking beautiful.