Robert Whitfield MD explains why patients remove breast implants: scarring, pain, limited motion, and malposition. He describes a swimmer whose implants were placed too wide and behind the muscle, destroying her athletic function. Removing the implants and capsule fully restored her ability to swim.
I've gotten referred several cases, either through the Internet or from other plastic surgeons, where patients are unhappy with their implants. Maybe they have scarring that's leading to pain, limited range of motion, inability to exercise the way they would like to, or if their implants, for whatever reason, are malpositioned. I think if people are dissatisfied with the results or change their plastic surgeon, if that relationship fails and they need help, we're happy to help solve those problems for them. I had, for instance, a patient who was a swimmer and didn't want a large implant, really didn't need it placed behind the muscle. But both those things were done too wide of implant placed behind the muscle. The patient didn't feel comfortable swimming anymore. Kind of changed their whole athletic lifestyle based on that. So we removed their devices and all the capsule around it, and she's back swimming again, doesn't have any problems anymore, is very comfortable, doesn't desire replacement of implants based on the previous experience. So. So if you do things in a way that creates problems for the patients, then you're going to stigmatize the device because they think that's the device's fault. And really, it's the choice of the device, the placement of the device overall, that made that a problem.
