Page 184 - South Mississippi Living - September, 2022

BREAST IMPLANT ILLNESS
story by Luke Height
photo courtesy of Amy Parker
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW:
HEALTHY LIVING
Our bodies are little ecosystems that are dependent on each function doing their part correctly. When things aren’t operating normally, we start to feel symptoms and know something is wrong. The cause of that feeling or miscommunication between functions is often misconstrued because negative symptoms can be related to so many different possibilities. Worldwide, many are misdiagnosed, like Gulfport resident Amy Parker.
Parker is an aesthetician who recently suffered from what is called Breast Implant Illness. This can be caused from the body rejecting breast implants and is followed by a variety of symptoms that are often misdiagnosed as other illnesses which have similar effects but different treatments to heal. Parker says, “It’s worth sharing my experience if I can just help one woman who is suffering from Breast Implant Illness.”
Much of the research shows that Parker’s case is becoming increasingly more common. There’s a Facebook group with 170,000 women who have experienced this illness and it’s estimated that between one and three million women have breast implants in America today. Many who suffer go misdiagnosed.
“After having breast implants since 2006, in 2018 I had another surgery to get my implants replaced,” Parker recalls. “Less than six months later, I developed body aches, headaches, whelps, hormonal imbalances, fatigue, dizziness, lack of balance, extreme brain fog, severe acid reflux, joint and muscle pain, poor memory and con- centration difficulties, hair loss, body swelling, and a multitude of other symptoms.”
For Parker, the best way to heal was to undergo another surgery, this time to remove her implants entirely. “In January of this year, I chose to have my implants removed as well as the capsules of tissue that formed around the implants,” she said. “The days after removal, my eyesight improved, dizziness was completely gone, I had no body aches or exhaustion.”
If you have breast implants and are experiencing any of these symptoms, please be sure to talk to your primary care physician or a plastic surgeon.
184 | September 2022
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