Make Me Heal is one of those terrible websites that promotes breast implants and the lie that they are perfectly safe. It is reassuring, supportive, warm and fuzzy. Starting from the assumption that every woman unhappy with her chest size is considering implants, it has positioned itself as a trusted place to go to help women do it. I’ve written about it before. It makes me sick!

Today, however, the site actually has something that could be useful: a plug for one of its product called the Breast Implant Sizer. Here’s the description:

The Breast Implant Sizer comes with two implants that are filled by a syringe with water. The syringe has millimeter measurements, and 1 millimeter is equal to 1 cubic centimeter (this is the measurement used for determining breast implant size). As one fills the implant with the syringe multiple times, the patient simply needs to write down on paper how many cc’s one is adding each time. When a desired size is achieved, the implant is inserted inside the bra and the patient is able to visualize how the implant fits. The patient can walk around with the implant all day and get a more accurate visualization of how they would look and feel at that size. As the implant can go up to 600 cc’s, one can adjust the implant to visualize their new look in different sizes. which helps you to walk around with bra inserts that you can size yourself, playing around with the water you put into them until you find the chest size you like. Then you can tell your plastic surgeon exactly how many cc’s your implants should be.

At first, I was appalled. Here is a product, another money-making tool, to make implants more fun, and this under the guise of accuracy and avoiding a second surgery because you’re not happy with the size of your first implants! There’s no mention, of course, about the high rate of second surgeries due to complications, regardless of how you like your implants.

I was quickly building myself up into a sputtering rage when Sybil pointed out how useful the product could actually be. She said, “I think that stopping at buying and using the Breast Implant Sizer would be perfect. It is a simple way to stuff a bra rather undergoing surgery.” She also pointed out that, economically, filling a larger bra without implants, is far less expensive. Surgery and the numbers of repeat surgeries put women on a slippery slope to poverty. Think of what a woman could do with the money she saves by getting the Sizer and NOT getting implants!

Sybil’s so smart — always thinking of ways to help women be happier with their breasts yet be safe.

Unfortunately, Sybil couldn’t completely cheer me up because I also saw today news about UK women getting implants because of pressure from their men. Dr. Debra Gimlin, a sociology lecturer at Aberdeen University, interviewed 60 women, 20 from Scotland, 20 from England and 20 from the United States. While the Americans consistently claimed it was for themselves, nearly a quarter of the British women indicated they wanted to make themselves more appealing to a male partner.

Dr Gimlin said the differences in British and American healthcare culture could be a reason for the women’s contrasting accounts. “The privatised US system enshrines individual choices for those that can afford it, while the NHS ensures individual access,” she explained.

“As such, healthcare in Britain is considered a social right rather than a consumer good or something to be ‘earned’.”

She said many American women saw their surgery as an investment. “One 50-year-old told me that while there were things her house needed she felt she needed a facelift more than it did.”

Dr. Gimlin also found that British women were more inclined to keep their surgery a secret from family and friends and were often self-critical of their decision.

Well, hooray for American women for being so independent-minded.

I have been consoling women who have gotten very sick from implants for 11 years now. When I read stuff like this, it’s very emotionally tough for me, because I keep thinking about the women who write me every day wishing they had known what could happen. I can’t believe that, in all this time, our message about the risks of implants has not made it to the mainstream. I fear for what will happen to even more women in the future, knowing as I know that even the FDA, manufacturers and plastic surgeons have no idea what silicone does in the body, yet women trust their message about how safe implants are.

Hopefully this blog will get the facts to women before they make choices about their breasts that could terribly change their health and lives.

God Bless America for allowing women to have a choice. Bless them to make an informed one.

Is fat a feminist issue? There’s quite an interesting discussion about it going on at Big Fat Deal. In one of many responses, Superblondgirl pointed out that “too thin” has its critics too. Does that make anorexia/bulimia a feminist issue as well? If so, we’d like to add breast implants to the list: These defective medical devices – profiting a billion-dollar industry run by men and regulated by a misogynistic FDA – are scud missiles directed at women, honing in on our most vulnerable insecurities and then, on contact, detonating health issues that, for so many women, have lead to life-destroying chronic illness and disfigurement.

But we digress. We could join the fray about which body-image issues should be labeled “feminist,” but the fact is, “Body Image, Period” is the feminist issue.

The root cause of all body image issues is the cookie-cutter ideal of feminine perfection perpetuated by a mainstream media that has found this fantasy to be the most efficient route to higher ratings, greater tickets sales or bigger circulation numbers. Media is saturated with images of young, slim, big-chested women, and for better or worse, we live in a media-saturated society. No wonder women feel inadequate – not thin enough, not tall enough, not young enough, not chesty enough… Face it, ladies, we, the vast majority of American women, are just not enough! But of course, with more women than ever in the workforce (about half of the total), more women than men enrolled in our institutes of higher learning, a new female Speaker of the House, and possibly a woman president in 2008, this must be, has to be, a ridiculous notion.

Which brings us to what feminism is about in the first place: It’s not about women being “enough,” but being respected for what we are in all our diversity so we can work, live and love on an equal footing with men. But this will never be possible as long as mainstream media’s narrowly defined version of feminine beauty and worth is entrenched in our popular culture and is taken to be an accurate reflection of that culture, which it most emphatically is NOT.

Witness American Idol, the weekly “cast” of which is selected by audience vote, and every year that vote has rewarded physical beauty to only a point and given the ultimate title of American Idol to varying combinations of talent and charisma. Of all the American Idol winners, arguably only Carrie Underwood could have passed muster with actual casting agents. The lesson here is that what the American public wants and values and what mainstream media gives us are very different indeed.

We largely experience American culture and public life through media, and it used to be that we were forced to accept what we got because we had very few ways to respond to or try to shape what appeared on movie screens, on TVs and in magazines. But times have changed. With the rise of the Internet, everyone has the power to challenge:

1) Through websites, discussion lists, blogs and all other electronic channels of communications, we can, like the blog Body Impolitic, promote many conceptions of beauty and other standards of worth.

2) Of mainstream media, we can demand more programming like Ugly Betty and more stereotype-busting casting like High School Musical and HBO’s As You Like It. And how about just plain more stories about real life (such as the Alzheimer’s love story, Away from Her, and Little Miss Sunshine) with actors who are no younger, no thinner and no more beautiful than people we see everyday in our own lives?

3) Finally, we can and should speak up as often and as loudly as possible to question commonly accepted beliefs in order to get nearer to the truth, beliefs such as “Only thin is healthy,” that “Breast implants are perfectly safe,” or that only young, tall, white, thin girls with big breasts are what people want to look at.

Body image is just one of the many issues women deal with every day, but it’s one that is intensely personal, can be intensely painful, and largely shared by all of us to varying degrees. Whether it’s weight or chest size or the shape of our eyes or the color of our skin, we need to recognize that no matter what the body image ghetto, the fount of this particular feminine evil is the mainstream media. Then, in a conscious, concerted way, women need to get online and use the blogosphere, use MySpace and Facebook, use all the Internet tools available to us to begin building a more truthful cultural reality as an alternative to what’s offered by Big Media, one that is more respectful of women, one that better reflects and serves our interests and needs, and one that will help us all cut through the bullshit of looks to focus on what we’re really worth.

~ Sybil and Mary

TAGS: society, body image, health and wellness, media

What does it mean when the Queen of Porn is happy to get rid of her implants?

Jenna Jameson, the brightest star in the porn universe, whose iconic status in adult films brought her cross-over name-recognition and mainstream appeal, is quitting the industry, reports US Weekly. To show the world she means it, she visited plastic surgeon Garth Fisher on August 1 and had her implants taken out.

In an interview with US Weekly, Jameson says:

When I had implants, I felt uncomfortable. I would be shy at the beach. I know it sounds funny, but I’d wear high-necked clothes – unless I was at an adult-film convention. So I thought, Why don’t I be who I am and get my real ones back?

How has the operation changed her?

Even for women with naturally large boobs, getting a reduction is so freeing. I feel like I can stand up straighter…before, when I jogged, I had to hold my boobs. I looked like I was molesting myself!

(more…)

According to Strategy Page, a military affairs website, the U.S. Department of Defense is cracking down on troops, especially female troops, who get plastic surgery without permission from their commanding officers. This permission rule has been around a long time, but was largely ignored until recently. Now, servicemen have more money in their pockets as the US has started paying more competitive wages (it IS an all-volunteer military service after all). Meanwhile, surgical procedures have become fire-sale cheap. The rising demand for cosmetic surgery has caused problems due to long recovery times, made worse by the fact that botched jobs are not unusual. Troops seem prone to getting their surgery from unqualified practitioners and then end up in military hospitals at government expense.

I can’t speak about other plastic surgery, but can there be a worse idea than a woman with implants sent into active service in a war zone? Riding around in jeeps on badly paved roads, dodging bullets and bombs, those implants stand a fair chance of rupturing. Furthermore, if they are “unsubtle,” they really have no business being in any part of the world where any hint of a woman’s body can inspire shameful thoughts in men and so must hidden away under a burqa. Big fake boobs are just not culturally sensitive.

And if they do rupture? What about complications like migration or capsular contracture? As it is, almost half of women with implants experience problems within the first three years of getting them. That’s with normal wear and tear. What are the statistics for women actively fighting a war? Who, then, would be responsible for the costs of treatment? You can bet it won’t be insurance companies, so tax payers?

But wait. There is one reason to allow implants in the military. Apparently, they can stop bullets.

TAGS: Iraq, burqa, Middle East, military

The Cranky Fitness blog took at look at Google trends to see who searches for what in health-related categories. Under Body Image, the search for “Average Penis Size” was popular in Sydney, Melbourne, Chicago, New York, and Seattle, but “Average Breast Size” did not have enough searches to rate. “Breast Implants,” however, was popular in Salt Lake City, Tampa, Phoenix, San Diego, and Irvine (CA).

MSNBC Media Analyst Steve Adubato has been critical of the “reality” in reality TV. Sybil has written about it here. Mr. Adubato recently sat down with Meredith Vieira to talk about it on the Today Show.

Our friend, Cindy Fuchs-Morrissey, wrote the following letter to Mr. Adbato:

Dear. Mr. Adubato,

I totally agree with what you stated this morning on the Today Show about ‘Reality’ TV leaving out the reality of plastic surgery for people of all ages to view. These shows, I fully believe, are really NOT good for our already dysfunctional society, nor good for our young people, who are really getting a false impression of what plastic surgery is really like and who really have NO idea of what they may be opting for. Parents may think they are giving their beloved child a wonderful gift with plastic surgery, but what parents DO NOT really know may hurt everyone in the end.

My name is Cindy Fuchs-Morrissey from Macon, Missouri.

I have indeed walked the walk I am very capable of talking the talk about plastic surgery, like breast augmentation.

For my birthday present in 1976, I got silicone breast implants. Oh yes, I had the “OK” from my parents as they wanted to make their little darling – me - happy. I was before my time with getting plastic surgery as a “gift.”

Now at almost 50-years old I observe parents giving these types of gifts to their young kids, something I would never consider for my own daughters (Hannah 24, Haley 21, and Hilary 17). Of course, our girls have witnessed first hand the hell their mother has gone through.

I have to tell you that I am still TO DATE trying to blow out the candle on that crappy 18th birthday present, but by now, August 2007, the flame has gotten out of control. The flame will die when I do.

This is far worse than a California fire. The flame has crossed into surrounding states, moving north, south, east and west. So, I go through life just trying to manage the flames, picking up pieces of life where charred rubble is. I deem this “resiliency.”

I sometimes say that being a past teenage breast implant patient has given me wisdom and great resiliency, nothing more. Yet, whoever wants plastic surgery, can still make a “choice” - understand that sometimes you may NOT always know what you are buying. So buyer, BEWARE.

Yet these gifts of great wisdom and massive resiliency have been priceless in the end. They have really given me the self-esteem I was searching for in my youth when I opted for breast implants. So I see that the hellish experience I was given when I opted for breast implants as a teenager in 1976 may have helped define who I was really meant to be.

Yes, I made lemonade from really, really sour, rotten lemons.

I became a teenage breast implant patient to correct a congenital deformity of my chest wall. All I wanted was to just be equal on both sides of my chest wall, nothing more. I opted for silicone breast implants, and subsequently had three surgeries: the first in 1976 several days after my 18th birthday, another in 1978, and another 1980.

Guess what? The implants did not work for me, like they do not work out for a lot of women. My implants ruptured, and this rupture was documented in the medical records of my 1978 surgery. My plastic surgeon, however, never told my parents and me. We all found out much later, when I requested my medical records from the hospital in 1992. Anyway, after MANY, MANY years of massive hell with breast augmentation/reconstruction, I had to have a double mastectomy in 1993 at the age of 35. I am very glad I had the mastectomy because the procedure gave me the end results that silicone breast implants never could give me: to just be equal on both sides of my chest wall. Now I am. I am happy with NOT having breasts. Odd as that may seem, the mastectomy helped me mentally be whole again, something I could not find with my breast implant experience. No, there was no quick fix…this took time.

There is more to my story, but I will spare you, Mr. Adubato, from the details….just like these Reality TV shows leave out the “reality” of the truth about plastic surgery. My reality would NOT make for good viewing to sell plastic surgery over the TV. These are the kinds of stories that plastic surgeons do NOT want known.

Remember, these shows really are all about “business as usual,” nothing more. The truth of the REALITY I have learned from experience, and it hurts…hurts really bad. For those TV doctors to go along with the shows and avoid putting their “mistakes” on TV flies in the face of the Hippocratic oath of First Do NO Harm, nor are they fully informing/educating patient (and parents who buy these procedures as a gift for their little darlings).

And patients need to be informed and educated, and NOT by some insert, most certainly not by the FDA (which I believe IS broken), or by some plastic surgeon’s verbal comment, or by some biased so-called Reality TV show.

Anyway, I hope when you read my e-mail, you did not rolls your eyes and put it aside.

Those of us who have experienced ‘reality’ with plastic surgery need a Chris Hansen type, you know, the man who does To Catch a Predator? We need a person who really looks at The Art of Medicine, especially medical devices breast implants. You could do this, Mr. Adubato.

Take care, Cindy

Cindy Fuchs-Morrissey

There are just so many things wrong about this. I thought it was worthy of 2 posts in one day.

www.myfreeimplants.com

~Kacey

The AARP was contacting me before I began my first job out of college. For you other non-retirement age gals out there, the AARP is for RETIRED PERSONS and those getting close. I was 23. However, I felt like I had so much more in common with 70-somethings (stiffness in the mornings, inability to do aerobic activity) than I did with other women in their 20’s. For a long time I envied my grandmother who was 75 and could run circles around me, literally.

Before I had a chance to start my life, I became disabled. It was not because of a childhood illness or a genetic disease or even cancer. I believe it was a direct result of having a breast augmentation. I started becoming sick a few months after my operation and only started getting better once I had my breast implants removed. It has been four years since I have been implant-free, and you would think my health might be as good as new…well, you would hope.

I am feeling so much better now, as the joint and muscle pain has lessened, and in January 2007 I started my first full-time job. Once upon a time I had over 25 weird symptoms popping up at any one moment (shortness of breath, dizziness/fainting, stabbing pain in my arms, sharp rib pain, feeling like something was crawling on me, you name it). The majority of them ceased after explant (implant removal surgery). However, every once and a while, and for a more brief sitting, one of them can still rear its ugly head.

Like right now, I had hoped to be able to post here sooner, but my health had other things planned. Right now, I’m dripping in sweat from intense hot flashes that have lasted for several days. I am uncomfortable most of the time, and cannot wait for this symptom to cease. Hot flashes are not something that are widely acceptable in conversation, well, at least not for a 25-year old. So while my boyfriend’s mother was fanning herself at the dinner table (admittedly due to hot flashes), and while his sister-in-law was talking about how bad her hot flashes were while pregnant, I kept quiet instead of revealing that I know just how they feel. It is not “fun” to be sick, nor is it necessarily “fun” to be around someone who is sick. Many times I pretend I’m perfectly healthy, just to appear “normal,” so that others do not feel uncomfortable or sorry for me. I am sure that many ill people feel the same way. I think this connects us all, whether you’re possibly sick from an implant or from something like cancer.

My goal is not for sympathy but rather to be a source of information to help other women avoid going through the same hell that I still experience on a daily basis. I hope that by sharing my personal experiences, I become more “real” to others reading this online, and that they’ll be able to relate to me and be brave enough to want to find the right information.

~Kacey

Anyone remember who Brandy Chastain is? She is the soccer player who, after scoring the winning goal, slid across the grass field pulling off her top and sat there in her sports bra. Flat chested.

In sports, men don’t seem to mind their heroines being small and normal. In the Olympics, there are women competing in gymnastics, diving, track, volleyball - all without implants. And they still manage to look sexy.

So why is it that society has forgotten what normal breasts look like and many of the magazines catering to men emphasize the large breasts? Not just Playboy, but Road &Amp, Track, Car &Amp, Drive and others always have ads with women whose breasts are obviously fake (you can’t put big implants into an anorexic model and look normal).

The sad thing is that people start to believe this is what normal is. Barbie in the 1960s had small breasts and wide hips. Barbie now has a much bigger bust line and hips. Dare we say implants and liposuction in the same breath? If you ever get the chance to look at a Playboy magazine from the 60’s, models, who barely showed the areola, had natural endowment. By the way they had big hips too! Do we really have to accept that, as time passes, artificial breasts go with artificial erections from Viagra?

Edward P. Melmed, MD

In “See Who’s Editing Wikipedia - Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign,” which appeared in Wired News yesterday, writer John Borland tells us about a new tool which allows you to see which companies have been editing which Wikipedia entries.

Wikipedia Scanner is the brainchild of Virgil Griffith, a Cal Tech computation and neural-systems graduate student. It offers users a searchable database that ties millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to organizations where those edits apparently originated, by cross-referencing the edits with data on who owns the associated block of internet IP addresses.

“What has Dow Chemical been doing on the ‘Breast Implants’ page?” we wondered, but were disappointed to find that the function to check edits on particular pages to be temporarily shut down due to the (presumably) huge surge in traffic from the Wired News article.

As luck would have it, Wired’s Threat Level blog invites people to post and vote on the most egregious edits they can find, and someone had already run a check on Dow. Indeed, Dow removed references to Bhopal, Agent Orange and…BREAST IMPLANTS!

See for yourself. This page shows all the Wikipedia edits from one of Dow’s IP addresses. The second column shows you what entry was changed, and the third column shows the actual changes. If you scroll about halfway down to the line that shows changes to the “Dow Chemical Company entry,” you’ll see that changes were made in the section on “Environmental and human rights controversies.” Click on the number 94630422, and the breast implant reference that was deleted appears in the top screen.

Horrible company, but a very useful tool. We are going to bookmark it for future use.