Penelope Canonico
04/03/2021 18:05
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 04/03/2021 18:37
This week,
actress Valentina Godfrid
(36) shared with her followers on Instagram an extensive message in which she spoke of her decision, motivated by health issues, to “free herself from the toxic bags” that she had been carrying on her body for nine years .
More than 35,000 likes generated a stir on the networks and focused on a call for attention about the potential risk of breast implants.
“I had implanted to even out my breasts, believing in
the false value that I needed something external to improve my self-esteem
.
Five years ago I started having nonspecific symptoms: joint and muscle pain, extreme tiredness, palpitations, a feeling of suffocation, headaches, dry eyes.
My health was deteriorating and I couldn't find the cause, "he recalls with an anguished tone.
Valentina saw 14 doctors from different specialties.
She was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, Raynaud's syndrome, gluten intolerance, irritable bowel, reflux, stress ...
"The nights that I ended up on guard duty without being able to breathe and with my left arm asleep, I felt like I was dying and nobody noticed.
The reality is that the prostheses were making me sick
, they were a poison inside my body. I understood it ago A few months when I came across a video from @angiemonasterio that said that her breast implants almost killed her. Her story was very similar to mine, "she tells
Clarín
.
Valentina Godfrid told on Instagram why she removed her breast implants.
Instagram photo
She discovered that her case was not isolated and found many women who lived through similar realities and sought answers to their problems in the virtuality of the private Facebook group Breast Implants, with more than 13,000 followers.
The photographer Angie Monasterio (36) created it in 2018 inspired by another similar group, by Nicole Daruda.
Since the beginning of the group,
20 daily consultations report symptoms
and 10 weekly testimonies reveal that the implants have been removed.
“I explained two weeks ago to start the healing process.
I came to the operating room with my body so beaten that I only thought about feeling good.
My hands turned pink and I no longer have daily palpitations.
I'm getting better every day
, ”she says, relieved, grateful and aware that today's Valentina had never had implants.
Breast implant disease
The story that Angie Monasterio made visible through a video published on YouTube and later replicated on Instagram served not only Valentina but also thousands of women from different parts of the world to weave bonds of solidarity by sharing their experiences and the wisdom obtained from healing of breast implants.
“
I felt like I was living in a body of 80
.
Implants are not lifelong devices.
They can be 'intact' and still be making you sick with their composition of more than 46 neurotoxic, cytotoxic, carcinogenic and heavy metals, which intoxicate the human body, causing what is known as
breast implant disease
, a variety of debilitating symptoms in reaction to the foreign body ”, emphasizes Monasterio and announces that by the end of 2021 it hopes to publish a manual with testimonies and hard data that will serve as an exhaustive guide to instruct on the problems faced by women around the world.
This disease referred to by Monasterio
is identified by the FDA
- the US health agency - as one of the possible risks associated with all breast implants.
The FDA notes that
breast implant disease, or BII,
is the commonly known form of various systemic symptoms that can be linked to these implants.
Many women with prostheses unknowingly develop a series of symptoms (there may be 60 possible) in response to the foreign body reaction, toxins, and oxidative stress from their prostheses.
BII is
multifaceted
and characterized by chronic negative health effects.
Symptoms can mimic other diseases and vary based on individual genetics and variability.
Angie Monasterio put together a group to raise awareness about the risks of silicones.
Instagram photo
In 2018, more than 50,000 women in the United States reported symptoms linked to immune or connective system problems (described as breast implant disease) to the FDA.
A study by the National Center for Health Research looked at 500 implanted women who later explanted.
85% did so because of systemic debilitating symptoms.
BII must be differentiated from other problems that have been associated with implants, such as breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL), an immune system cancer associated with textured breast implants that began research in 2011.
"It is a rare type of cancer that appears around a breast prosthesis, usually in the capsule, which forms naturally as a
reaction of the body to a foreign body
. Since 1997, more than 500 cases of BIA-ALCL have been reported in 23 countries ", explains Diego Mecca, specialist in plastic and reconstructive surgery.
Víctor Urzola is also a reconstructive and aesthetic plastic surgeon.
He lives in Costa Rica, and six years ago he diagnosed his first patient with this disease.
“He presented multisystemic symptoms that included hair loss, chronic fatigue, depression, palpitations, anxiety attacks and dermatitis.
She was convinced that her prostheses made her sick,
"she tells
Clarín
in an interview on Meet.
The doctor took two days to study the scientific papers and then proceeded to perform a capsulectomy.
"My surprise was that he started to feel better and was able to go back to work.
I learned to listen to what patients have to say
," he says.
Since then, it has already performed
600 explantations to women from 23 countries
, including an Argentine, who travel to Costa Rica after having failed a round of medical consultations, seeking to solve their daily ailments.
Valentina Godfrid after the operation to remove her breast implants.
Instagram photo
“In 90% they begin to feel better after the implant is removed.
Some experience well-being immediately, others after 2 or 3 months or even after a period of time they decline until after a year they stabilize and lose most of the symptoms ”, Urzola explains.
And he adds: “It is
a complex disease to understand
that involves immunological, inflammatory and molecular interaction aspects.
It does not affect all women, but there are no studies that allow a previous diagnosis at the time of implantation ”.
“Silicone is a biotolerated material (the body isolates it in a periprose capsule), but it is not biocompatible.
Over time, the molecules that are released from the silicone prosthesis can lodge in different tissues and block the normal function of the cell where they migrate ”, he emphasizes.
For Urzola,
informed consent
in
fine
print on a piece of paper
is not enough
.
"It is a risk that the patient must be informed so that he can make an objective decision, assuming the responsibility that may impact on your future health," he says.
"There is no need to alarm"
From the Argentine Society of Plastic Surgery (SACPER), they ask "not to demonize" prostheses.
“There is no need to alarm.
The breast implant is going to turn 60 next year, and it is
the medical device that had the most conflicts and was unscathed
.
The placement of breast implants is the plastic surgery that is done the most in the world ”, explains Jorge Pedro, plastic surgeon, university specialist and titular member of the entity.
The doctor details that explantations are done in the country, but that they are mainly related to women who are over 60 years old and no longer want to have implants due to changes in their body scheme or for aesthetic reasons.
And that there were cases of women who had them withdrawn for referring physical symptoms, but that these continued after the explantation, "for which reason the implant was not the cause."
Pedro
demolishes the myth that implants have to be replaced every 10 years
and says that only between 5% and 10% of prostheses have complications throughout their history.
And he emphasizes that the
annual control of the prostheses
is essential
, as well as choosing a recognized specialist.
“On the SACPER website you can consult the list of members.
Putting an implant is easy, but doing the follow-up afterwards and detecting a possible complication is not ", he remarks.
Statistics
In the United States,
the removal of breast implants is on the rise
.
Also according to data from the National Center for Health Research, there were 54,539 implant removal procedures in 2019, including augmentation and reconstruction patients, compared to 48,385 extractions in 2018 and 47,000 in 2017.
Mecca says that the percentage of women who go to his office to
remove prostheses is low
, 2%, which are mostly women who do so because they have reached a certain age or due to a gain in breast volume.
Breast implants were first sold in the 1960s, but the FDA - the US health agency - did not have the authority to regulate them until 1976. By 1990 almost a million women already had them, although there were no published studies about your safety.
Around the world, about 10 million women have implants.
FDA studies show that
eventually all implants break
.
10% before three years, more than 70% after the first decade.
It is estimated that in 30% of these cases the silicone migrates to other areas of the body.
25% of those with silicone fillings and 8% of those with saline fillings are explanted before the age of three, according to data from the National Center for Health Research.
ACE
Look also
10 years after the PIP silicone scandal, 3,500 Argentines still wait to be compensated
PIP prosthesis: they summon the Argentines who had them implanted to join a class action lawsuit