Julie Christie had a really tough time. She said that she had nearly 70 mysterious symptoms. These symptoms made her unable to work. She was bedridden and even became disabled.
Every year, she spent as much as $10,000 on seeing specialists and doing tests. But still, she got no answers about what was wrong with her.
Christie said, “I thought I was going to die.” She had a lot of problems. She couldn’t walk straight. She couldn’t eat right, and water would come out of her mouth. She was losing all her hair. She also had rashes, both red and white ones.
Finally, through her own research, she had a breakthrough. She found out that she had Breast Implant Illness, or BII.
When Christie was only 17 years old, a cosmetic surgeon persuaded her to get a single breast implant to make her chest look more balanced.
It was only 30 years later, when she had that implant removed, that her health started to get better.
Now, Christie is trying to make more people aware of the risks of breast implants.
There are thousands of women who have similar symptoms. They have found a community on social media groups about Breast Implant Illness.
However, some doctors don’t think Breast Implant Illness is a real diagnosis. Christie talked about her surgeon, “She said she doesn’t know anything about this. And because I did research, she said I have a mental health problem.”
Dr. Stephen Nicolaidis has taken out more than 1,100 implants since 2018. He said that only a few patients didn’t feel better after the implant removal.
He even came up with a motto: “It’s not in your head. It’s in your breasts.”
Textured implants, like the one Christie had, have been connected to some complications. And although there’s no agreement on why people get sick from them, the surgeon thinks it’s probably because the body has a reaction to having a foreign object inside for a long time.
Nicolaidis said that decades of new research and the work done by people like Christie should change how surgeons talk to their patients. He said, “They have to tell these patients that there is a very high chance you’re going to need at least one more surgery, if not several, in your lifetime.”
Christie added that the people who are speaking out aren’t telling others not to get implants. They just want people to know the risks. They hope that fewer people will have to go through what she experienced.
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