Dr. Kolb

http://www.thenakedtruthaboutbreastimplants.com/

Dr. Kolb's new book!

Relapse

I write this almost 3 years after I got breast implants on 12/26/06. I relapsed over 9 weeks ago - very severely. I went off my medication in May because I was doing so well. I had been on it almost 2 years and was even thinking of doing a fitness competition again. I was loving life and so happy again. I took a vacation to the lake in August and came home with a bladder infection. I went to the urgent care & they gave me the antibiotic Cipro. I took it and immediately relapsed... I couldn't concentrate at work again, my speech slurred, my brain and vision were foggy, I was terrified that this was happening again. Within 2 weeks, I was relying on everyone around me to drive me to the doctor, calm my fears, and take care of me again. I went on disability from work again, this time for 2 months. I was depressed and regretful again and it has been terrible. Cipro has made lots of people sick, as I have found on the Internet. My Dr. thinks the UTI and the Cipro were trauma to my body and my body went into memory mode from the implant illness. I don't have any diseases, my bloodwork is perfect.. but my immune system attacks itself when something foreign enters it ever since the implants, so I have to be careful. I am thankful to God that I am slowly getting better again and I had supportive people to take care of me.. but this is just a reminder of how much I have to take care of my body for the rest of my life now.

2 year explant anniversary!

Let the party begin… it is my 2 Year Explant Anniversary! 2 years since my painful journey began and started coming to an end. Told you I would be here to blog about it. Rather than ramble & reiterate all that I have said before.. I think it will be good to list the pros & cons of this terrible journey.

Cons:

• Went through hell for 9 months - sick as heck, no memory, foggy, body pains, dimentia, chills, blurry vision, a sezuire, a coma, the list goes on….
• 2 scars under my breasts
• Scary memories that will last forever.. and the scary things people tell me that happened that I have no memory of
• Seeing breast implants seen as such a great thing in the media and how women’s beauty is portrayed
• Missed1 yr of work & life
• Lost my apartment & ruined a relationship
• Found out who my real friends were
• Frusteration that nothing is being done about this crisis
• Lost a lot of money & got into debt trying to get better

Pros:

• Appreciate life now & don’t take it for granted
• Help other women either make the right decision or comfort them and help them in sickness, as they find my site
• Am able to save some money now to buy a house one day
• Got into a wonderful new relationship
• No more anxiety.. I have been through the worst.. now I am a brave woman!
• New challenging job that makes me happy!
• Became closer to my family
• Found an amazing Dr. who helped me get better
• Have met tons of amazing women who love & support me
• Feel beautiful the way I am!

The list goes on & on.. but that felt good and I just wanted to share my anniversary of getting my implants out with everyone. The worst decision I ever made was to put those objects in my body.. and the best thing I ever did was to take them out

Absolutely Safe sparks this long overdue cultural conversation....

I will be buying this video in November and I hope it sheds some light on women who are sick from breast implants.

Every year more than 250,000 teenagers and women choose breast implants, yet fewer voices than ever seem to be asking “Why?” And fewer still are asking “Are they safe?” Absolutely Safe takes an open-minded, personal approach to the controversy over breast implant safety. Ultimately, Absolutely Safe is the story of everyday women who find themselves and their breasts in the tangled and confusing intersection of beauty and business.

This is why I do this!

Hi Gretchen,

I wanted to write and commend you on your efforts of educating girls on the risks of implants. I have always wanted implants and after wanting them so long, I set up 3 consultations last week. They went great, I picked a doctor got my finance agreement in order, etc. All i was waiting for was to schedule the date of the surgery. Ever since last week after the consultations I feel anxious, couldn't sleep at night, couldn't stop weighing the pros and cons, and didn't stop bugging my fiance to convince me that implants were not a big deal.. He, however, was uneasy about the whole thing and was actually trying to talk me out of it.

Last night I found your website...after staying up late every night doing research. I found stories on bad experiences but non of them touched me the way your story did. After reading your experiences and others you shared, I made a decision that big boobs were not worth the risk of long term suffering.
Just wanted to thank you and let you know that your suffering wasn't in vein as you are making a difference! I am glad God lead me to your site, there must of been a reason why I felt so insecure about the decision i was about to make.

All the best!

"J"

Men get sick from silicone too!

Letter I got from a man the other day via my site that I wanted to share. Edited for length. I hope this gives some insight to any doctors who may see this - that silicone IS toxic and can make men sick too. I am praying for this man & I am so glad he wrote to me.

"I was most interested to read your website.
While the vast majority of silicone victims are women, I would like to relate my story to you which is from a male perspective.
I had a prosthetic testicle inserted in 1983 at the age of 21. At the time, I didn't know that it was made of silicone and I probably would not have cared. I was more concerned with the embarrassment of having a girl laugh at me for only having one testicle.

Things went well for me until 5 years later when "the rot set in".
First thing I noticed was my digestive system ground to a halt. Even though I ate plenty of good food, I no longer got the urge to empty my bowels. When I finally did, sometimes after 5 days, the stools were loose and foul smelling. Eating extra fibre made it worse. This was explained by the doctor as being IBS. I never really believed that because I had always had excellent health up until this point.
From that stage (1988) until today I have been increasingly plagued by the following symptoms:

- Bowel/digestive problems
- Extreme sensitivity to light and certain sounds
- Constant runny nose and ear infections
- Sore/swollen joints
- Very bad anxiety and nervousness
- Symptoms similar to yeast disorder
- Acne on face and back
- Unable to eat sugar, grains or dairy without making all of my other symptoms MUCH worse.

Around 1996 I had had enough and decided to cure myself because blood tests had shown that there was nothing wrong with me. At that stage I was convinced that it was just Candida that was the problem. I tried every natural/herbal medicine under the sun and at great expense but my condition did not improve.

A couple of months ago I was sympathetically reading an article about a woman who was suffering the effects of silicone poisoning due to breast implants and I could not help but notice that nearly all of the symptoms were similar to mine. Then it hit me like a sledge-hammer. I had never in the past 25 years considered that my silicone testicular prosthesis could be the cause of my misery.

That brings me to the current day where I have made an appointment to see a urologist on August 28th 2008 with the aim of having the prosthesis removed as soon as possible.

I hope that this will bring some relief to the nightmare that I have been living for the past 25 years."

Beauty & The Breast Blog - Torch Hand Off

Beauty and the Breast
May 23, 2008
Greetings!

Mary and I started Beauty and the Breast for many reasons: to share information, to relate our experiences, to create a conversation that tries to make sense of a social environment that drives women - sometimes despite reason or judgment, more often in ignorance - to go under the knife to receive breast implants into their bodies.
Most of all, we started this blog to be the voice of the breast implant community: the women's health advocates, the doctors and other health professionals, and the tens of thousands of implant victims. Frustrated by the failure of news media to educate the public about the dark side of breast implants, a story littered with broken bodies and broken lives, we started this blog to enable the breast implant community to speak out and tell that story ourselves.

And we are. Since we launched the blog in July 2007, blog traffic has grown by leaps and bounds, our community closer and more united with a sense of purpose, and our collective voice louder and more vibrant. We are reaching people in other communities who are hearing us and helping us evaluate the issues of and insure truthful reporting about body image, feminism, parenting and most of all breast implants.

Alas, with the foundations laid, it's time for Mary and me to turn our energies to other fronts in the fight against unsafe and inadequately studied breast implants and for women's health. Though Mary and I will continue to post on occasion, we are stepping back and handing Beauty and the Breast over to Kacey, Krista and Gretchen. These three young women are wise beyond their years and passionately committed to the breast implant issue. We are confident that their stewardship will help the blog's voice continue to grow and reach new generations of breast implant recipients. We hope you will continue to visit, participate and support them.
We will no longer be sending out Beauty and the Breast e-mail newsletters, as we have added Feedburner to the blog. To recieve our updates via email or through a feed, please go to Beauty and the Breast and look in the top right corner.

Until we meet again, be happy and healthy!
Sybil and Mary