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Capsular contracture following implant surgery
Four months after having my reconstruction surgery with gummy bear implants my right breast was higher than my left. Assuming it just hasn’t fallen I left the surgeons office saying I should wait it out. I then had a flu shot. The next day that higher breast became swollen, red and painful. I had a cat scan and it showed a seroma under the implant. The surgeon did emergency surgery and said I had capsular contraction - scar tissue encapsulated the implant and we won’t ever know if it was the flu shot that caused my immune system to go into overdrive and attack the implant or the Seroma was there and caused it or why this happened. Emergency surgery was scheduled and he had to remove the implant and the pocket it was in and all the scar tissue or capsular contraction. He put in another implant 5 weeks ago and I am healing. Has anyone had this happen ? I am told since I had one capsular contraction that it could happen again. I just have to wait a year to see if this new implant now will fall to be like the other one - more natural or whether he will have to raise the left one to match it at some point. Always hoping this doesn’t happen again. I am curious if anyone out there has experienced something like this happening to them. Obviously if it keeps happening I will either have to consider flap reconstruction or going flat. Either way that would require more surgery too. The surgeon doesn’t want to operate again on the right breast since I have had three surgeries since February when I had my bilateral mastectomies after an invasive lobular cancer diagnosis. It was HR positive and Hers negative and stage 1A not in my lymph nodes so while I am on letrozole I avoided chemo and radiation. Thanks for your insights all.
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@fronterae I asked because I have saline inplants and one ruptured. I was thinking of getting them replaced with silicone. Or just get an explant. I am on the fence. How do the silicone inplants feel? Are they heavy!
@christylv I have gummy bear implants which will never rupture or leak. They don’t feel heavy. They are much smaller than my own breasts were before my bilateral mastectomy. I think it is such a personal decision. I like my implants and my left breast looks great. I just have to wait for the right one to fall in time to be like the left one out in in May. Or the surgeon will have to operate to lift the left one to where the right one is. I have to wait at least a year to see what happens and just hope I don’t develop another contracture. If I do I will seriously consider going flat. Not sure what that surgery entails.
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1 Reaction@wews thank you so much for your reply! I am happy to hear you really like your implants! Yes unfortunately capsular contraction is a risk of the implant surgery :(. That is one of my biggest fears about getting them redone. I did have radiation on the side that ruptured. So that is a concern of mine. Did you have radiation along with too? If so, was that the side that had the contraction?
@christylv no I didn’t have radiation or chemo. My cancer was HR positive HERS negative so I am in AI. Apparently there is one study showing capsular contraction percentages are higher for women in AI. I didn’t know that either. But I am hoping it was a fluke. I also had a seroma under the right implant and it is possible that could have also impacted my bodies response. The left implant is fine. I had no problems with the expanders at all. It just happened after a flu shot in my left arm. The contractor happened in my right breast not my left. My cancer was in my right breast not my left. It wasn’t in my lymph nodes thankfully. I caught it early in an ultrasound. The mammogram didn’t see the cancer which was hiding in dense breast tissue.
I am sorry but I do not know what AI is ? Lucky you are doing better! And that’s great for no chemo or radiation! Did the capsular contraction hurt a lot?
They are drugs that block your body from making estrogen which is fuel for cancer cells. I will be on them for 5 years. They have side effects like hot flashes, joint pain, night sweats etc. the capsular contraction pulled my breast up and it got hot and red and swollen but I don’t know if that was also partly due to the seroma (fluid) under the implant. It just happened the day after I had a flu vaccine which also could have caused my immune system to attack the implant.
@christylv They don’t feel heavy. But they are smaller than my own breast before the risk reduction mastectomy. I’m still waiting for the right implant to drop. The left side feel smaller than the right side. I have my appointment in December with the plastic surgeon. Let’s see what she says.