5 Things to Know About Breast Implants: Communication with your Surgeon is Key

3. Communicate with the surgeon to achieve optimal results

Surgeons must evaluate the shape, size, surface texture and placement of the implant and the incision site for each woman.

Ask the surgeon questions about his or her professional experience, the surgical procedure, and the ways the implant might affect an individual’s life.

Also, tell the surgeon about previous surgeries and your body’s response—for example, whether surgeries resulted in excessive scar tissue—and discuss your expectations.

This helps the surgeon make operative decisions that achieve the desired appearance (i.e., incision location and size, implant size and placement). 

Many women undergo reoperation to change implant size.  To achieve optimal results after the first procedure, careful planning and reasonable expectations are necessary.

This is part of a series of posts about breast implants, beginning here.
For more information please visit
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm338144.htm

5 Things to Know About Breast Implants: Breast Implants are Not All The Same. They Need to be Researched Before Use

2. Research products.

Review the patient labeling. FDA advises that women look at the Summary of Safety and Effectiveness Data (SSED) for each implant to learn about their characteristics and the fillers used. These documents describe the risks associated with that breast implant, and how likely they are to occur for each implant based on the available evidence from clinical studies.

SSEDs have been produced for all approved saline and silicone gel-filled breast implants.

These summaries provide information on the indications for use, risks, warnings, precautions, and studies associated with FDA approval of the device.

Look at the frequency of serious complications found in the SSED.

The most serious are “those that lead to further surgeries, such as ruptures or capsular contracture,” says Tajanay Ki, a biomedical engineer in CDRH.

FDA advises health care providers to give women the full labeling—all of the patient information from the manufacturer—for an implant.

Ask your surgeon for the most recent version of the labeling.

You should have at least 1-2 weeks to review the information before making a decision, but with some reconstruction or revision surgery cases, it may be advisable to perform surgery sooner. 

This is part of a series of posts about breast implants, beginning here.
For more information please visit
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm338144.htm

5 Things To Know About Breast Implants: Breast Implants Are Not Lifetime Devices

1. Breast implants are not lifetime devices.

The longer a woman has them, the greater the chances that she will develop complications, some of which will require more surgery.  The patient can also request additional surgeries to modify the aesthetic outcome, such as size or shape.

“The life of these devices varies according to the individual,” says Gretchen Burns, a nurse consultant at FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH). 

“All women with implants will face additional surgeries—no one can tell them when.” While a few women have kept their original implants for 20-30 years, “that is not the common experience.”

This is part of a series of posts about breast implants, beginning here.
For more information please visit
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm338144.htm

5 Things To Know About Breast Implants: Introduction

First things first about breast implants:

In the United States, the FDA has approved implants for increasing breast size in women, for reconstruction after breast cancer surgery or trauma, and to correct developmental defects. Implants are also approved to correct or improve the result of a previous surgery.

A number of studies have reported that a majority of breast augmentation and reconstruction patients are satisfied with the results of their surgery.

So far, the FDA has approved two types of breast implants for sale in the U.S.: saline (salt water solution)-filled and silicone gel-filled. Both have a silicone outer shell and vary in size, shell thickness and shape.


There are risks associated with breast implantation. These include the following:

• the need for additional surgeries
• capsular contracture—scar tissue that squeezes the implant, possibly until it breaks
• breast pain and tenderness
• rupture (tears or holes in the shell) with deflation of saline-filled implants
• silent (without symptoms) rupture of silicone gel-filled implants

FDA experts suggest five things women should know about breast implants.

For more information please visit
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm338144.htm

"Time of Use" Utilities can Save you Money

Have you ever  wondered why you pay the same price for electricity no matter whether every one of your neighbors is sucking power out of the grid, or you are the only one in your area using a lot of power?

Electrical companies spend massive amounts of money and resources to provide a surplus of power to consumers, so that they can accommodate all of the people that want to use power for their daily activities. They would love the opportunity to produce a little bit less and save those resources for future generations, and if people would use power in a more distributed fashion, with different people using the power grid at different times, it would be possible for them to do this.

In order to promote this kind of system, a lot of power companies have implemented Time of Use programs as an incentive to get people to use power during "off peak" hours, when most of the others on the power grid are not using electricity as much. The people on the plan will pay less per unit of power consumed during off peak times, and more during peak times, and usually end up spending less overall because if it is significantly cheaper, you might be more inclined to do your washing or gaming in the evening during the week rather than the weekend, for instance.

Although estimates vary, you could easily save 25 to 50 dollars on your electric bill each month by using such a system.

Don't Heat your Closets and Save

Do you keep your closet doors open at home? What about your cabinets in the kitchen, your basement, or your pantry?
Although it seems like nothing much, these storage spaces in the home add up to a lot of cubic footage, and when you are trying to save money on heating expenses, the cost of heating your closets, cellars and pantry can really stack up.

Just by closing the doors and ensuring that there are minimal leaks, you can reduce your heating bills by a significant fraction, which is more dramatic if your closets are on an outside wall.

While you are at it, you can consider closing off a wing of your home during the cold season, to help conserve energy. If you have enough space in your home to live in just a fraction of it, it can be a great way to save on costs such as lighting, heating, and cleaning for the winter.

Borrow Before you Buy

When you live in a community of average folks, chances are there are going to be a lot of people with similar and different interests to your own. I happen to be enthusiastic about cycling, gardening, writing, and crafts, but my neighbors like reality television, music, and horseback riding.

Sure, there are a lot of differences between us, but when one of us needs a specialized tool the other might happen to have it, and that can save a ton of money when extended over the course of a month or a year's worth of weekend and evening projects.

I recently found myself trying to hand some posters without a hammer, nails, or sufficiently strong adhesives. Sure, I could have made a run to the local hardware store and kitted myself out, but instead I didn't spend a dime, bonded with the neighbors, and borrowed all that I need with an open invitation to take whatever I wanted, since they had a lot of leftover supplies from a construction project last year.

You can easily save 5-10 dollars a week by borrowing tools and supplies that you might need, a savings of well over 250 dollars per year!