Exchange City
Comments
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Peg....Oh, not at all! If I had ever decided to become a doctor, it would not have been a plastic surgeon. I would have been a pathologist. But I was a medical malpractice claims investigator for nearly 20 years and investigated the silicone breast implant controversy in the early to mid 1990's [for Baxter Healthcare, who was forced out of the implant business by all of the class action suits] so I have read a great deal about breast augmentation and breast implants over the years. I now just know enough to be dangerous~!!!0
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Candi - Yes, yes, yes! Your experience is going to be different this time and you are going to have a beautiful cosmetic result! Your patience will pay off!! So glad to hear from you!!0
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way to explain flufing Deb
You are good
It's 80 outside and I can't wait to get out of work
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Grrr I just got a letter from the hospital about my surgery and they are trying to collect my deductible again $3600 apparently my insurance is stating that I haven't meet my deductible. Hello, mastectomy, 6 rounds of chemo. do you think the meet the $4000.00 deductible yet. GRrr....
Good news though surgery is still on as scheduled
Come on June, hell I'd be happy with the end of May. Okay I'll go back to wishing my days away.
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ADDENDUM: Just want to explain for the record....I cannot take credit for that explanation of fluffing which is in italics and quotes....as I mentioned in the beginning of that post, someone on one of the breast augmentation forums came up with that analogy...
I just know that one of the newbies - Jan1 - has asked a few times what "fluffing" means and so I was responding....
So again....I cannot take credit for the pillow packaging description.
But it's a good one, I agree!!! 
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Jaimieh - Oh dear, what a significant deductible. May / June will be here before you know it. Hugs!
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Val61,
You bring up a great point of skin stretching with pregnancies. I gained 70 lbs with each child (thankfully lost it all) and didn't get one stretch mark. I don't know if that means anything really.
I do know that I am unable to pinch any skin between my breasts, never could. There is no fat there whatsoever, just skin stuck to bone. Wish my thighs had the same "problem"!
Deborah, he never gave me the dimensions of the tissue expanders. When the nurse asked for me, he was out of the room, he said they were 450 cc's. I don't want anything close to those dimensions. They are awful, too wide for my frame. He says he wants to over expand me so I have a natural hang. Since he won't give me any more fills, he is going to go smaller. I can't tell you how down I am about this. I know it is totally superficial but call me shallow!
Thanks to everyone for your understanding ears!
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Dianne - Do you have a date for your exchange yet? What size do you think you want? I am so sorry you are down - your smile is so nice in your picture.
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Jean!!! You have a new avatar!! But you are hiding your face!!! What are we going to do with you????
Dianne: I PM'd you back....
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Jean.. new pic! Wahooooo .. I agree with Deb... where is your face sister... ugggggg.. What are we going to do with you??
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Oh.. and ladies.. get this cappola.. I just found out I am losing my Oncologist. She is leaving for a year to work at Yale University... WHAT NOW?? There are 4 others in the group.. but this gal got me through.. ya know.. I am so sad about this. For those that have been through as much as me.. can you imagine... I will not even be out of treatment until Nov. of this year...
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Mykidsmom,
I love the photo! I asked for July 13 and he said it's a possibility. When he left the room I told his nurse to pencil me in and don't let him book anyone else! I asked for the begining of June but since my daughter is graduating at the end of June, he said he didn't like to schedule surgery before an event in case there are complications. Me and my big mouth! I want a C cup. I started this saying I would be happy with a B but I have gotten foob greed.
I went to the gym tonight and worked my chest muscles on the machines, and ran on the treadmill. I figure maybe I can hurry up and stretch the skin in the next two weeks. Yes, I am losing my mind! LOL
Laura, I am sorry to hear you are losing your Oncologist. I know building a relationship with your doctor is just as important as your care. I hope there is another doctor there that you can connect with.
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Thanks Dani!
Hey ladies.. I just wanted to say.. I miss psalmist...
I wonder how she is ... 0 -
Laura, I think about her weekly! I miss her also. I keep hoping she will come back to visit and share with us.
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Dianne: I remember researching upper body strengthing in light of having expanders and/or implants and is a downside to building up too much in the pectoral region. As the muscle firms and strengthens, it can flatten or further compress the implants. The information that I found was referable to female body builders/weight lifters and it was stated that many of them get breast augmentation with "overs" instead of "unders". This is to state that they get implants over the muscle rather than under the muscle and the two inciting factors for this would be compression and flattening of the implant and also the "animation" one gets with certain movement when implants are under the muscle. I'll try to find that article....
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I'd be interested in that article about pec muscles too. I want to start working on toning my arms again, but I'm worried that whatever I do to strengthen and tone my arms will also work the chest muscles. I was a little disappointed with my size after the exchange so don't want to do anything that will flatten them further!!!
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Dianne I just wanted to share my PS said my skin was getting thin when I was at 330cc but I was able to get another 100cc before my exchange. Are you using lotion on your breast? If you don't want to do my goofy cool whip trick I read a gal covered her breast with saran wrap after putting lotion on to keep it off her cloths and really left it soak in. I had 450cc TE and was filled to 430cc. My 1st implant was 450cc but was actually smaller than my TE when I looked at dim. My 2nd exchange I got 550cc high profile and they fit just fine. If I were you ask your PS to take 3 implant in with him and use the one that fits best. I hear a lot of PS do that
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Firni my expanders were 12.7 and my 1st implant was 11.4 which I thought was too narrow on my 29 inch rib cage. My 2nd implant we went with high profile mentor 550cc which are 13.6. So it is possible to go wider than your TE. It is possible that you may have scar tissue and if they break that up the wider implant might not be any wider than what you have right now. If your PS is willing to take several into surgery with him ask him to even take a 500 in just in case if it would work out.
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I think most of the questions have been answered if I missed anything just ask again and I'll try and help out. Hang in there ladies : - )
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Hi Everyone,
I am so happy to have the 410's out. Now that I know the difference I would never go back. The style 20 is way softer and a lot more comfortable. It is more like my natural breast. So far it looks pretty natural for the slope and it doesn't dent like the step off some of you have talked about. I had never heard this term before but there was a dent there before. I still have incision post op pain but this new implant is now way near as heavy feeling. The 410's might be great if you are a smaller size but I now have 800cc and it is lighter than the 740 I had. The round implant seems to be a lot better match with more fullness and now I don't have to stuff my bra to try to match my real breast and don't have to have a further reduction to make things match.
I am having some issues with my incision opening up a bit as it so am lying low for a while. I got my first look at the nipple areola graft and well, I am glad I was warned that things would look really weird for a while. The nipple looks very flat but larger and a strange shape right now. It looks like the size of a nickel but I am told it will shrink and change a lot. I hope so I am feeling so done with surgery! I didn't get to see my PS only the nurse who just changed the nipple dressing and said everything was doing well. I have to go back next week to get the sutures out around the graft.
Some of you have been talking about the style 45 for more projection. You need to know that it is an older implant that I was told is not used very often now because the style 20 has basically replaced it. Because it is an older implant they did not fill the implant with as much saline and therefore it can cause more ripples and doesn't really give you anymore projection. This is why I didn't go for the style 45 even though the chart shows it having a 1/2cm more projection.
I am not sure if I answered the questions some of you were asking. Please let me know what I have missed filling everyone in on.
I hope everyone is healing well...
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Sandy~ The best part about the Saran Wrap is that you can do it all the time and wear it out and about and no one has to know. I figured it couldn't hurt if I use the saran wrap for emmla cream why not vitamin E
I hope everyone enjoys their weekend.
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I'm a new poster to this forum. I've been reading and waiting patiently, well maybe unpatiently, until I was close to at least having a date for exchange. You guys are an unbelievable wealth of information and the great humor makes this a fantastic forum!!! I have 450cc expanders and have finally made it to 450cc. I meet with my PS Thursday to see if I can or should go larger or just what he thinks is best for me. I had chest radiation as a child so we'll just have to wait and see what size my foobs turn out. I was pretty uneven and barely an A before and am hoping for a C. Before my last fill the nurse told me the skin was doing fine with the stretching but that I didn't have as much projection as someone who hadn't had radiation. Things are pretty tight... Anyway, I'm working on a list of questions for my PS this week and might have a couple of questions for the experts here after my appt. With any luck I'll have an exchange date to post soon!! I can't wait to try to saran wrap and lotion
Traci 0 -
The messages have been great! I have to figure out how to post my picture here so you can have an idea of who or "what" I am; I will have to ask my DH to help me with that. ; ) Jan
Janet, thanks for the Gummy Bear explanation, I think my PS only uses Mentor implants, but I do want to ask him if I have a choice and what implant is going to give me a natural shape with out the ridge at the top of the breast or step off, kind of what I have now with the TE.
Candi, I had my drain in for almost 2 weeks, my sympathy goes out to you for having to hide the bulb and tubing under your clothes and trying to lie down around it. Hope all is better by now.
Whippetmom, thanks for the fluffing explanation, since I have a TE in place, I would assume that I would only have settling instead of fluffing on my right side, but could have "fluffing" on the left side since that is still a natural breast that will have a smaller implant placed in June. Knowledge is power!
Jaimieh, I will have to pay a whole new deductible too. My mastectomy was on 12-29-08, at the year end. Since 1-1-09 is the start of the new year, guess what? New deductibles and co-pays apply again. I should have held off the surgery until after the new year, but had already waited 8 weeks and I wanted it over with!
Coffee, thanks for sharing your experiences, I learn so much from everyone and take all of the experience to formulate questions for my PS. My goal is to get the exchange surgery done right the first time with the right implant. I know there are no guarantees that I will be this fortunate at the time of the exchange, but I gave it my best shot.
Traci, welcome to the forum, Did you have a bilateral mastectomy or just one side? The ladies here are my anchor to reality and information on what to expect. When I am working I don't have as much time to read the posts, but try to catch up on the week-ends.
Jan
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Jan~ Our year is Oct-Oct. so I was within the year and my DH started off the year by having his Surgery in October so it should be covered. I was just fired up because they can look in their system and see my records. Oh Well I got it taken care of just frustrating.
53 days until exchange. I sure hope at my next PS appt. I don't need any additional saline added.
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Hi ladies today I talked to my friend Debbie...
about a week ago she went to see my PS
her implants she has now are 275cc high profile which are only 10.8 by 4.4
I tell you I swear our 1st PS just didn't want us having big boobs. She tried talking me out of my last 100cc in my TE and not to get my implant on my healthy side. Than when she picked my 1st implant it wasn't as wide as my TE : (
I agree my friend for sure has to go with a wider base, between 12 - 13 cm is what I'm thinking. She has a lot of room and her implant really moves a lot since our 1st PS went with such a small size.
But my new PS suggested moderate plus profile from Mentor
she had 1st suggested that to me but I wanted to keep as much of my projection and I said it won't bother me if I had the L shape step off to have that. But I was lucky and have a very natural slope to my breast... yay
So my question is do you ladies know of anybody that had the moderate plus profile that I could check their pix out. From the charts I see
300cc are 12.0 by 3.6 ( I think Debbie mentioned they might use this on her)
325cc are 12.3 by 3.8
350cc are 12.5 by 3.9
375 are 12.8 by 4.0
400cc are 13.1 by 4.0
These are the sizes of the high profile implants
375cc are 12.0 by 4.8
400cc are 12.2 by 5.0
425cc are 12.5 by 5.0
450cc are 12.8 by 5.1
Debbie did share she doesn't want to be as big as me which is 550cc HP which are 13.6 by 5.5
A copy of her record went to the new PS but she didn't get a copy for herself so she doesn't know the dim of her TE. I forget how many cc she had in her TE... I think it was around 400 or maybe even a little more. She is a very small gal although I think one time she shared she wore a 36B which actually surprised me because I would have guessed her a 34 bra band.
Now that I have the numbers I will have to ask Debbie if she's fine having less projection than what she has right now.
She also shared she's going to get lipo suction of her saddle bags and I told her how some gals add that to there breast and than I thought maybe her insurance would pay for it. It doesn't hurt to ask.
As a lot of you know in my mind set I think if we get 5cm projection we'll be happy but maybe that's not true to everyone. I just want to make sure my friend is happy.
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Jan if you want to add a pix scroll up and click on my home
than click on edit my profile
click on browse and add a photo that you have saved on your computer
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I just wanted to say if you haven't checked out sarajean ( BiLat w/Expanders - First 10 Weeks ) on the pix forum she has had great results so far. She did have trouble with her scar opening as others have here so keep your chin up everything may turn out just fine like it did for her.
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silly me when looking at pix I remembered Mona ( her implants are the Allergan Natrelle 20-375. 375cc's each which would be 11.9 by 5.0), Mooddy's 1st set (around 400 - 425cc HP) and Linda remind me again what do you have for implants (I'm thinking 375 style 20 but not for sure)?
ok ladies time to get more cleaning done around my house since it's a rainy day out.
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Sandy - You might also want to find out who has Allergan moderate + profiles - which would be similar to Mentor. Lorraine [fairy] has Allergan moderate profiles - although they are 600's I think...I am just afraid that at only 300 cc's - they are going to appear too wide and flat to her. Don't you?
What about Allergan?
Style 15:
304 cc's.......11.9 x 4.0
339 cc's.......12.4 x 4.0
Style 20
325 cc's........11.2 x 4.6
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Anyone else been in this position? The exchange surgery was so much easier physically, and so much harder mentally. Closest my DH and I have been to fighting through this whole thing. He can't understand why I'm an emotional mess, and I can't understand why he can't understand why this was such a big deal for me. He's thinking great, whew, no neutropenia, no puking, no near death chemo experience, and I'm turning around not recognizing who I'm looking at in the mirror and have no idea what clothes to even look at trying on in the store. Pretty chilly at our house this weekend and its the warmest day yet this spring.
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