Allergan textured implants

Hi everyone. I was diagnosed with ALCL Lymphoma in late 2018 after my right breast became a little sore to touch and contained fluid  some 300 mils. After being seen in ultrasound and had the fluid drawn off and sent for analysis. After a wait which seemed forever,' I was diagnosed with ALCL. 

Had a CT and PET scans I was referred to a lovely surgeon  in Herts who arranged to operate to remove my textured implants. 

All went well. After another scan a couple of lymph nodes were highlighted as suspicious so we're removed just as precaution.

Fortunately no further treatment. 

So my message is not to worry if you're diagnosed and try to stay focused. 

 

  • Hi Redroom,

    A warm welcome to our forum. Thank you for your positive advice. As you know from experience, we all worry about ALCL Lymphoma, so it's great to hear that all went so well for you.

    I am delighted to hear that your lymph nodes were all clear too. Have you any plans to replace your implants?

    Kind regards,

    Jolamine xx

  • Hi again

    Well I'm not sure if completely honest about having an uplift 18 months on from having my textured implants removed.  I will certainly take advice from my consultant as to implants versus uplift and it is still a little worrying about any 100% safe implants. I do feel that being 1 of the unlucky ones that the safest option for me would be to just opt for the uplift if that's the advice. 

    Although my daughter has been diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer. She has undergone a mastectomy and quite a few lymph nodes removed, chemotherapy and will shortly have radiotherapy.  She is planning to have an implant later in the year as her surgeon has suggested this or can have an uplift if she prefers. So all I can say is the surgeon still feels that an implant can be an option. I assume that the implants used now ate safer than previous textured ones used some 10 years ago or more.

    Are there any people out there who would like to comment for me please. 

  •  

    Hi Redroom,

    I can understand why you are dubious about having another implant after your experience of the Allergan textured ones. With each passing year, implants are reported to be improving, but the trouble is that complications don’t always manifest themselves until the implants have been worn for many years.

    I couldn’t have any implants after my double mastectomy, due to scarring from previous non-cancer related surgery and problems with anaesthetics. I was upset about this at the time, but I’m now quite glad, because I haven’t had to deal with ALCL. For the past 11 years I have coped fairly well with a selection of prostheses. I had a few embarrassing situations to start with, but have learnt how to overcome these with time.

    I am so sorry to hear that your daughter has also been touched by cancer. It is unfortunate that implants are not being offered at present and, that people have to wait a year after radiotherapy before they can get one. It is so much easier when all is taken care of in one fell swoop.

    There has been some discussion on the forum recently about ALCL. Unfortunately, I am having some problems with the forum at present and, cannot use the search facility. If you go to the blue banner at the top of this page and click on the search button and insert ‘ALCL’, ‘implants’, ‘textured implants’ or something similar, you will find previous posts on this topic. I hope that these will be useful for you.

    Kind regards,

    Jolamine xx

  • Hi again and many thanks for your comments. I will speak with the consultant after my PET scan shows all is well. 

    Incidentally my daughter was offered an interim procedure to give her a temporary breast of saline until she can have her surgery as I understand radiotherapy would change the shape if she'd have had the implant done before that treatment. 

    She is quite happy to wait until all treatments finished. 

    I wonder if anyone in the forums are having difficulty getting life cover insurance. I've tried my existing company but they have refused me cover because of ALCL.? 

  •  

    Hi Redroom,

    There have been a number of discussions about insurance on this forum. If you use the search facility in the same way as I outlined in my last post, but insert' life insurance', you will get to some exchanges about this. Most discussions are about travel insurance, so make sure that you mention that it is life insurance that you are interested in.
    Kind regards,

    Jolamine xx