“I feel like I was tricked by the medical field. Nobody told me that the possible side effects would be completely life-altering and changing.”
When I read the post above by one of the members of a Facebook group I belong to, I wasn’t sure for a moment which group I was in. Was it the implant illness survivors’ group, or one of the many de-transition groups I follow? The parallels between the two are striking.
My own experience with reconstruction post-mastectomy began two years after my detransition. After surviving the brainwashing and cult-like atmosphere of gender medicine, I was trying to piece my life back together with the same mindset that I had used to destroy it.
When you’re transitioning, people tell you that doctors can create new body parts for you. Doctors can take away old body parts and create a new, better body than God gave you. I carried this belief system into my detransition process as well.
This belief that there is always a surgical fix is everywhere: a young woman calls the doctor the week after undergoing a double mastectomy as part of a transition and says, “I want my breasts back.” A physician asked about post-surgical regret quips, “Well, if they don’t like what they’ve done, they can just get boobs again when they’re older.”
This was the mindset I had when I agreed to have two silicone orbs shoved under the muscle in my chest wall. I was told this was the best option and that reconstruction would help me move on with my life. I would get my breasts back; I could start living my life again.
That was far from what actually happened.
Early on, after my surgery, I posted a picture to the Detrans subreddit and received an enthusiastic reception:
People said things like “Wow, I hadn’t considered getting reconstruction, but now I’m considering it! This is my dream body!”
Today, I wish I could follow up with those specific people and let them know that that dream body was ruined by implant illness, for which one of the emerging side effects is tremendous weight gain and metabolic dysfunction.
While it’s entirely possible that I will never be able to parse apart which things were caused by the wrong sex hormones I took for five years and which things were caused by slowly leaking metals and silicone into my body, it’s certainly something that we should be talking about and sharing with each other more.
Many of the women in the breast implant illness survival groups list unending symptoms: hair loss, weight gain, certain metabolic issues, aching joints, skin issues, nail issues, reproductive issues, and the list goes on
These women are fighting to be listened to by doctors and to be taken seriously. They are fighting for accurate warnings on the information pamphlets given to people when they sign up for implants. My own symptoms included: metabolic dysfunction, brain fog, muscle wasting, extremely long, painful periods, and tremendous and horrific hair loss.
Recovering From the “Cure”
Over and over again, I see women in these groups posting pictures of their faces, their complexions, and their eyes before they get the implants out and after. The contrast is stark. Before their faces are red and irritated, after, they look like different people. The inflammation in my own face went down tremendously the day after getting these toxic bags out of my body. But that wasn't all. I was no longer in pain. Another thing you won’t hear about is that undergoing reconstructive surgery involving foreign objects is how much it hurts. Physically having an object under the muscle in my chest, especially under the muscle that had been cut previously during the mastectomy, was excruciating.
I know many survivors of gender affirmation medicine (SGAM) have sensory issues because many of us have other diagnoses that include sensory issues. Let me tell you, if a tag in the back of your shirt bothers you, imagine how much the sensation of something rubbing under your muscle would feel.
Now, what the doctors will say is, “If the operation was done correctly, you won’t be able to feel it.” But does this remind you of things we’ve been told before?
My particular doctor did a great job. He did exactly what he was supposed to do. The reconstructive procedure was considered a great success. However, that did not negate the negative effects for me. The weight of the implants themselves wasn’t a problem, but the way that the muscle was pulled out and away from the body hurt my back beyond anything I could imagine.
Some doctors have recently discussed the effects of implants on your body's alignment, including your hips. This is something that I experienced as well, extreme hip pain, because everything is connected to everything.
The implants also affected my desire and ability to work out my chest. I didn't like the sensation of them moving under the muscle when I lifted, so I didn’t work out my chest for a couple of years.
Eventually, I got pregnant and had my first daughter. The initial mastectomy left me in significant pain after giving birth because my milk ducts were still present in my armpits and other places, but I was unable to express them. So there was severe pain every time my daughter cried, and it couldn’t be resolved.
I say this to remind everyone that I was told that I would be getting my breasts back. The experience of holding my crying daughter, having my chest ache and throb, and yet being unable to feed her, highlighted the fact that getting these round orbs put in my chest to emulate breasts was not the same as getting back the working, functioning, useful organs that are designed to feed our young.
I ultimately decided to have the implants removed at my own expense (approximately $10,000 at least) because I had a surgeon friend who did me a favor. The psychological toll of having to go under the knife again to remove breasts from my body was unbelievably traumatic. It mirrored the regrettable “top surgery” I’d had years prior.
Any survivor reading this will know that this requires psychological strength in a way that living as a trans person does not. Trans ideology says, “I feel vaguely uncomfortable with the way that God made me, the way that I came into this earth, the way I was born from my mother.” And then it says, “It’s okay to not face that feeling. It’s okay to run away from it using every maladaptive coping skill you can.”
But, as you know, when we break out of that mentality and detransition, we not only face up to the original pain and grief surrounding the wish not to have been born the sex we were, but we also mourn things that were altered about our bodies in traumatic, destructive ways.
That is a real grief and a real feeling. Trans ideology told us that simply disliking things about the way you were born was reason enough to feel suicidal, but it held out the promise that we could change them.
We have to be stronger than that. We have to accept the things that there are things we can’t change.
What I Want; What I Know
I see you struggling, and you’re not alone. The truth is that we have to be at peace with being misunderstood and accept the grief we were told we could avoid.
I want to encourage everybody to think twice about falling back into the trans mindset that claims we can alter our bodies endlessly without consequences.
I want to get more and better information out there so that each and every one of you can make a better-informed decision.
I also want to give everybody hope that we are strong enough to withstand the grief for the very real loss we’ve experienced. And we are strong enough to stand in that and move through it without altering our bodies again.
If you are thinking about reconstruction, or even if you’re not, I want to encourage you to join any of the implant illness groups on Facebook that welcome outsiders. There, you can hear the stories that aren’t being told by the doctors who stand to make a lot of money off of these operations.
I cannot speak about all forms of reconstruction. I know that there are techniques that involve transferring tissue, such as fat, from your own body for reconstruction, thereby reducing the risk of rejection. I would encourage anyone set on reconstructive surgery to look into those options, research them thoroughly before making a decision, and go into it with your eyes open.
Best,
Elizabeth Edens
Elizabeth is a 31-year-old mom who lives in the USA. She transitioned at 19 while at university and then ceased transition at 25. She attributes her detransition to a spiritual encounter with her Higher Power after praying every day to do God’s Will instead of her own. As she approaches more years out of the cult than in, she hopes to share her journey of finding peace with other survivors of the Gender Medicine industry
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Thank you for sharing this story. We need more brave truth tellers to speak up like you.
Thrre is a sense among young women that doctors can do anything including getting pregnant in their 40s when they left it too late.