Woman's Illness Solved When Docs Extract Implants

Saline implants can, and do, get moldy
By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 4, 2015 9:15 AM CST
Woman's Illness Solved When Docs Extract Implants
   (Anne Ziegenhorn/YouTube screenshot)

In 2011, Anne Ziegenhorn of Florida began to gain weight inexplicably. Normally healthy, the mother of two soon began suffering from burning pain, vision loss, and cloudy thinking and had sores all over her body. She writes that she was unable to talk for 8 months, instead texting and writing on a dry-erase board. She saw many doctors, certain that their diagnoses of lupus, arthritis, and thyroid problems must be wrong. Then she saw Dr. Susan Kolb, author of The Naked Truth About Breast Implants, who has implants herself and who suggested mold might be an issue. Sure enough, as soon as Ziegenhorn's saline breast implants were removed, her symptoms vanished. Wear TV reports Ziegenhorn keeps a video on her phone that shows what was once in her body: a mold-covered implant. (She believes her implant was leaking "moldy fluid" into her system for years.)

She and another woman from Kentucky, Paula Blade, have teamed up to spread the word, reports WPSD Local 6. Blade's tale is a similar one, and she says that when her removed implants were tested, the implants' valve was found to be faulty, the "filling fluid [was] grossly contaminated," and there were signs of mold. Dr. Kolb believes the mold can often be traced to defective valves (saline implants are put into the body deflated, and the saline is then inserted via the valve). While an FDA spokesman tells Wear TV that he's not aware of similar complaints being filed by women with moldy implants, he does note that most women will eventually need theirs replaced. Dr. Kolb, however, says she's treated thousands of patients with "saline biotoxin illness" and feels strongly that patients should have them changed every eight to 15 years. (This celeb had her saline implants removed due in part to health concerns.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X