Natalia had her breasts enlarged. After 8 months, one breast burst. “I was mutilated for life”

MUZA Publishing House will soon publish the book “Revised. How plastic surgery changes Poles” by Magda Mieśnik and Piotr Mieśnik. We are pre-premiere publishing fragments from the chapter “I wanted bigger breasts, I had to have amputation”.

Do you want to see what they did to me? – Natalia* does not wait for an answer and lifts the sweater and bra from the bottom. It doesn’t have to reveal your entire breasts. The underside shows jagged, raised scars. Numerous depressions in the skin. As if something had eaten away at her body. – I once saw similar marks, only much larger, on a photo of a shark victim. I look like he bit my chest off. There was some skin left with scars. I was crippled for life.

He is 27 years old. She always dreamed of bigger breasts, but was afraid of surgery, pain and a long period of recovery. She read a lot about it on the Internet, which is probably why she started seeing ads quite quickly. “Bigger breasts without surgery.” “Shapely breasts without a scalpel.” You can still find them online.

Natalia enters a few words into the search engine and shows the phone screen. “Aquafilling is a safely body shaping treatment, without the use of a scalpel. It is most often used to correct the shape of the breast. It consists of 98 percent physiological saline and 2 percent polyamide, so it is not felt to the touch. It is a very low-invasive preparation, because you can return to your daily activity 24-48 hours after the procedure,” you can read on the website advertising the procedure.

– The temptation was huge. Especially since I read on the websites of the clinics that performed the procedure that after 2 days I would be at full strength. Doctors assured that the effect of aquafilling would last up to 5 years. Over time, the gel, which was supposed to consist mainly of water, will simply be absorbed and its remains will be excreted in the urine. It was spring. We had already booked our holidays. Departure in 8 weeks. I thought to myself that since I don’t need surgery and I’ll be in shape almost immediately, and I’ll be able to run on the beach with new breasts, why not? The doctor estimated the procedure at PLN 14,000. Breast implants cost about that much back then, but I was really afraid of the surgery. That’s why I chose this supposedly safe treatment.

A moment before the first injection, I had to sign a consent form for the procedure. Complications include: pain, swelling, bruising at the injection site and redness. Injecting the preparation itself did not hurt. The doctor had previously administered anesthesia. He punctured several places on each breast and injected a transparent, gel-like preparation. Then he compared whether they were equal and injected some more. There were approximately 250 milliliters in each. I didn’t want to have breasts like Pamela Anderson. I wanted a natural effect.

After 5 weeks, there was cause for concern

It lasted maybe an hour. I got back home. I was resting, although I felt completely normal. Maybe my breasts were a bit heavier, after all I was carrying about half a kilogram more in the front. It wasn’t until about 5 weeks later that there was any cause for concern. I started to weaken. It feels like the beginning of the flu. Constant fatigue, drowsiness, pain throughout the body. Although my breasts hurt the most, especially the left one, which started to swell. Moreover, two injection sites still refused to heal. I had a very high fever, 40 degrees. I felt as if something in my chest was burning with fire. At some point I noticed that one of the places after the injection had opened and yellow goo and pus were leaking from it. When my husband saw this, he almost fainted.

MUZA Publishing House ‘Corrected’

We survived the night and in the morning we started calling the clinic where I did aquafilling. The doctor downplayed my symptoms. He claimed that I could have infected the wound with something. That no patient reported anything like this. He finally agreed to take me in. When I undressed in the office, one breast was almost twice the size of the other. It was swollen and so painful that even clothes rubbing against it caused waves of extreme pain. It even hurt when my nipple hardened from the cold. The doctor’s touch made me scream. When he pressed down on the wound that was leaking something in the house, pus suddenly gushed out onto him. Half of his apron was covered in yellow stains. It hurt so much that I almost lost consciousness. Besides, he was pale as hell too. My husband, who was with me, later said that the doctor looked really scared. When he returned in a clean apron, he gave me two stitches on non-healing wounds and prescribed antibiotics. He kept assuring me that it was not the fault of the treatment, because the preparation administered was actually water in gel. Finally, he advised that in case of further problems, seek help from a state hospital.

Antibiotics helped a little. The fever, pain and swelling are gone. I had problems with raising my arms, but it wasn’t a tragedy. The wounds healed very slowly, but I got used to them and didn’t seek help anywhere.

The pain began to increase

Eight months after the procedure, I had a fever again. The pain in my chest was increasing. I felt like they were about to explode. And finally one broke. There was a wound from which yellow goo was leaking again. My husband quickly checked which hospital had a plastic surgery department and took me there at night. The doctor who saw me only asked: “Aquafilling?” It turned out that two weeks earlier they had a patient with almost identical symptoms. I spent a week in the ward. Surgery was necessary. I thought that they would remove the gel, clean the wound and I would simply have the condition again. small breasts.

After the procedure, the surgeon came to talk to me. “I’ll tell you straight, because nothing will ease it. Both breasts need to be amputated. “We’ll try to make new ones for you later,” I heard. He had to repeat it twice because I couldn’t believe it. Amputation? Whole breasts? After a simple procedure with water? It was one of the worst moments of my life. In front of her eyes she had pictures of horsewomen, women who had had their breasts removed. breasts due to cancer. And now I was going to look like that myself. The breast muscles were so damaged that they were practically shreds. It was a shock. No, it was like being shot in the face. I broke for a week.

But I had no choice. Subsequent studies brought worse and worse information. The gel penetrated other tissues, it was not only in the breasts, but also lower, in the abdomen and probably in the uterus. I lost the chance to breastfeed the children we were about to try for. Besides, even if I had breasts, I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed. According to the doctor, there was no guarantee that the gel would not enter the child’s body with milk. I cursed myself for my stupidity and vanity. I wanted nicer tits, now I’m going to lose them completely. The doctor comforted me that reconstruction would be possible after a year and a half or two.

I called the surgeon who injected me with this crap many times. I demanded support, complaints, help, anything. He just brushed me off. He kept insisting that it was probably an allergic reaction, because the gel is almost only water.

Up to 6,000 women could use this method

Aquafilling treatments appeared in Poland in 2013. The price was similar to the cost of silicone implants, ranging from PLN 10,000 to PLN 20,000. Clinics tempted patients with the fact that the treatment did not require surgery and provided a very natural effect. Within a few years, approximately 6,000 women in Poland could benefit from this method of breast enlargement. In some cases, complications appeared just a few days after administration of the preparation. For others – a few weeks or months later. Those in the most serious condition were sent to plastic surgery departments of state hospitals throughout Poland.

The doctors were helpless. It turned out that the aquafilling preparation produced by the Czech company contains polyacrylamide, a type of plastic that is very harmful to the body and cannot be removed from the body. To get rid of it, you would have to cut out the tissues in which it is located – but this cannot be done if the preparation has already penetrated many tissues, from the breasts to the lower abdomen.

The method was used by dozens of doctors in Poland, most often without specialization in plastic surgery. The training organized by the gel distributor lasted one day. Some of the patients who received the preparation filed reports with the prosecutor’s office due to significant damage to their health. The issue of doctors’ liability was dealt with by the Supreme Medical Chamber. There are no resolutions yet. In 2017, the Polish Society of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgery stated that a product called Aquafilling can no longer be placed on the market in Poland. However, a moment later, aesthetic medicine clinics started administering Los Deline, which had an identical composition. Only at the beginning of 2020, the Office for Registration of Medicinal Products, Medical Devices and Biocidal Products decided to withdraw this polyacrylamide gel from the market and use. However, many patients still require treatment.

“I am deformed. I am disfigured”

I woke up after the surgery and immediately grabbed my breasts, but all I felt was a thick dressing and excruciating pain in my armpits. The doctor said they tried to preserve as much tissue as possible. They didn’t fillet me completely. There’s something left there, but is it still breasts? When they changed my dressings in the hospital, I closed my eyes. I had tears flowing all the time. I was shaking like I was in a fever. “It’s not that bad” – I heard. I hate this sentence. I couldn’t look at myself at home either. A nurse came to me privately to change the bandages and wash the wounds. I washed myself with a washcloth with my eyes closed – just to avoid touching myself, just to avoid touching myself. I couldn’t see it. My partner asked me many times to let him take care of me. I didn’t agree to any touch. I felt like shit. Not like a woman. Like something.

The first time I looked at what was left of me was 6 weeks after the surgery. I was home alone. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. I took off my blouse… I started screaming terribly. Sagging, wrinkled skin and large scars. It quickly turned out that this was not the end. The gel moved beyond the breasts and subsequent surgeries were necessary to remove it. Doctors have removed this specimen from me 6 times. Six surgeries! For weeks I walked around with drains sticking out of my body and watched the crap flowing out of my body through thin tubes. So much pain and suffering.

I hate my body. I don’t have breasts, just lumps of skin. I am deformed. I’m disfigured. I’m a wreck. I’m a cripple. I developed depression. I have family problems. I don’t know how this will turn out. This drug destroyed my life and no one was responsible for it. The doctor who did this to me still practices aesthetic medicine and “beautifies” patients. He never said “I’m sorry” or “I’m very sorry.”

*The name has been changed at the heroine’s request.