Body image coach reveals how implants led to years of hell

Within weeks of getting breast implants, Dr Kirsty Seward began to feel tired and lethargic. It was the beginning of six years of pain.

Six years ago, a dietitian and body image coach became one of the 20,000 Australian women each year to get breast implants.

Within weeks Dr Kirsty Seward began to feel differently, with the active young woman constantly tired and lethargic.

Dr Seward, who has a PhD in behavioural science, felt symptoms of chronic fatigue, resulting in her dropping from six workouts a week to two or three, napping through the day, brain fog so bad she couldn’t write an email some days and fluid retention.

The health problems hit a peak for her at the start of 2020.

The University of Newcastle lecturer had just returned from Cambodia where she taught for a month and reconnected with a friend who had just had her breast implants removed (also known as a breast explant) after experiencing breast implant illness symptoms.

Pictured 10 months after the surgery. Picture: Dr Kirsty Seward

“She was telling me her symptoms and I was like, surely that is not me,” Dr Seward told news.com.au.

“I thought I was just overworking and committing to too much. But, as I began working with a naturopath when my period disappeared, I had to consider it was potentially true for me.”

Dr Seward said after some research she went to her GP, but was worried as breast implant illness is not a recognised disorder in Australia.

Thankfully, her doctor was open to listening and exploring several avenues in regards to the 31-year-old’s health.

Dr Kirsty Seward got breast implants when she was 25. Picture: Dr Kirsty Seward

Dr Seward was hesitant at first to have an explant. She had opted for implants in the first place due to body image concerns and she hadn’t properly explored that issue with herself in the intervening years.

But a 3am wakeup made her realise that an explant was her only option.

“I got to the point where I said even if I get them out and it doesn’t fix it, at least that’s 50 chemicals out of my body that could be causing this,” she said.

“So my GP wrote me a referral and was actually really on board, which I know is very rare.”

Dr Seward visited a few surgeons for consults and after her first appointment, she cried at the realisation of how complex the procedure was and the outcome.

“I was able to book surgery within the month of seeing my surgeon,” Dr Seward said.

“But I actually ended up cancelling it. It was meant to be in the December but I just didn’t feel ready. So I booked it in for January the next year.”

She immediately felt better after the surgery to remove the implants. Picture: Dr Kirsty Seward

During that time Dr Seward began to ask herself the hard questions.

“When I was getting the implants, it was definitely because I didn’t feel worthy or good enough in my body.

“But looking back now I realise I never needed them.

“But there was a lot of unravelling and big questions such as, ‘Why did I need that? Why did I feel like I need implants to feel more worthy or to look a certain way? What was the deeper story that’s going on there?’

“It was a lot of unravelling that trauma as well as a healing the relationship I had with myself.”

When the day of Dr Seward’s surgery came, she cried as her friend took her to hospital and she had to walk in alone due to Covid restrictions.

She said the experience was overwhelming but she had an incredible support system from friends.

Dr Seward said she cried on the day of her surgery. Picture: Dr Kirsty Seward

After waking up from the explant, Dr Seward said there were no words for how she felt.

“I felt lighter. I felt like I could breathe deeper than [I had taken] a breath in years,” she said.

“My skin was really plump. I just felt like me again, which is really hard to put into words.”

She said she spent a few nights in hospital and had drains in for 10 days after the procedure. But within six weeks, she was back to exercising.

The most confronting moment for her was the day following her surgery, where she looked at herself topless for the first time, and she broke down in tears.

“I just had this new love to my body and a new connection to myself,” Dr Seward said.

“I thought about how I had to now give my body the best foundation for it to just thrive and support me, because I felt like it had been fighting for so long.

“Now I could give it back what it has given me.”

It’s been 18 months since Dr Seward’s explant and she said over that time she has done a lot of healing with her body and feels a lot stronger.

For years she began to feel unwell, with the peak of her symptoms in 2020. Picture: Dr Kirsty Seward

She has also coached other women through the process of getting an explant, and urges those who have implants to not be naive about breast implant illness as so many symptoms mimic general lifestyle stress and it isn’t an official diagnosis.

Dr Seward encourages people to do what is best for them, but urges them to feel forgiveness towards themselves.

“Just from my own experience, and then supporting other women through this as well, is the forgiveness of your decision [to get implants],” Dr Seward said.

“I was unaware of breast implant illness when I was getting implants and for any woman who may feel unwell with breast implant illness, or is getting them out and going through this process, I urge them to be really compassionate and grant themselves forgiveness for the decision they made.

“I think that there is a bit of stigma around, ‘Well I put them in so what did I expect?’”

Currently, breast implants have not been concretely linked to these symptoms.

However several studies are investigating the impact implants have on the body, according to the Australian Journal of General Practice.