Implant Brands

hotknockers wrote:I'd be wary of feeling implants at consultations as the "inferior implant" could be filled less than 100% full as a ploy to get sales.

Cookie - I'm of similar thinking, even on the transform website the lifetime manufacturers guarantee with the natrelles has the caveat that it is the lifetime of the implant (10 years) not the patients lifetime that is guaranteed. I am leaning towards going with CUIs and keeping the extra cash in my stash for future surgery if needed! However as you quite rightly suggest it is entire an individual choice and if the premium implants give you peace of mind then why not!
xx

Silicone implants, unlike saline come prefilled, therefore the surgeons/clinics can't fill them. Besides, some clinics, like Transform, barely mention Natrelles, and prefer the CUIs since they tend to order these in bulk, works out cheaper for them this way.

Natrelle and Nagor do actually offer a lifetime warantee on the implants, it's the CUI that has the 10 year warantee. Here is the Nagor one, always important to read the fineprint:
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xxx

cookie wrote:

Does muscle distortion mean the jumping effect when the chest muscle flexes

Yes, but this doesn't happen to everyone with unders sweetheart. It mostly affects those who have quite a muscular upper body.

If you have unders replaced with overs, does the muscle ever gain its shape back from all the stretching?

If you needed a re-op to correct muscle distortion the muscle would retain it's original shape.... think of it like an elastic, pulled wide, then released to its original shape. The body is amazing isn't it! xx

This is why I got overs, I'm quite muscular. I couldn't bear seeing or feeling them move with my muscles, or having to avoid certain exercises. On the other hand, my surgeon didn't want me to go big with overs because I had pretty much no upper coverage, there isn't much fat especially on my chest area, so going too big would have increased the risk of seeing ripples and implant outline. I didn't want to go bigger anyhow, so it works out in my case. Shame you can't get the pluses of both placements, unfortunately with the pluses come the minuses

From the information I've found the Allergan 5th generation soft touch are FDA approved

The Allergan Breast Implants: The
(McGhan) Allergan Natrelle style TSM soft-touch, TSF soft-touch, 410
soft-touch and the dual gel style 510 breast implants are very
specialised round and tear drop shape Generation 5 high cohesive gel
products. These implants go beyond any CE certification- they are FDA
approved. This advanced implant range includes the very popular moderate
round profile Allergan Natrelle textured implants which produce some
of the most natural and aesthetic beautifully results possible, when
used by the right surgeon. Mr Turton finds he can produce a superior
result with these products with the special techniques he uses and with
appropriate selection; Mr Turton will talk you through the selection
process. Mr Turton has a very extensive experience with breast implants.

The Allergan breast implant range is not
only FDA approved, but also covered by the manufacturer's life-time
warranty. This covers lifetime replacement implants if there is ever a
rupture. As a comparison, the PIP implants were reported in the French
vigilance study to have a rupture rate as high as 10% at one-year. By
contrast, the FDA-approved Allergan implants had a rupture rate of just
10% at 10 years in the FDA study. Please read the warranty details- a
PDF copy of their warranty is available here.
A schematic that highlights the Allergan breast implant product and the
special barrier layer in the Allergan implant shell is also shown here.

Quote from HERE

And just to add here Allergans saftey statement I read some time ago, stating the saftey of ALL their breast implants HERE

This is recent, they weren't approved yet when I was doing my research before my op, so not long ago at all. It was just a matter of time, and the time has come

This is the USA Natrelle catalogue:

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As opposed to the one for outside the USA:

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The US one does not offer different gel options (eg Responsive and Soft Touch for rounds), they only come in one gel. Also, the 410, which is filled with high cohesive (form stable/gummy) gel is still an 'investigational device' as quoted in the US catalog, it is still undergoing the trials, and not available to everyone yet. I also went on the FDA site, the only approval recently is Sientra, no new Allergan approval in a few years. Having said this, I think it's just a matter of time until their form stable gel is approved, and if I'd gotten Allergan implants I'd still have chosen Natrelle Soft Touch.

I don't mean to be a pain, but there's a lot of misinformation floating about. A lot of clinics and surgeons take advantage of Allergan's FDA approval, and by carefully wording what they write/say, make it sound like all their implants are approved.

You're not being a pain at all Roxanne, actually I enjoy the research and love learning more from other members.

I found that Inamed were given 'post-approval' HERE from the FDA, which was updated in 2006. However the 'post approval' does mean that although approved by the FDA they must continue to conduct testing on these implants.

e.g The McGhan style 120 is more commonly known as Allergan (McGhan is owned by Allergan) Soft TouchTM. xx

Hi hezzz, I had a consultation with Alexandras about march last year, from what I can remember they didnt offer any kind of aftercare, only a few post op appointments after your ba. One of the nurses just said there's no telling how long an implant would last, but if there were no problems at all, you could easily have the implants in for 20 years, who knows and just leave them in!! They were actually the cheapest out of all the consultations I had, but there was no aftercare package so I didnt chose them in the end. Dont know if this is what they still do, or offer now so it would be good to see what they tell you when you go xx :smiler:

Thanks for all the info on implants! I've looked up a lot of the points mentioned, its been very helpful xxx

Thanks for telling me that chellemybelle, the clinic I have booked the consultaion through is RightChoice and they use Alexandra hospital for the midlands area, and other hospitals in other area's. They offer lifetime aftercare, and I have read through and bookmarked the T&C's of the aftercare (it's on the website) but I haven't compared them yet to the T&C's of the lifetime aftercare packages that other companies offer.

The consultation is booked with Mr Amedeo Usai. I was thinking I might have to ask to see another surgeon anyway because I read on another forum that Mr Usai will only perform BA with overs (or was it unders? Can't remember now lol) so obviously that set alarm bells ringing, but I was going to go and see what he said. And if he only offers one placement, I would ask to see a different surgeon.

They also offered me consultations and surgery in Manchester too, with Mr Paterson, so I could easily change hospital/surgeon if I wanted to. But RightChoice is only one of 5 clinics that I plan on getting consultations with and I won't go with them just based on price xxxx

Hi Hezzz, I too had my consultation with Mr Usai, he dosent say very much, and I had one of the nurses in with me during the consultation, and she did most of the talking!! I too asked about placement, and she said they dont need to be placed under the muscle (how can they say that when not everybodys body's the same?!) so from what I can remember the surgeons there only do over placement. That also put me off, as at the time I had my heart set on unders as I have no upper pole or breast tissue, so had other consultations elsewhere. I would still go and see them at Alexandras, as the consultation is free, and you can see what they say xx

I was cleaning out previously bookmarked pages that I no longer need and found this:

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Keep in mind this is an American site, and at the time form stable (gummy) silicone was under FDA trial studies, therefore not officially approved, but in use by surgeons taking part of the study. You'll notice that there is a tendancy to use the more form stable gel (gummy) in shaped/anatomical implants, unlike Europe which uses these both for round and shaped.

However gumminess comes in grades, for example with Natrelle the most form stable/gummy you can get for the round implant is Soft Touch gel (grade 2 cohesive). The anatomical style 410 is availble in the Soft Touch grade 2 and also in the grade 3 Cohesive. Anatomical style 510 is available in grade 3 & 4 Firm Cohesive. The anatomicals tend to have firmer gummy options because they need to hold their shape better. This is why you can't get the anatomicals in the non-gummy (grade 1 cohesive) Responsive gel which is only availble in the round implant. This is based on the non-US catalogue where all of these options have been available for quite some time to everyone without the need of taking part in the trial studies like in the US: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Since this was written, Silimed (Sientra) have gotten their FDA approval. These are gummy and are available in both round and anatomical. Women in the US can now choose gummy implants without being part of the trial studies, and can even choose round now like has been commonly available in Europe.