Implant Infection

This is just a FYI post for anyone wondering about infections.

I had an implant exchanged and capsulotomies on both sides mid February.

A few weeks ago (late March), on a Wednesday night, I noticed two bright red, swollen spots along my scar line.

They were each maybe an inch around, and they looked like big, angry zits. One of the was kind of infected looking. I was also spitting sutures at those spots, no fever.

I contacted the PS on Thurs AM, and sent pics and they said "spitting stitches, don't worry".

On Friday, I let them know that some seroma came out of one bump, and some pus from the other, no fever. The bumps looked a little less red. PS was not worried.

On Saturday evening, I called the emergency line with a fever of 102.9. They would normally have brought me in, but with COVID19, they called in antibiotics to my pharmacy. We found a 24/7 pharmacy with a drive through. In retrospect, my breast was turning red and we didn't notice. It only showed up in some of the pictures we took for the doc.

Sunday AM my fever was 103.9. They'd told me it might go up and to wait 48 hours. Luckily my friend told me to try a hot compress. I did, and lots of seroma came out. My breast was bright red. I called the emergency line again, and my personal PS called me back. He said to come in to have my implant removed.

I ended up spending the night on the COVID-19 floor since I had some of the symptoms. The next day, my results came back clear, and they removed the implant. I spent a total of 5 days in the hospital.

What I learned is that having seroma come out is not good. Also, make sure you take pics of both breasts for color comparisons.

If I had it to do over, I should have insisted in a phone call to discuss it on Friday. If it had been caught earlier, they may have been able to save my implant or immediately replace it. Instead, I'm stuck starting over with a Tissue Expander in a few months.