Breast implant illness: Women living with chronic pain, fatigue and brain fog post implants are finding their tribe online

More than 100 symptoms have been associated with Breast Implant Illness, an informal diagnosis becoming more widely known as patients share their stories

Alison Fallon from Trim, Co Meath, says she developed symptoms after getting breast implants in 2005. Photo: Frank McGrath

Kate Demolder

Seven years after Elaine Fields Anthonsen got breast implants in Kildare in 2006, she received a letter. It said that her PIP implants (Poly Implant Prothèse; a French company founded in 1991 that produced silicone gel breast implants) had been recalled. “Anyone who received them at any stage was told to take them out,” she says. “I was told to replace them with these new Allergan ones that were textured and FDA-approved. I remember them saying at the time that these were the Rolls Royce of breast implants.”

A few months later, Fields Anthonsen began feeling unwell. “It started with an itch, and then this mad anxiety, and then my vision started to go. And, listen, I was active and ran often, but I just had no energy and was able for nothing.