"I emitted a metallic, acidic, stink": Model reveals how her breast implants ruined her life
An Australian model has revealed that her breast implants ruined her life, causing her body to emit a foul odour and severely damaging her vision.
Karissa Pukas, 27, believes that it was the breast augmentation surgery she underwent in 2014 that gave rise to a host of severe ailments that left her body shattered and debilitated.
In a YouTube video uploaded to her channel, Pukas explains: “I’ve had on and off blurry vision and I feel like I’m an old woman. I have hip pain, back pain and digestive issues. I don’t understand why I feel so old and debilitated at 26 years old,” she said.
“All of these things made me feel like I was living in a 90-year-old’s body,” she said.
“Over and over I was being told by professionals that I’m doing the right thing and my tests were coming back normal, but I was still sick.”
“I started to develop a really nasty body odor and I’m not talking BO, I’m talking a metallic, acidic, stink and I couldn’t understand why,” she said.
“It was predominantly coming out of my left side and I would full-blown go into the shower, scrub myself until I was almost raw and spray on deodorant.
“I started getting really bad night sweats as well, to the point where I would be soaking the bed.
“I would get up in the middle of the night and put a towel down over the top of the bed to just go back to sleep because I was soaking wet and shivering.
“I was having things like sternum pain, adrenal fatigue, brain fog, my pee started smelling weird, I was having vertigo, I was having hair loss and I started having adult acne,” she said.
“I was dealing with things like my gut health and having chronic diarrhea every single day, having joint pain and it being so unexplained.”
In 2018 Pukas took the decision to remove her implants
“I didn’t think that I would ever be taking my implants out, I never considered it. But the more research I’ve done and the more people that I’ve spoken to about this, all signs are pointing to me getting them out so that is what I’m doing,” she said.
“I hope by sharing my journey with you it causes you to at least think about the implications of what you’re doing because when I was 22 I didn’t ever expect to be doing this.”
While the WHO and FDA don't consider Breast Implant Illness (BIL) to be an actual illness then have registered "cause for concern" regarding something called breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL).
According to Healthline: "It does appear that textured implants are associated with more cases of BIA-ALCL than smooth implants. Scientists say this could be due to the fact that textured implants have a greater surface area on which bacteria can form. These bacteria can cause a low-grade infection that could trigger an immune response that ultimately, in very rare cases, results in BIA-ALCL."
According to the Association of Breast Surgery the first case of BIA-ALCL was reported in 1997 and was discovered in association with a saline filled breast implant.
"Data regarding the frequency of occurrence of BIA-ALCL has changed. Previous estimates derived from epidemiological studies estimated the risk at 1 in 300,000 breast implants or an annual incidence of 0.1 to 0.3 per 100,000 women with implants," the report added.