In 2011, when I was 23 years old, I got a breast augmentation that left me in chronic pain. My plastic surgeon made a mistake in a rare complication called symmastia.
Hi everyone—that’s right. I’m about to get really raw here and talk about my boob job gone wrong. So get ready to get nice and personal! This is maybe one of the most significant/difficult posts I’ve ever written. Symmastia has caused me enormous physical and emotional pain and has completely consumed my life for the past nine years.
Symmastia is not supposed to happen and is a worst-case scenario. It doesn’t occur very often, and there is very little information on the internet about it. I think part of this is because it’s embarrassing to admit your boobs don’t look normal, because symmastia affects the appearance of your breasts in addition to causing pain. Basically, I’m getting about as vulnerable as it gets here.
For nine years, I have been in nearly nonstop, constant pain. The pain originates in my chest by my sternum, snakes up my right shoulder and neck to the based of my skull, a constant pulling muscle spasm. It has taken over the majority of my time and focus. Trying to heal from it has been the hardest challenge I’ve ever, without question, had to face.
But for the longest time, I had no idea what was causing my pain, or that anything had gone wrong with my breast augmentation.
This is my story—I want to preface all of this that this is solely my experience (everyone is different). I know that plastic surgery is a hot button topic, and everyone has pretty strong opinions/potential judgements about it. That’s fine with me. I’m sharing in the hopes to help anyone else out there who may have symmastia and also be on the hunt for help, since that’s been so hard for me to find. My intent is definitely not to scare anyone considering plastic surgery—in fact, despite my negative experience, I’m still overall in favor of it and wish you the best in your own personal journey, whatever that may be!
What is symmastia?
Well, the best way to explain it is to show you. Thankfully, this super cute sports bra from Lorna Jane has the perfect keyhole cutout to show the symmastia. That’s why I have almost never worn it; I’ve felt too embarrassed to expose what’s wrong with my breasts. (They sadly don’t make this bra anymore, but Lorna Jane has all my favorite sports bras, by far, and they’re very supportive.)
To put it simply, symmastia means “uni-boob.” You might not be able to see it, as my case is actually (blessedly) fairly mild, but my breasts are connected at the top; I don’t have any space between them, or cleavage.
Essentially, my surgeon cut a too-large hole in which to fit a too-large implant (for my chest size). Instead of making the surgery-time call to go with smaller implants than we originally discussed (which is something your surgeon should absolutely be ready to do), he tried to make them fit. As one surgeon I later consulted so elegantly put it: “He really stuffed it in there.”
The surgeon cut so far he lifted my muscle/connective tissue/skin up off of my sternum on the right side. This creates the “uni-boob” effect: there is one large figure-8 size cutout in my chest instead of two separate breast pockets.
Some cases of symmastia are genetic (not caused by plastic surgery). Most are, like mine, an unfortunate mistake.
Symmastia is extremely painful.
Or at least, my personal situation is. Because my right Pectoralis Major muscle is not fully attached to the bone of my sternum, I cannot move my arm or shoulder correctly.
And since I’m a full-time yoga teacher and super active, my body compensates by taking the work into my Trapezius muscle and up into my neck, causing constant headaches and neck muscle seizures. Stretching my chest causes a raw burning sensation near my sternum where the muscle should be attached and isn’t.
I can’t even take a full breath without pain.
Even as I type this, I’m in my normal level 6 state of pain.
My pain tends to fluctuate from 5-8, which is pretty severe. Working at my computer is one the hardest tasks, because unless I hold perfect posture, the rounding forward puts additional strain on the injury and makes the pain worse. (That’s why I’m obsessed with tools like this posture corrector and my standing desk.)
I have to take frequent breaks throughout the day to stretch out the surrounding muscles that tense up in response to the injury in my chest—primarily my neck.
Every day, it’s like Groundhog Day, and I start from scratch. My body tenses up as I sleep, and if I managed to work my body into a state of relaxation the night before, it rarely sticks. The muscles around my Thorasic spine tighten up so much they even pull out my ribs.
I never talk about this with my friends/coworkers/clients, which I probably should have more. But it’s been nine years, guys—I can’t be bringing it up every time I see you! Plus, my rationale is this: the thoughts we focus on grow—so I choose every day NOT to give energy to the crippling pain I feel by not thinking about it any more than I have to. (Because trust me, I think about it all the time.)
So, for better or worse, I’ve been just doing my best to live with this. My pain has gotten SO much better as I’ve worked to heal my body, but it’s still there.
I didn’t know until this year that all this pain was because of something wrong with my breast implants.
My first surgeon never told me that anything had gone wrong with my procedure.
I had an incredibly painful and difficult recovery, and I made multiple follow-up appointments with the surgeon. He reassured me that breast augmentations are just ridiculously painful and that it would get better in time. And prescribed me more pain killers to cope. I couldn’t even lift my arms for six weeks.
Aesthetically, my case of symmastia is not that bad, so while I wasn’t fully happy with my new boobs’ appearance, there’s not something obviously wrong-looking with them, either. At least not to the point where I felt concerned. Those who have seen them in person have said they look perfectly natural, not even fake. So I didn’t suspect anything was wrong.
Most cases of symmastia are much worse than mine. Some are victim to a full, longer opening all the way down the breasts, connecting the two implants completely. I can only imagine what that must feel like—and I am so sorry if that has happened to you.
I always had enough ego to think “that would never happen to me” when it came to plastic surgery horror stories.
But here I am. The Universe had other plans.
The real pain began when my neck completely seized in 2013.
I’ve had pain and discomfort since my surgery, but I was able to ignore it until a couple years after, when I woke up one morning with my neck completely seized up. I couldn’t move my head. At all.
Panicked, I went to the E.R. I was given pain killers and muscle relaxants and was told to follow up with my primary doctor, which I did. She prescribed more of the same pain killers and muscle relaxants and told me to give it time.
Side note: this whole symmastia saga launched my journey into learning everything I can about wellness. Back in these days, I was NOT connected to my body, at all. You can read more about my story here.
Since that initial spasm, I have been steadily going to doctors, physical therapy, pain specialists, you name it over all these years. I’d say I averaged a doctor apt every 2 weeks, not counting the 2 days a week of physical therapy I’ve been doing all these years as well.
Over all this time, NO ONE connected the dots between my breast augmentation and the pain and chronic muscle tension going down the right side of my body.
I brought it up with nearly every doctor. All of them told me, over and over again: “They’re not related.”
But I knew, intuitively, that they was wrong. It was beyond frustrating.
Like I said, symmastia is very rare, and most of these physicians didn’t know anything about it. So instead, they dismissed it.
Our Western medical system has many, many problems, and one of them is that our physicians are not trained to view the body as a whole. They learn all about one specific part of the body, or whatever their specialty field is, but they have no idea how it connects with the rest of the body. So we view our bodies in pieces like a puzzle, instead of the connected, singular unit it is!
I even had one doctor ask me if yoga would help him with his flexibility. (Answer: of course) I was horrified. Shouldn’t doctors know this, to be able to properly guide their patients towards healing?
I had to do all the work playing Lead Detective on the Case of Amy’s Pain.
Through all of this, I had no one to turn to for answers. I felt desperate for help. There were many hopeless nights, and it put a huge strain on my marriage. I spent thousands of dollars on specialists who said they could heal me. Of course, they couldn’t, because they couldn’t stitch my muscle back in place. But I didn’t know that then.
I tried everything to heal myself: massage, chiropractors, cryotherapy, energy healers, you name it. Nothing worked, and eventually I stopped trying what didn’t help. The few tools that have legitimately helped me, my pain, and my muscle tension are what I share here on the blog. (Oh acupressure mat, how I love thee)
I was frequently dismissed by doctors as exaggerating my pain or told that all my symptoms were because I was “too stressed/high anxiety” and that I just needed to relax. And I WAS stressed—because chronic level 7 pain will do that to you. I did listen to them though and tried everything I could to relax, ultimately finding my way to meditation. It was something I desperately needed, but it did not remove the pain.
Following my intuition, I finally went to see a plastic surgeon to ask yet another opinion if my breast augmentation might be the cause of my pain. He took one look at my boobs and the first words out of his mouth were:
“Was your surgeon brand new?”
He was not, but thank you for that burst of confidence, good sir!
The blunt doctor told me that I had symmastia. This was in early 2019. I had never even heard the term before. This was the first time someone identified something wrong with my breasts. So I kept digging.
And I turned to myself for the answers.
The more I meditated, stretched, and did my own body work, the more I became certain that the symmastia is the cause.
During my daily meditation sessions, I would focus my entire attention on tracing the pain to its root point. I would scan my body from head down my neck, to my shoulder, down my sternum and snaking across my ribs. As I relax all the surrounding tissues in my body (something that took me years of study and yoga to master), one pain point remains: where I have symmastia.
Like I mentioned at the start of this post—there’s not much information out there online about symmastia. The few medical sources I found only have vague mentions of “can cause pain and discomfort.” Helpful.
Because it’s so rare, most plastic surgeons are not familiar with this condition. But I found a few who ARE experts in symmastia reconstruction. Three, to be exact, in Southern California (one each in San Diego, Newport Beach, and Los Angeles). I drove up and down the coast to meet with all of them to present my case. They all agreed the symmastia needed to be repaired and explained how it was, indeed, connected to my neck issues.
For the first time in almost a decade, I felt seen.
So now, on February 5, 2020, I will have Symmastia Reconstructive surgery. I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I have chosen Dr. Daniel Barrett as my surgeon for my symmastia repair—his methods aligned with what I was hoping for my repair and I feel completely at peace. I feel hope for the first time in so long.
The road to recovery will really just begin with my surgery though—the real work will come after. It’s an intense recovery, because I cannot move my arms for about 6 weeks. Very little movement, in general, which is what every fitness instructor dreams of hearing! (sarcasm, sarcasm)
It will be yet another great lesson in surrendering: this time, embracing stillness.
My surgeon will go into my breast cavity and reattach the muscle with stitches. Those have to stay put to give my body the chance to reconnect and regrow, which is why I have to avoid re-tearing the sutures. The reconstruction is not guaranteed to work and is risky, but I know my body will do its thing and reattach. I had an ultrasound recently, and my chest muscle has slightly atrophied on the right side. This means it’s dead and limp from not being used for so long—so I will very, very delicately have to strengthen my entire body back into alignment after those first two months. It’ll be about a year before I’ll be feeling whole.
Did I mention the surgery costs $20,000? The fun never ends!
This is a huge financial burden for me, especially since I am currently going through a divorce and won’t be able to really work during my recovery. My insurance doesn’t cover any part of the repair (since it was voluntary cosmetic surgery), and I will have to take out a loan to pay for it.
But you can’t put a price on your body’s health, and I’m READY. I am so ready to be on the path to recovery. I am currently not able to work or focus as much as I need to, it’s ruining my quality of life, and I have to take care of myself in order to RISE.
This is controversial, but I’ve chosen to keep implants.
I’ll get new ones, of course, but I’ve chosen to continue having them. To be honest, I love having breast implants. I wanted boobs my whole life, but grew up, ahem, pretty flat. They make me feel proportioned and sexy. That’s not to say I wouldn’t be fabulous AF without them, too—I’d be confident with or without them. I completely love and accept my body, whatever shape it takes. But I enjoy having more defined breasts.
They just need to be much smaller, and they need some separation.
It’s hard to write all this, because I’m SO holistic and careful about treating my body as healthfully as possible. I sat on all of this without telling anyone for months, because I didn’t want other people’s opinions to influence what I decided to do. I heavily considering getting an Explant, and talked about it with my surgeon.
Yes, the implants themselves don’t feel exactly like…me…but they also don’t hurt or bother me, either. It’s hard to explain. I’m am empath and hyper-sensitive, so I am aware of them, but not in a bad way. It kind of feels like you’re always wearing an accessory, like glasses. The implants aren’t part of me, but I don’t mind. Not to get TMI, but they’ve actually increased my sensitivity, in a great way. If you know what I mean. But I don’t have breast implant illness and feel confident that I can rehabilitate my body back to health even with them.
I felt some internal shame at first for wanting to continue having implants. But I have to love myself and stay confident that my decision is what’s right for me. I know I’ll eventually take them out altogether someday, in maybe 20 or 30 years, live the final third of my life nice and loose. But I’d like to keep them around for a while for now—just new and improved and intact.
Some details about my upcoming surgery that might be helpful for those looking to have it done, too:
- I have silicone now, and am keeping silicone. In my opinion, they’re much better than saline for feel and safety.
- My implants were under-the-muscle (making the symmastia extra bad), and will stay that way. Also recommend this option over going above-the-muscle for feel and appearance.
- My surgeon is NOT using Strattice, which came up frequently in my symmastia research. It’s commonly used to help support the suture area in symmastia reconstruction. Strattice is “sterile biological mesh” made from pig tissue (I am so relieved I will not be having this in my body). My surgeon and the other I most trusted both agreed that your body does not need another foreign object to have to heal around, and that it’s largely an expensive and unnecessary way to drive up the surgery prices. Thank you, next.
- For the recovery, I will have to wear a Thongbra, which is a funky S&M-looking harness that will go over my breasts and keep the center tissue pinned down to my bone as I heal. Very much looking forward to only wearing baggy t-shirts, sweats, and a Thongbra for 6 weeks.
- Anything else you want to know? Just ask!
I used to feel overcome with anger and regret. Now? I just have optimism and hope.
Friends ask me this a lot, and no—I don’t have any ill feelings towards my first surgeon. We are humans that make mistakes, and what happened to me happened. It doesn’t help me to heal by holding on to that anger.
As the Buddha said:
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
And Buddha tends to know what’s up.
My original surgeon was a friend and colleague of my father, who is also a plastic surgeon. I have not reached out to him, and I don’t see the energetic point. My body can’t take any more depletion: I only want to focus on positivity from here on out. I know he did his best, accidents and complications happen, and I truly wish him well.
Right now I’m in a very peaceful state, to the point that I’m a little surprised by myself. I am fully confident that my upcoming surgery will be the beginning of the end of a nearly decade-long challenge for me.
It’s taken a lot from me. But it’s given a lot to me, too.
This journey led me to my obsession with fitness and wellness. It gave me my current career teaching yoga and meditation and writing this blog. I’d always been drawn to the wellness field, but looking for answers to my symmastia took my obsession to a whole other level. In the process, I found my life’s passion and calling.
I don’t think without this symmastia that I would have had the courage to leave behind the stable, lucrative career I was building in television writing back in 2013. I never would have developed the internal knowledge of my body that I have now, or learned to slow down.
Until I was forced to.
And for that, I’m really grateful for having gone through this whole experience of having symmastia. I obviously wish it didn’t happen, but I embraced the pain and used it to transform my relationship with myself. When I became so focused on wanting to heal, I began loving and nurturing myself in a way I never had before. Now I only aim to do what is absolutely best for me, my body, my energy, and my happiness. I learned to master my mind and my responses to painful situations. And now I get to share what I’ve learned with all of you.
It will be a while still before I am fully past the year of recovery that lies ahead for me. But now I can finally start to dream of a life without pain again. My future is looking bright.
I’m so excited to finally, finally, have hope again.
To anyone else out there suffering from symmastia: I hope this message of hope reaches you. You are not alone. This condition is fixable and you can have your body back. You don’t have to suffer.
I’m asking all of you to send me your prayers and good vibes as I head into my surgery in just a couple months. Please believe with me that this surgery will go smoothly and lead me to a new life:
One that’s pain-free.
» Song Vibes «
UPDATE: Want to know how it went? I wrote all about my symmastia repair experience here!
Do you have symmastia? What has it been like for you? Please share your experience in the Comments below so we can all help each other.
xo,
Amy
Photos by Matthew Hanley, on my last trip to Oahu