Woman Uses Razor To Remove Her Own Breast Implants

BLOOMFIELD, N.M. - A woman who feared her breast implants were making her ill says she used a razor to remove the silicone gel herself.

Laura Thorpe said she performed the surgery on herself April 10 after her insurance company refused to pay for the procedure.

The operation occurred a day after she visited a plastic surgeon to learn how it was done, she said.

"I just listened and went home and did it myself," Mrs. Thorpe said in an interview in today's Albuquerque Journal. She said she did it alone because she didn't want to be "a wimp."

The newspaper interviewed the 39-year-old woman in her mobile home near Bloomfield, 130 miles northwest of Albuquerque. The Associated Press was unable to reach her for comment because she doesn't have a telephone.

Her husband, William, a registered nurse, told the newspaper his wife had previously asked him to help her remove the implants. He said he told her, "We'll get someone to do it," but she replied that they didn't have the money.

Mrs. Thorpe - whose husband added that she once tried unsuccessfully to remove a wisdom tooth with pliers - said she waited until her husband and three children had gone to bed before making an incision with a scalpel she fashioned from a disposable razor.

She said she took Valium to help control her shaking. The day before, she visited a plastic surgeon in Albuquerque to discuss a possible operation, she said.

"The pain was like fire" when she cut herself, she said, and she nearly passed out. She went to bed for awhile, then got up and attempted to remove the other implant, she said.

Mrs. Thorpe said she squeezed the silicone gel from the first implant, but was unable to get the plastic bag that had held the gel. The next day, she said, a doctor removed the plastic bags at his office.

The newspaper said the doctor was out of town and unavailable for comment.

Silicone-gel breast implants have come under scrutiny since questions were raised about possible links to autoimmune disorders and cancer. Yesterday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sharply restricted their use. An estimated 1 million U.S. women have implants, mostly for cosmetic purposes.

Mrs. Thorpe said she had her implants done by a plastic surgeon in Tampa, Fla., after a double mastectomy in 1986. "I had precancerous lesions throughout both breasts," she said.

She said she noticed problems almost immediately after the mastectomy and eventually came to believe she was developing symptoms of multiple sclerosis, a degenerative nerve disease.

Mrs. Thorpe has not been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the Journal said, though a 1988 Florida hospital record she made available to the paper refers to her "silicone-related autoimmune disease."

The Florida records also describe systematic lupus erythematosus, a disease that causes inflammation of lung and heart tissues, skin rashes and nerve disorders. Last month a physician described research that found an unusually high rate of lupus among 50 women with breast implants.

Mrs. Thorpe was admitted to San Juan Regional Medical Center in nearby Farmington, N.M., last month for gangrenous infections of her fingers and was hospitalized six weeks. She said she believes the implants caused the hand infections.

"It wasn't easy," she said, "and it hurt like heck, but I figured it would hurt my kids worse if I died from gangrene."